publishing – Page 7 – Musings of a Generic Asian

Conversing with a Cartographer Part 2

art, Books, branding, publishing, Uncategorized, Writing

This is a continuation of a conversation with Robert Altbauer, a cartographer who lives in Salzburg. He was kind enough to take on a commission to draw two maps for me: a world map and an invisible fortress map. The fortress map is a place where the main character visits at one point in the story. The first part of our conversation is here.

If someone wanted to become a cartographer, what tools would they need? Do you use tablets or certain software? What tips do you give in general?

While traditional materials like a sheet of paper and pencils (and some talent) are a good way to start, I think that a tablet is a necessary tool nowadays. Combined with graphic programs like Photoshop or Illustrator, or GIMP and Inkscape – very good, free alternatives to the both aforementioned programs – tablets provide a powerful possibility to make good maps. They combine the ability to draw with your hand with modern and versatile technology.

Generally, mapping follows – like many other things – the philosophy of learning by doing. The more maps you do the better you get. If I look at the maps I do now and the ones I have made two years ago then I can see the progress I’ve made.

What is your most favorite map (that you didn’t draw)?

Well, that’s a difficult question. I can’t point to a certain map because there are so many excellent and different maps.

What is your most favorite map that you have drawn? (You don’t have to say it’s mine, it’s ok!)

I made a rather huge world map called ‘World of Maargard’, which I think is one of my best.

What is the oddest or funniest map that you have had to draw?

I sometimes make personalized maps which can be quite funny. I use the affections and aversions of a person to draw a map – mountains of chocolate, sea of cocktails, plain of spider, pit of the mother-in-law etc. with appropriate illustrations.

How should people contact you if they want commissions?

The easiest way is to write me an email to contact@fantasy-map.net. It should contain the preferred style (description, link or image attached), the size and the average level of detail – how many labels, is a lot of decoration necessary etc. If there already is a sketch this would be helpful, too. The deadline and usage rights are also important information on which I give then a cost estimate.

I have never been to Salzburg or the Alps. So lastly, tell me a little bit about your country and anything interesting I should do if I can ever afford to visit you?

Austria is in general a nice little country, but often too old-fashioned and too slow to catch up with modern developments.

Salzburg is a very beautiful place, but don’t make the mistake to reduce it to Mozart or Sound of Music. We have a very good cuisine and excellent beers and wines, so you should visit either a restaurant with Austrian food or a Heuriger or Buschenschank – Austrian taverns where you usually get wine and simple but very good dishes.

You have been a great part in bringing my book vision to life and I wish you the best of luck!

Thank you, Jean. Good luck with your book!

Once again, remember to check out these 2 links to his awesome works of art: www.fantasy-map.netand www.sapiento.deviantart.com!

How to apply for a copyright in Canada

art, Money, publishing, Uncategorized, Writing

Recently, I was thinking, if I’m going to blow my money travelling to one con, it would be in San Diego. So I contacted them to ask about getting a small press table. It turns out there is a “jury” that decides on who gets these tables and you have to send in one publication with copyright dates 2013-2014 in order to quality for a 2014 table. So I started looking into how to apply for copyrights in Canada.

Definition of copyright from the Canadian Intellectual Property Office:

“Copyright means the sole right to produce or reproduce a work or a substantial part of it in any form.”

This copyright registration protects your work internationally, so it doesn’t matter which country you file it in. You only do it once and you own the copyright for as long as you live, then 50 years after you die the copyright expires. When you create a piece of work, you automatically own the copyright, but registering offers more protection legally.

1) Go to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office website

You will find information on how to copyright things ranging from a book, poem, painting, musical score, performer’s performance and computer program. There is a guide with basic information available which goes through the terminology and instructions.

Suprisingly, you don’t have to send in a copy of what you are copyrighting or even pictures.

This is why people keep giving me advice that before the book is published, you should print and send a copy of the manuscript to yourself via courier and then not open it. This archived manuscript will be opened in court if anyone tries to say that your work belongs to them and sues you for the copyright.

2) Call them if you have questions

Hours 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday to Friday
Phone 1-866-997-1936

My question: If I want to do a book of concept art with different pieces from my artists, do I have to copyright each piece of art in the book?

Answer: No, you do not have to copyright each piece of art. Once you assemble the compilation and you copyright the whole thing, each piece of art can be used separately and the copyright still belongs to you.

3) Register the copyright…wait, you can’t just register! Turns out you have to go to the Industry Canada website and open a free account there before you can do anything.

I was fretting about this one. As an individual can I really go onto Industry Canada and register an account? I started emailing my entrepreneurial Viking husband who told me to stop emailing him for advice as he was busy. So I took the plunge and went into the system…

And I discovered that yes, anyone can just apply for an Industry Canada account. In fact, they didn’t even ask for a business registration number or anything. In general, the books will be published under my husband’s company. To be honest, I’m too lazy to incorporate myself (registering a business, opening a business account and dreaded tax documentation)…hopefully he won’t divorce me if things go really well with the books and I’ll be ok!

