BNG FRIDAY: How Do You Organize an Anthology?

Every Friday until its publication, I'm going to blog something about Brave New Girls: Stories of Girls Who Science and Scheme, a YA sci-fi anthology featuring tech-savvy heroines. The goal is to encourage more girls to explore Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math careers. Revenues from sales of the anthology will be donated to a scholarship fund through the Society of Women Engineers. 

How do you pick the order of stories in an anthology? It's not something I thought about before embarking on the BRAVE NEW GIRLS journey a few years back, with our first tome: Brave New Girls: Tales of Girls and Gadgets. I always took it for granted that the stories were just... in order.

I suppose it doesn't matter that much, since most people don't read anthologies cover-to-cover in order anyway. They skip around to stories of particular interest to them. Still, for that odd person who does read an anthology the same way they would any other book, we wanted the order to make sense.

For the first anthology, Girls and Gadgets, Paige Daniels and I decided to go for "organized randomness." As in, we wanted the stories to feel like they were in a random order. For example, we wouldn't want our two Mars stories to be next to each other, or for a cluster of virtual reality tales to show up. 

For our second, Science and Scheme, we decided to go in the exact opposite direction and organize our stories in sections by subgenre. Just to mix things up.

Looking at the 22 stories we had and knowing we wanted our stories to bookend the collection (last time, Paige's story was first and mine was last; this time, mine opens and hers closes), we settled on four categories: space, earth-based, steampunk, and cyberpunk/robots. Within each section, I found similarities between certain stories and tried to alternate so that, say, our two stories featuring steampunk dragons wouldn't be back-to-back. Below are the results:

SECTION 1: Scintillating Space

 

SECTION 2: Earthly Engineers

  

 

SECTION 3: Steampunk STEM

 

 

SECTION 4: Cyborgs and Cyberworlds

  

 

BRAVE NEW GIRLS: STORIES OF GIRLS WHO SCIENCE & SCHEME will be released on August 1, 2017!

PREORDER ON KINDLE: https://www.amazon.com/Brave-New-Girls-Stories-Science-ebook/dp/B071GGFNTY

ADD IT ON GOODREADS: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34197584-brave-new-girls?ac=1&from_search=true

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VISIT THE BRAVE NEW GIRLS WEBSITE: http://bravenewgirls.weebly.com/

Behind the STARSWEPT book trailer

Whether book trailers do any good with regard to sales and marketing is perpetually up for debate. A few things are known for certain though: 1) They can't hurt 2) They're hella fun.

Big publishers sometimes produce life-action, cinematic trailers for their marquis titles. Those of us who don't have such resources and whose budget is determined not by a million-dollar marketing team, but by one's savings account and willingness to subsist on ramen, must find other solutions.

In my case, I decided to go abstract for the STARSWEPT book trailer. I didn't have the means to stage elaborate reenactments of the book's scenes... especially since it's space-age sci-fi. Besides, this ain't a movie. Showing things literally wouldn't do any good... it'd be a trailer for a film that would never be released. And it would limit readers' imaginations, since they'd be forced to picture the trailer's depiction of scenes instead of imagining them.

I wasn't aiming to illustrate scenes, but rather to capture the tone of the book... a mix of galaxy-spanning sci-fi, classical arts, and fairytale romance. Since the story takes place at a futuristic performing arts school, where students compete to gain alien patrons who sponsor their careers on a utopian planet, I knew from the get-go that my trailer would feature a combination of performing arts and space images. And while combing my book for ideas, I came across this bit:

It was then that I realized that I accidentally (I mean, intentionally after much pondering and a visitation from my muse :-P) illustrated this very concept with my book cover. On it, Iris is literally floating in a nebula... a star being created from colorful dust.

Symbolism completely on purpose. Not at all because I just thought it was pretty. I am an ARTISTE ;-)

As long as I had this concept going for me, I decided to expand upon it for the book trailer. I combed stock footage websites for videos that captured the tone I was going for... the grace and romance of performing arts and the beauty and futurism of nebulas. Then I faded the footage into each other to create the feel of performing artists appearing out of clouds of stardust. In addition, I tried to find footage depicting stage lights and bright stars, so I could blend them and have stage lights turn into stars... and fledgling suns turn into spotlights. After all, a big solo is a day in the sun.

The hardest part was finding the right soundtrack. I tinkered with the idea of composing something myself, but concluded that I just didn't have the right resources (my small collection of instruments and synths has served me well, but sadly, I can't turn myself into a full classical orchestra). So it was back to the stock libraries I went.

