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Short Story Anthology Progress

Wednesday, 21 September 2011

Been kinda quiet round here of late. Does anyone else go through periods of finding social networking a bit of a distraction? I'll be blogging and tweeting like a mad thing again soon, I'm sure.

Thought I'd post a quick update on Perfect Circles, my planned short story anthology. As mentioned before, I aim to publish three separate genre-specific volumes : Spell Circles (fantasy), Eccentric Orbits (SF) and Life Cycles (mainstream). Plus, a combined volume called Perfect Circles that has all the stories ("One ring to rule them all, one ring to bind them"?)

One thing that has really come out of all this is how much work is involved in both editing and formatting. All the stories have been published already, so they've been through an editorial process. Even so, I'm finding I'm making changes to just about every story I include. Which I actually quite enjoy but it does consume the hours.

Right now I'm formatting for the Kindle and that's real time-consuming too. The Kindle basically wants everything in HTML and in the past I've just saved my Word documents as HTML and used that. Not this time. The HTML Word saves is just too ugly and bloated, and can give the Kindle all sorts of formatting hiccups. So I'm basically reducing everything down to raw text, then building it back up as HTML. Again, time consuming, but it gives me complete control. If anyone's interested, I might write a post detailing exactly how I'm going about all this. I keep thinking I really should write a program to automate the whole process ...

The fantasy volume will be done first. I have about 20 stories lined up for it, of which about half are now formatted. It would be real good to get this out this year but we shall see.

Artwork, artwork. Must sort out artwork ...

Posted by Simon Kewin at 14:22

16 comments:

  1. Summer Ross21 September 2011 at 14:38

    You sound very busy.
    I do find social networking distracting when there are so many other things I need to do. Best of luck to you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Simon Kewin21 September 2011 at 14:43

    Thanks, Summer. One of the reasons I always fall back in love with blogging etc. is the encouragement you get from others ...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Old Kitty21 September 2011 at 16:10

    Yay for your Circle Anthologies!!! Oh I think all the hard work you're doing will be worth it to get a super duper book of your fab stories out there and maybe in print too. Hint! LOL!

    Blogging a distraction? Jamais!

    Take care
    x

    ReplyDelete
  4. Simon Kewin21 September 2011 at 17:38

    Old Kitty!

    I'll aim for super duper, I really will!

    Print - yes, definitely. Not sure via whom just yet, but definitely!

    Take care.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Michael Offutt, Phantom Reader21 September 2011 at 18:05

    Eep...that sounds rough.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Simon Kewin21 September 2011 at 18:45

    Michael : It's fun really!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Joe Romel21 September 2011 at 19:13

    I can't wait for the books to come out! And great titles, by the way.

    I do find blogging/forum-browsing a distraction at times. Sometimes it's all too much and I just shut it down for a week or so.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Simon Kewin21 September 2011 at 19:17

    Joe,

    Thanks for that. And I'm glad it's not just me that feels the need to unplug from time to time. I honestly don't know how some people maintain their level of online activity!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Madeline Mora-Summonte21 September 2011 at 19:47

    Social networking can start to feel draining at times. When that happens, I cut back a bit, maybe stop "following" certain blogs or deleting some bookmarks until it feels, I don't know, "lighter" somehow and then I'm rejuvenated by it all again.

    Thanks for sharing all the work that goes into the e-book process. I've been considering doing something similar (just one book, not four!) next year so this is very helpful.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous21 September 2011 at 20:41

    I just don't see how people maintain their levels of social networking. I do it, but it is so low down on my list of priorities. I don't think I will ever be one of those writers with 1000 followers.

    Good luck with the HTML'ing!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Simon Kewin21 September 2011 at 20:57

    Madeline,

    Yep, I'm definitely with you on that. Sometimes we need to remember the writing is the main thing I think. And, yes, I do always come back to it fresh and ready to dive in ...

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  12. Anonymous21 September 2011 at 21:16

    "I'm finding I'm making changes to just about every story I include" -- I do this with every reprint I submit; can't help myself.

    I for one would be VERY interested on a post re: Kindle formatting. One of these days, I plan to follow in your footsteps. For now, I'm content to watch and learn.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Simon Kewin21 September 2011 at 22:22

    Donna,

    Yep, that's pretty much how I feel. I suppose there comes a point - hopefully - where readers start dropping by as well as other writers. I can't really see how you could keep up with 1000 people!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Simon Kewin21 September 2011 at 22:23

    Milo,

    Yep, me too. Always tweaking. Kindle formatting post - right, you're going to get one now!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Golden Eagle21 September 2011 at 23:33

    I didn't know Kindles were formatted with HTML--interesting. I'm in the middle of learning HTML. :P

    Blogging is distraction enough . . . I don't know how people blog and social network!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Simon Kewin22 September 2011 at 06:46

    Golden - It's definitely useful if you can get your hands dirty with HTML when it comes to the Kindle, so that would be invaluable.

    ReplyDelete

I'd love to know what you think.