4) OK, let’s register this book!

Back to Canadian Intellectual Property Office website – you click on the “forms” page and “copyright” to access the registration forms, pay fees via credit card. You can do it cheaper online or mail it in via a paper pdf form.

Fees when paid online is $50 Cdn or $65 Cdn via paperwork.

I looked at the US Copyright Office as well and their fee was only $35USD. But everything else such as getting a paper copy of the copyright was super expensive, so I suppose there is a trade off…

Forging ahead, I discovered that you can only copyright something 3 months ahead of time. Or you can copyright something unpublished, but there was no Q & A about what happens if you do publish it.

In the end I took a break here – since San Diego needs to see a copyright number in the book with a date, this is something I can’t provide until Jan 2014 or Feb 2014 at the earliest. The deadline for table registration was Oct 2013.

So I’ll copyright the book next year and try to get a table in the future when I have more books to sell.

The idea of going to San Diego scares me a bit too, considering their attendance is about 130,000 – it’s a lot of free stuff you have to give away for promotion! I worry about people coming up to the booth and then complaining they didn’t get a freebie…sigh…not selling any books would probably be just as embarressing as well.

Making a Family Crest

art, branding, family, publishing, Uncategorized

On a rainy day, this might be something you might want to do for fun. Digital art in a way has replaced scrapbooking/colleague art for me and leaves less of a mess! If you have been watching any historical stuff you may notice that European families tend to have crests. It’s usually on a shield or flag and there tends to be lots of lions involved.

I’ve decided to make a new crest as a logo, so here are the few steps it took to make it:

1) Figure out if you have a graphics art program

There are free ones available with basic to advance levels – Paint.net (free – basic) – Gimp (free – advanced). Many professional artists use Adobe Photoshop, but it’s a very powerful tool and you have to buy it.

I have Paint.net installed and will be using this program.

2) Look for stock art

There are two great sites with FREE stock art – Stock.xchng & Pixabay. There are license agreements for this royalty free art, but if it’s for personal use, it’s generally ok.

I looked for a few images which I knew I wanted: shield, lion with sword and chrysanthemum flower. I couldn’t find the flower on it’s own so I will have to manipulate and cut the flower out for use.

The lion s tands for courage and strength (tribute to Garrard name as the ancestral shield features a lion) while the chrysanthemum flower represents hope/light in darkness.

3) Open Shield graphic & manipulate

Step 1

The idea is to put all the images into the shield. Generally, I want a white logo with “transparency” so my wallpaper on the webpage could show through.

-open up graphic in paint (File tab > open)

-click “magic wand” tool from upper left “Tools” panel and adjust tolerance if needed

step 2

-press a spot on what you want to delete; for me it’s all the white stuff in the shield.

-the wand will highlight everything in blue, then you just press “delete” and a checkerboard pattern will come through meaning image in that location is transparent

4) Add Lion

There is something called “layers” in every graphic program. On the right hand side there is a box which tells you what “layer” you are on. The shield is on one layer and you will be adding more layers for every graphic.

So before opening up the lion graphic, add another layer (Layers tab > add new layer) to the shield. Then open up the lion graphic (File tab > open)and put into new layer you have opened – now you see 2 “layers” on the Layers box to the right.

The lion was a very big graphic so I had to drag the corners and shrink it.

5) Cut out flowers, leaves

The chrysanthemum flower is only a small part of its original graphic. A few steps were necessary to make the flower work for me:

-open up flower (File tab > open) in its new canvas/window and cut out the flowers by highlighting it

-open a new giant canvas (File tab > new), then paste the flowers in it so there is room to play around

-use rotate tool to move flowers around (Layers tab > Flip vertical) (Layers tab > Rotate/Zoom)

-cut out one of the flowers by highlighting it and using cut & paste function to put it on an empty part of the canvas

-cut out one of the leaves and rotate to the desired angle. (Layers tab > Rotate/Zoom)

-the leaf and flower have overlapping lines. So to erase lines, use the eraser from the “Tools” box on the left.

6) Add flowers & leaves to the shield

-add another layer to shield graphic (Layers tab > add new layer)

-go back to flower/leaf window, cut & paste flower/leaf into layer in shield graphic window

-to create mirror image leaves and flowers, I played with the (Image tab > flip horizontal) function

-the shield line in the middle was created by just highlighting the top part of the shield and then cutting & pasting

7) Add “JF Garrard”

-the canvas has to be bigger (Image tab > canvas side) for adding text, so I increased it in width

-initially the added canvaspart is white, so I had to use magic wand from “Tools” in left box to make it transparent

-using “Text” in “Tools” left box, I typed “JF Garrard” using font Goudy Old Style, size 550

8) Save file in black and white

There are places where I’ll use it in black ink and others in white. Important – to keep transparency, it has to be saved as a .gif file. Also, when saving, it will “flatten” all layers, which means everything will be merged into one layer. Keep a paint.net file (.png) in case you ever want to play with this graphic again with its layers.