I knew right away that I wanted something orchestral, something classical-sounding without being actual classical music (though I did briefly consider using Mozart... problem was, it made the trailer seem like it was for a historical drama or that it was being played ironically). A lot of the stock music I found was epic, pounding trailer music, which was awesome, but totally wrong for my dreamy sci-fi romance... my fairytale in space. I filtered the results for slower pieces... I wanted something graceful and haunting.

Then, I found a choral and orchestral piece that gave me chills when I listened to it. Bingo: I had my song. As a bonus, the words the choir was singing (though hard to make out if you're not listening for them) matched perfectly; they sing "Come back to me" over and over, which is a common thought for my star-crossed lovers (who are separated by actual stars). 

After I had my pieces, it was time to put it all together. I opened with a shot of the camera approaching Earth... something that illustrates the arrival of the telepathic aliens that kick off the premise. Then, I added my performing arts school/nebula... performers appearing from stardust and stars turning to stage lights. I ended with a shot of a spaceship flying into the distance to illustrate the aliens taking the artists away... and Iris's eventual journey across the universe. Below is the final result, and I must say, I'm proud of it!

5 Things to Consider When Self-Publishing

5 Things to Consider When Self-Publishing

by

Cassie

www.securethoughts.com

Twitter: @securethoughtsc

When self-publishing your book, you are responsible for just about every aspect of the publication process. You’re given complete freedom to write the book you want – but, you won’t have a publishing house behind you to guide you through the publication process. There are plenty of decisions you’ll have to consider on your own, and we’re here to offer some advice.  

Is Self-Publishing Right For Your Book?

The first major consideration is whether or not self-publishing is the right way for you to go about things. Romance, science fiction, fantastic, mystery and thrillers are among the most successful genres for self-published authors. About 40 percent of e-book sales on Amazon are made up of romance books, while 11 percent of the Top 100 Mystery and Thriller books are self-published. If you’re working on a literary fiction book, then self-publishing may not be your best bet.

How Will You Price Your Book?

Many self-published authors run into an issue when decided how much to charge for their book. If they charge too much, they may turn potential readers away. If they charge too little, they run the risk of failing to break even. 

To decide how much you should charge, take a look at the prices of self-published books in the same genre. Then, cross-reference those numbers with your printing costs. When pricing an e-book, try to keep the price under $10. Many retailers will pay authors higher royalties for books that cost between $2.99 and $9.99, and you can expect upwards of 70 percent.

Are You Taking the Necessary Steps to Protect Your Content? 

Although you have copyright protection from the creation of your book, it is important that you can be able to sue just in case someone infringes on your work. In order to do this, you will need to register your book in a timely manner. Copyrighting with the United States government is a quick and easy process to complete online, and costs just $35.

Throughout the creation of your book, you should also ensure that you are protected at all times. It’s likely that you’re backing your content up. If you’re doing so online, ensure that you practice strict online safety measures to prevent anyone from gaining unauthorized access.

-       Use strong passwords with a combination of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, symbols and numbers.

-       When uploading any work, ensure that you are connected to the internet using a Virtual Private Network (VPN), which will encrypt any information being sent.

-       Use two-step authorization for any online accounts you have. This will require you to log in using your browser along with your smartphone. This is vital for any accounts that are related to your self-publishing efforts.

How Will You Market Your Book?

                  

Self-published books are generally only as effective as their marketing campaigns. So, it is important that you have a comprehensive plan to get your book noticed by as many people as possible.

The key to successfully marketing your book is to getting in touch with your readers. Find out more about them by learning about the blogs and magazines they read, along with the influencers that they follow. Keep a list of publications and names and start pitching to them when you are nearing the last corner of writing your book.  Ask to be a guest on a podcast or being interviewed for a blog. Find out if book bloggers would be interested in reviewing your title. Ensure that your pitch really sells them the idea and convinces them how featuring your book will benefit their audiences.

Giving away freebies is a great way for you to spread the word about your new book. Publishing tools like Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing allow you to offer your books for free over a few days and you can offer giveaways via Facebook and other social networks. It is also worth considering uploading the first few chapters as a separate title and offering them as a free download. 

How Will You Distribute Your Book?

