What's a fair price for a 500-page trade paperback?

[Elok]

Already did, after some thought. I mainly hesitated because my wife is not a particularly big fan of my writing. At least, she wasn't as of my first two wretched attempts at novel-writing. She kept pointing out that the characters were unsympathetic, the writing was aimless, I overused certain words and phrases, the pacing was uneven, etc. Which was when I stopped asking her for her input, because it put me in a bad temper with my wife and our relationship is more important to me than honest feedback.

Of course, my early attempts were wretched, the characters were unsympathetic, the writing was aimless, and she might well like this novel (my seventh attempt, after two thousand pages of what might euphemistically be called "refining my craft," ie churning out progressively better rubbish). But I still didn't ask her to read it.

[Jon Miller]

Or to your kids.

JM

[Elok]

Nah, the wife's getting it. I considered the kids, but it seemed a bit unfair to dedicate something to 'em when the elder won't be able to read it for about a decade.

[Proteus_MST]

And/Or your parents ... at least if they were good parents

[Elok]

Okay, I've undone all the cross-platform glitches, overcome a new set of glitches, and I have one glitch left before this thing is correctly formatted all through and I move on to the next set of headaches: at one point, for reasons I am not clear on, Word has stuck me with a double page break--i.e., two blank pages in a row. I want one blank page only (which is what it displays; I only caught this after it converted to PDF and uploaded to CS). If I try to delete the break, it deletes both pages so there's no break at all, and I go right to the next page. Adding a break again puts me back at two pages. I can get zero blanks or two, but not one. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the convoluted "section" mechanics I had to use to get the page numbering right; it may just not like my turning the next page into an odd number, so it adds two to keep it even. But I really don't know.

Minimal Word experience here, and Googling efforts have disappointed me. Any thoughts or guesses, folks?

[N35t0r]

Do you know the toggle to see non-visible characters? (It looks like that -> ¶)

Turn it on and report what you see.

[Elok]

It says, "Section break (even page)." So, yeah, it looks like I'll have to find some way to fix the page number formatting. I haven't a clue how to do that in Word.

[Elok]

Okay, I looked up how to delete page breaks--and it created an undesired page break somewhere else when I did. And the new problem doesn't even show me any hidden marks. I am inclined to say To Hell With It, retrieve my backup copy of the finished but unformatted MS, redo my OO formatting, and export to PDF directly from that. I had this damn thing perfectly formatted in OpenOffice earlier, and didn't realize I could just go straight from OO to PDF. And didn't save that beautiful copy, sadly. Well, that'll learn me.

Man, I ****ing hate Word.

[kentonio]

Just to be safe, have you got a license to use Palatino Linotype? Or at least checked the license to ensure it's free use?

[Proteus_MST]

Why not use LaTex?

[Elok]

Just to be safe, have you got a license to use Palatino Linotype? Or at least checked the license to ensure it's free use?

AFAICT from a cursory googling--I dug up a discussion on the CreateSpace forums--it's condition-free. But thanks for reminding me, I'd never have thought of that.

Reformatting will go at a more leisurely and planned pace this time. LaTex sounds interesting (I just had to look it up), but I am most definitely not going to learn to use yet another WP program now. I've finally got the hang of doing all the relevant tasks in OpenOffice.

[Ben Kenobi]

Elok, I have experience with reformatting, copyediting for publication, etc - especially between word, OO and with PDF. Let me know if you want a hand.

[Elok]

Honestly, I've acquired a fair amount of expertise there. It's going to be annoying doing it again, but it's worth doing it right; the Word-ified version was a mountain of kludge.

Now, my plans for cover art have fallen through; the lady's just got too much on her plate right now to go making me a masterpiece. So I'm sort of stumped as to what to put on the cover. Familiar spec-fic quandary: cover art does not exist which accurately depicts my work. Hard to describe what would accurately depict my work. Seriously, I have no idea how the hell to summarize this thing. My hazy mental draft of the back-of-the-book blurb goes something like:

Yunise Columabbi is the last living bearer of the Curse of Life; her miraculous healing powers come at the expense of her own health. Her father's subjects call her an angel--but the Curse has cost her nearly everything, and left her isolated. Now, at the age of sixteen, she finds herself caught up in a struggle which will reshape her world. Is there any place for an angel in a world ruled by the devils?

Now, that sounds terrible, melodramatic and stupid to me, but I think that's sort of de rigueur for these things. It's really not the sort of book that lends itself to easy synopsis. Lori, Buncle, how would you sell it?

[Ben Kenobi]

Honestly, I've acquired a fair amount of expertise there. It's going to be annoying doing it again, but it's worth doing it right; the Word-ified version was a mountain of kludge.

Good to hear that!

that sounds terrible, melodramatic and stupid to me, but I think that's sort of de rigueur for these things. It's really not the sort of book that lends itself to easy synopsis. Lori, Buncle, how would you sell it?

Lux et tenebris - a shadow lady with a candle.



Something like this with the face illuminated. You want people to care about the lady in the book, and the image is very stark and compelling.

[Lorizael]

It's really not the sort of book that lends itself to easy synopsis.

I suspect every author feels that way about their books. I think you need to mention something about the world. Your whole setup for the story is a strictly regimented world that is coming undone, where appearances can no longer be kept up.