-default is black, just save to .gif (File tab > save as)

-to make the logo white, we have to invert the colors (Adjustments tab > invert colors)

-of course at this point I realize that the lion graphic isn’t totally transparent, so I use the magic wand tool to “erase” the white spots. After 10 min of painfully doing this (lot of little edges/spots), I discover a flood tool, which does it in 2 seconds. (Tools, Magic Wand, Flood Mode > Global)

-now save white logo to .gif (File tab > save as)

However…

In the end I didn’t use this logo on my website as the shield graphic lines looked too thin after I put it in the header. I’ll use it on my facebook page though, you can see it here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/JF-Garrard/406247922764234

The more you play with the program, the more you will know. Good luck in making some fabulous crests!

Ramping up for self publishing!

Books, Money, publishing, Uncategorized, Writing

I was a shark in my last life, as I can’t sit still on any project…Agents and publishers only take 1% of the pile of stuff they get, so I think I will have to go the self-publishing route as my multicultural vampire book query has received multiple rejection letters. Apparently there are too many vampire books on the market right now.

I was hoping for a happy ending to avoid self-publishing as it is a very expensive endeavor to undertake! You have to do everything from hiring an editor, to doing the marketing, to creating the print book and ebook.

It feels like I’ve stepped into a tornado! I know, I should think about things as I need to cross the bridge…but I’m the type to scope out the bridge ahead of time and consider the different possibilities before I cross the bridge!

(Think I’m also feeling super hyper on this Chinese medicine stuff. Can’t sleep properly because I feel too awake all the time. Will have to tell doctor when I see him next…)

Come rain or shine, The Undead Sorceress: Book 1 of the International House of Vampires will be available May 2014.

The next steps I need to do over an 8 month period I’ve scheduled for myself to make this book happen:

1) Find editors who offer consultation services, ask for quotes from different editors

2) The editor quotes determine how much money I should try to raise from Kickstarter to cover some project costs

3) Running a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds – write and rewrite text for campaign page, shoot and reshoot video to explain the project and why I need the $$, look around other people’s pages/videos and decide what incentives to entice future investors in the project (aka what carrots should I offer?)

4) Learn video software properly to add close captioning, splitting scenes and not to overuse special effects as my first video made my producer friend nauseous

5) Follow up with artists I’ve hired to do artwork for Kickstarter campaign. Have 3 of them on hand, hoping one of them will give me some drawings to buy from them! Got a 4th artist name, will wait a few weeks before I overdo it with asking artists for stuff…they need time to ‘create’

6) Start looking at books on my bookshelf to determine size of paperback I want to make.

7) One editor who wrote back said that I used 2 spaces between sentences instead of 1 – which led me on a route to read about formatting stuff for printing. OMG! Have to destroy all formatting and start over…after editing is done.

8) Found out I shouldn’t think about pretty text for the first letter of each chapter or life will become more difficult. But I want pretty text, so when I reach that point I will have to decide what to do.

9) Decide if I should hire someone to format for print book, Amazon e-book and Smashwords e-books. They all have different formatting rules = pain in the butt.

10) Can’t make the cover for printing until I know how many damn pages the print book is, as this will determine the size of the spine which affects front and back covers. So I have to wait on this one. If it is too complicated to make, will have to hire someone to do it for me.

11) Upload book into print book and e-book formats, look at proofs (print book could take a few weeks to receive in mail) and make sure things look ok. If something goes wrong, start over with formatting.

12) Amazon and Smashwords have different programs you can take part in. For Amazon, to get into publishing catalogues, it’s an extra $25 USD per year and then there is some Kindle borrowing program thing.

13) Then there is the issue of different ISBN numbers. Print and e-books have to have different numbers. I can also apply for my own ISBN for more control or just get a free one from Amazon or Smashwords…decisions, decisions…

14) Look for tax forms. Eventually if I make more than $10 profit I will have to ask Amazon or Smashwords to send me a letter to vouch that I’m not American. Then I have to contact IRS and ask them for a special number to avoid paying US taxes which are automatically taken off all book sales through Amazon and Smashwords.

15) For the book launch, I have been talking to a convention I volunteer at annually in May, so this is my drop dead date to have everything done by then. Hopefully they will let me do a panel on vampires, do a book reading and throw a party there. After confirmation of permission, need to think about banners, what to give away, food to bring, etc.