From the get-go, you should have a plan for how you plan to distribute your book to your readers. There are plenty of different ways to go about getting your book read, and these are the top choices of self-published authors:

-       Sell it on your website: there are plenty of e-commerce solutions like Shopify and WooCommerce that make it easy for you to sell and ship items using your website. This option allows you to keep nearly 100 percent of your profits, paying just a few dollars for shipping.

-       Amazon: Kindle Direct Publishing is a great tool for users who want to distribute their e-books and CreateSpace is a tool that offers up a wide range of tools for distributing in-print books, which includes royalty management, in-house design, and editing and marketing.

-       Lulu: With over 1000 new titles every day, Lulu is a powerhouse when it comes to self-publishing books. This service will help you with all aspects of your creation and distribution, including formatting, packaging and marketing.

-       Smashwords: As the world’s biggest distributor of independent books, this service will distribute your work through a wide range of channels, including Kobo, Scribd, Barnes & Noble and Apple. There are plenty of great tools, such as marketing assistance and sales reporting, and contracts are non-exclusive.

When you take these aspects into consideration, you should have a much better idea of which steps you need to take to make the self-publishing process for your book a success. Create a detailed plan and follow it closely, and you can look forward to a thriving career as a self-published author.

Author Bio: Cassie is a technology blogger with a passion for reading. She is currently working on her own book and is exploring her self-publishing options, and wants to share her knowledge with other aspiring authors.

BRAVE NEW GIRLS is getting a Volume 2!!!

Hi everyone! As you might have seen on my Facebook or Twitter, BRAVE NEW GIRLS is getting a Volume 2! 

How did this come to be? Well, basically Paige Daniels and I have been talking about doing a second anthology ever since we released the first one... We just had such a blast putting it together, and we loved that we were using fiction to encourage girls to explore STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math). Finally, about a week and a half ago, we were like, "You know what? Enough talk. Let's do this thing!"

Things are a little different this time around. Instead of running another crowdfunding campaign, we're using leftover funds from the first one. We'd originally meant to use the extra dollars for marketing, but after looking into what we could afford on our budget... basically, just a handful of web ads, whose effectiveness is iffy... we decided that a second anthology would be a better use of our money. Hey, you know what they say--the best way to sell a book is to make another book. 

And because we'd love to keep making BNGs forever (without always having to beg people for cash), we're adjusting our, for lack of a better term, business model (though I wouldn't call it a business since ultimately, it's all non-profit). We'll still be donating the bulk of the money made from sales of BNG 2 to the Society of Women Engineers scholarship fund. This time, though, we'll keep a percentage of profits and stick it in the BNG pot to fund Volume 3 (coming your way in 20...something! Hopefully 2018!). And then a percentage of sales from both BNG 2 and BNG 3 can fund BNG 4... etc. etc. until we solve gender inequality forever.

Despite the "Volume 2" designation, this anthology won't be a sequel (you probably already knew that, but hey, can't hurt to clarify). It'll be a new collection of standalone shorts, and I'm hoping we get an awesome mix of different kinds of sci-fi... cyberpunk, steampunk, biopunk, whateverpunk...

Submissions are currently open on our website! So if you or anyone you know has a short sci-fi story about a teen girl who does techy things, check it out!  LINK HERE: http://bravenewgirls.weebly.com/submissions.html.

I'll be contributing as well, of course :-). This time, my story will be a space opera mystery starring fledgling biomedical engineer Chevonne Watson and a rogue science AI, Sherlock. Remember over the summer when I wrote a Sherlock Holmes retelling just for fun? Well, in true Sherlockian tradition, I'm bringing back those characters for a new adventure, and I can't wait to write it :-D. (In case you're curious, here's the story on Wattpad: The Adventure of the Silicon Beeches. I'm thinking of titling the series Chevonne & Sherlock).

We've already contacted Streetlight Graphics (who did the amazing cover of the first BRAVE NEW GIRLS) about doing the cover, and I'm so, so, so excited! Once again, we're going to have illustrations for all the stories. If all goes according to plan, BNG 2 will be coming your way in August 2017... Just in time to debut at Gen Con :-D

#WeNeedDiverseModels

The best-laid plans of mice and men / Often go awry...

Today, I'm using my blog as a confessional. This kinda makes me want to crawl into a hole and pull it in after me. Okay, just like ripping off a bandaid, right? Here goes...

My book covers are whitewashed.

