How To Get Published

[Kellemora]

Topic: How To Get Published

Rather than presenting a 32 thousand page, overly boring Blog Post that will lead you nowhere.

I feel a simple graphical presentation, developed by YA Writer and History Nerd, KATE HART, who writes about unruly girls, good ole boys and witches, will suffice very nicely.

The image, as it appears on the owners photobucket account, is too large for this forum.
So, here is the link directly to

-----The Kate Hart-----
How to get published flowchart

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l50/k ... hart-2.jpg

The following link is to her web site page containing the flowchart.

http://www.katehart.net/2011/03/how-to- ... chart.html


S1-V12-I03

[threenorns]

the mechanics/theory i know - the problem is *where*.

seems everybody i query isn't accepting new submissions or are only accepting from within the states or are not accepting queries from ontario or whatever.

i queried a country magazine only to be told that because dandy is a pet, my story doesn't qualify for their magazine because they don't believe in "animal slavery".

and of course when i do sit down to do up a query, i'm all "uuuuuuuuuuuuh.... hi? my name is silja? from minden? um.... i got a story wot i wrote. ya wannit?"

what about this place: http://www.writersmarket.com/ - would it be of any use?

[Kellemora]

Hi three

It's hard to say, but I sincerely doubt it.

Are most of your stories as short as what glimpses I've seen, or are they generally longer?

Either way, electronic publishing may just be the way to go.

I normally don't offer web site links, and I do not know this web site at all.
I did a search for John Locke and this was the first hit where he had some commentary.
You can perform other searches yourself.

Several of my co-workers are making more money using this venue than they do on the 9 to 5 grind.
Just don't believe all the hype you see on web pages like the one I provided below.
It's still very hard to move up the ranks!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive ... -book.html

TTUL
Gary

[threenorns]

okay, cool - smashwords was a good choice, then, lol.

looks like i'm on the right track (but i do need to work on book covers).

the stuff i write is all over the map for length. some of it is uber-short (2 pages) but some is quite a bit longer.

[Kellemora]

Hi three

Yes, Smashwords, is in my opinion, one of the best choices out there.
Why? Because they cover all or most of the e-reader formats and pdf, etc.
They have excellent distribution, which is continually growing.

I was a little disheartened with some of the venues he allowed there, but I think PayPal put a stop to those questionable venues.

Although they now have a little better engine for converting documents into the various electronic formats, they still require all manuscripts be provided in a proprietary format. Conversion programs that change formats into that proprietary one, has caused many problems in the past, although they seem to have worked out some of those issues.
I do understand why they do this, because most folks think all text files are the same, when in reality, most of them are non-standard proprietary formats. So they chose the most widely used proprietary format over plain text. Programs like Windows Notepad or Word Pad do NOT produce Plain Text, so a lot of folks would be submitting manuscripts under several different text formats called text that couldn't be converted.

When Mark first opened his web site a few years, I thought it was the cat's meow (pardon the antiquated expression), but there was a glitch in either OOw's conversion to doc or his conversion program and the output was always messed up. A problem I never encountered with Amazon. Even if I doubled checked my doc file on a Windows computer using Word2003, it looked A-OK, and I did find that if I use the Save As button and save the file under another name, then his conversion would work OK after that. But that's all water over the dam, as his conversion engine seems to work great now!

Smashwards was an excellent choice, and I hope you are doing well there!

TTUL
Gary

[threenorns]

"proprietary" format? not really - it's as close to plain text as you can get without it being an actual txt file. i don't have to use any special software; i just use openoffice. no tabs, no using spaces for indents, no more than four carriage returns after a paragraph, that kind of thing. it's all in the style journal - i follow the step-by-step and i've never had a problem with the meatgrinder.

[Kellemora]

Hi three

Very glad to hear you use OOw!

I probably should download Mark's Journal, heck, it's free, hi hi.....

Meatgrinder, that was the term I couldn't think of earlier, so just used Engine!

I assume you save your OOw file as a doc file, or does Mark now accept odt files.

There used to be a glitch in doc files from OOw that messed up Marks Meatgrinder, but I understand either OO fixed it, or Mark found a workaround for it.

Have a nice evening!
I'm due to hit the horizontal side!

TTUL
Gary

[threenorns]

i never use odt files - i always save in doc format. it doesn't cause any problems with OO and it saves hassle with other programs that don't play as nice.

[Kellemora]

I haven't experimented with the differences between odt and doc when they are converted.
One of my reasons for staying away from the doc format, was because doc's margins were dependent upon which printer drivers you had installed.
I've had countless word.doc files I've had to adjust, every time we used a different printer.
I used to do those tri-folds you see at tourist traps, so we were always pushing the margin limits while building them.
In the odt format, the margins are controlled by the software with no consideration about which printer will be used.
Images always stayed right were you put them also, not jump all over the place as they did in Word.
And of course my pet peeve, WHY does Word have the page setting, which is a format operation HIDDEN under File Settings?
OOw has page setting under Format where it belongs!!!!!
TTUL
Gary

[kg]

I assume you save your OOw file as a doc file, or does Mark now accept odt files.

There used to be a glitch in doc files from OOw that messed up Marks Meatgrinder, but I understand either OO fixed it, or Mark found a workaround for it.

I've recently been studying the "Style Guide," and the Word doc file is the only format that may be used with Meatgrinder. In the Style Guide (downloadable here in a variety of formats, for free), Mark suggests the use of MS Word itself, but Open/LibreOffice can be used as well, though it's stated that it's a bit of extra work.

I suppose that's because Word is the "most used" WP. Most of the instructions contained in the Style Guide are in reference to Word, with passing special comments on OO. Considering that I use Linux, I guess I'll just have to go through that "extra work."

[Kellemora]

I have Windows XP and Mickey$oft Word 2003 in Virtual Box, and so far, I've never found a difference after OOw converted to .doc format and what msWord does with it.
I've not used Smashwords yet, so don't know how HIS meatgrinder works. But on Amazon, I would simply take my odt file, save it as a .doc file, open it in msWord, SaveAS and rename it.
I've compared them side by side, viewing all the formatting codes and don't see a bit of difference. Other than the Mickey$oft header on their files that OOw does not put there.

If I'm using images in a file, I truly HATE the way msWord handles images!
And how they handle Margins also!
Margins in msWord are based on the Printer you have installed on your computer. If I move an msWord doc to a different computer and different printer, the files ALWAYS mess up, sometime royally.
With OOw I've never had that problem, not even once!
I still prefer OOw over LibreOfficeWriter, even though they are nearly identical.

TTUL
Gary