16) Once Kickstarter campaign and convention confirms things are a green light, start emailing, blogging, posting a link with details to people. This is where you find out how many friends you actually have and if you have to depend on the kindness of strangers to make things happen!

17) Keep blogging, posting when I don’t have a headache!

There is a wedding in between all this in Korea, so a few weeks is a write off as I travel. Or maybe I can do research on stuff for the next book! My end goal is to break even in regards to expenses, although time is net negative! But if this all works out, maybe I can end up with a series that gives me some money to buy a few cups of coffee every year!

Setting up a kickstarter campaign

Books, Money, publishing, Uncategorized, Writing

What is kickstarter? It’s a US site that lets people put up their projects to ask for crowdsourcing funding. Say you need $1000 to publish a book (my situation) – people can chip in $15, 35, 50, or more, in exchange for a copy of the book and other bonuses. Projects can range from books to movies to a product.

I have been thinking about putting together a campaign for the past year, but was thinking of Indiegogo (a similar but less popular site), as up until now, Kickstarter did not allow Canadians to raise funds. The issue was that Kickstarter used Amazon Marketplace payment system which is only open to US residents with a US SIN Card. Now, starting in September 2013, Canadians can use Kickstarter, with funds deposited into their bank accounts directly.

It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Free money! When you look at some campaign pages, people have raised over $200K for some projects, which is amazing! The idea is that people will put their money into projects that they want to see appear in the market.

There is a catch – if you don’t reach the goal you specify (eg. $1000), then you get $0 and the project campaign is considered a failure. You can launch again, but all previous donations will have to be re-pledged by people.

If you have a great idea and want to set up a campaign, it’s pretty easy if you are willing to put in some blood, sweat and tears. Also, you do need a thick skin because if you are asking for money, you have to put your face onto video and sincerely tell people what you are doing with the money and why your project is important.

What you need to do:

1. Think of a project

2. Write about why you are doing it, who you are, what you need money for

3. Make a video asking for help

4. Open a kickstarter account

5. Fill in pages of information and pledge information (if people give you money, what do they get in return?)

6. Send finished campaign pages to kickstarter staff, they have to approve the project before it becomes live

7. If it is a go, think about who you are going to beg for support via email, facebook, etc.

8. Wait a month and hope it works; pray for the kindness of strangers

Each step sounds simple, but in reality it is all fairly time consuming!

Trying to figure out how to make a video with sound, editing graphics, writing the script, etc, took me a few weeks. Writing the pages for the campaign took a few days. I bought a video camera as I wanted better quality videos than webcams or phonecams (I wanted to make sure voice sounds were properly captured). For a professional book cover, I hired a graphic artist company to help me create one. Prior to kickstarter opening to Canada, I was hunting down Americans to see if I could find a silent partner with a SIN number.

Anyhow, I am in the process of putting together for my non-fiction book, “How to Make a Munchkin” and will see if I can launch a campaign in September then! Will be bugging you soon!

Becoming a Narcissistic Black Hole Writer…

publishing, Uncategorized, Writing

Since I’ve started talking to more people about writing, publishing, etc.; I have discovered that many of them give me the impression that they are a bit narcissistic and a black hole who tries to suck you into their universe.

“The only way to write is to do this…”

“You can only find agents if you do this…”

“Who’s the most famous writer you know? I guess it’s me…hahahaha!”

Well, how can you blame them? Writing is such a solidarity activity as you sit at a desk and write without any interaction or dialogue with anyone else. You may discuss your ideas generally with people, but you still have to do all the grunt work and crafting.

There is no worry that I’ll become like this as I have many forces around me keeping this from happening.

When I told my aunt that I was going to write a book, she said that I shouldn’t bother. “You’re not famous and you’re not a celebrity. Who’s going to read your shitty book?” I’ve failed before I even tried to do anything.

For my fiction writing, my husband doesn’t say much, as he claims he isn’t a creative person. But when I tell him about conversations I’ve had with friends and family on a daily basis, he counters with, “I can’t take any more anecdotal stories! Give me data and stats! What you are telling me defies logic!” So any attempt to talk becomes a bantering exercise as he grew up with many debates around the dinner table. He is also monitoring this blog to see what illogical nonsense I’m thinking about and what topics are available to challenge me with. Sometimes I wished I married a stereotypical quiet Asian man instead, but that would be too boring I suppose.

Then there is this whole slew of medical tests for this parasite/munchkin making process. There is nothing more humbling than to enter a little room on a daily basis for two weeks out of every month and having someone tell you to drop your pants/tights. You are not in control at that point and the probing of the unspoken part begins.

My grandmother before she passed told me one day, “Do not think you are the best in anything. There will always be people better than you, but there will always be people worse than you as well. Do not become over confident and think you do not have to continue to work hard.”

I guess I’ll keep on trucking and put my pedal to the metal…or fingers on the keyboard…sigh…