In the Jane Colt trilogy, Jane and her brother Devin are meant to be biracial/Eurasian. It's not really a factor story-wise because the books take place in a far-flung space opera future where neither Europe nor Asia exist anymore, but it mattered to me. Partly because nonwhite characters (especially main characters) are terribly underrepresented in sci-fi (I'm looking at you, Firefly, with your Chinese props and Chinese swearing but no Chinese people). And partly because I'm Asian and, hey, wouldn't it be nice if there were space opera protags who looked like they could share an ancestor or two with me?

I pictured the interstellar siblings as looking something like this:

Chloe Bennet

Philippe Day

(Interesting to note... both actors pictured chose to go with Western names rather than the Asian names they were born with: Chloe Wang and Philippe Sung)

This is how they're portrayed on the books' covers:

 

Don't get me wrong... I love how both covers turned out and okay'd them both, even knowing I was whitewashing my own characters. The reason for this was simple: I couldn't find any Eurasian models in the stock photo libraries. In fact, I could barely find any Asian models (and the few I did find didn't fit the characters). Dark-haired Caucasians were the closest thing the photo libraries had to offer, so I ran with it. And loved the covers I got. And felt guilty about loving the covers I got.

I've spent hours and hours and hours combing stock photo sites, and they're overwhelmingly white. I suspect that this is because these sites exist to sell images, and those are the ones that sell. It's disheartening. And it's not like I could afford to stage my own photo shoot. I suppose I could always have asked for covers that didn't feature characters, but I'm a personal fan of faces on covers, so no fair making me give that up on my own damn books.

Anyway, all this is to say that lack of diversity is a problem across the board. So c'mon, photo libraries! Do better!

*whew* Glad I got that off my chest...

My twisty, turny, loop-de-loop filled publishing road so far

[excerpted from my interview on Lorna Suzuki's blog]

My publishing road has been one twisty-turny loop-de-loop-filled tangle (and I foresee many more twists, turns, and loop-de-loops in the future). It took me something like 81 queries to land my agent (the talented, fierce, and altogether amazing Lana Popovic)—though not all for the same book or at the same time. I first queried agents with Artificial Absolutes back in early 2012. At the time, I had no idea what I was doing. I read enough agent blogs, etc., to know what a query looked like (even had a friend of mine who was interning at an agency validate that at least I had the idea right), but didn’t know anything about how the publishing industry or book markets worked. I just scattered a bunch of queries to the wind. Around rejection number thirty, I realized there were some small presses out there that took un-agented authors and started querying them too. Miracle of miracles, Red Adept Publishing wanted my book, and I did my happy dance.

While I love RAP, I still wanted a shot at the big houses. So I started working on a new, unrelated book and posted the opening on Authonomy for feedback. Much to my surprise, a staff member from another small press, Glass House Press, stumbled upon it and liked what they saw, so they asked for a full submission. Problem was, I hadn’t finished the book yet. So I scrambled to get the thing done (the most intense three weeks of writing in my life) and sent it to them. While I was excited at the prospect of working with these guys, I figured while I was waiting for a reply, it couldn’t hurt to try querying agents again. I only sent out a handful, but they were all got immediate passes. I became convinced Glass House was going to kick my poor manuscript to the curb. When they said yes—another happy dance!

With contracts from two awesome small presses under my belt, I thought I was done with the whole querying thing for the foreseeable future. Especially since I was working on series. But the thing about inspiration is that it strikes when you least expect it to. Shortly after Artificial Absolutes came out 2013, I had an idea for a YA sci-fi romance that I really had no business writing but couldn’t let go of. I got the first draft down pretty quickly, but between editing and marketing my other books (not to mention writing sequels), I didn’t get a chance to edit it for months.

I decided to do the querying rounds again around September 2014. It was back-to-school season, and I was feeling energized. I’d spent several months—almost a year, actually—obsessing over publishing blogs, reading potential comps, and fine-tuning my query and manuscript. At this point, my efforts to market Artificial Absolutes and my other books had taught me a lot about the book market in general—genres, audiences, trends, etc. And my online agent stalking… I mean, research… had taught me more about what they sought in a query and what individual agents were looking for. I put together a list of agents based not just on what genres they repped (which was what I did for the last two rounds), but also based on what they said in their bios, interviews, and blog posts.

I also decided to query in waves this time—wait for the first 10 or so rejections before sending the next 10, etc. That way I’d have time to tweak my query, synopsis, and opening pages again. There wasn’t any particular order to my list—I just added agents to it as I discovered them (through Writer’s Digest features, for example). I was fully prepared to send out upwards of 100 queries this round. Luckily, I didn’t have to.

Read the rest of the interview here.