Brian Rosten's Blog
May 20, 2022
Current Projects
Hello World,
I wanted to give some insights into my current project work.
First, I've placed some marketing efforts and other small, fun things on hold for now while my family situation is in flux. I'm still a secondary caretaker to some people, and don't want to detract attention away from how serious the situation is. Mainly, my insta and tiktok accounts are quiet, right now, and for this blog I won't be doing my "influences" series until later this summer. I want to give those full attention because I really enjoy writing them.
Second, my next book. I'm going to shop a collection of short stories I've accumulated. They are works that don't quite fit into the magazines I've submitted them to, but I feel they are still high enough quality that they should be released "into the wild" as it were. So I'm going to see if a literary agent is interested in them as a collection. I'll keep you abreast of the details. I hope to hear from agents (either accepting or rejecting) by September.
Third, I will be publishing "The Collection of Tom du Parque" to Amazon Kindle this summer. The work is of my earliest writings, and some of those stories were actually published. I need to do some research to see what Amazon's policies on previously published work are. I fear the ebook may not be allowed on KDP Select. But I still want to put those out there, and I think the story coalesces into something satisfying that I'd like others to see.
Fourth, if you're interested in my current writing, I've just submitted a short story to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It may not be out-of-the-box enough for them, but we'll see. I also am about thirty thousand words into my current novel, about androids who play professional football. Exciting stuff. If you'd like to be a beta-reader for that book, DM me on social media.
That's it for now.
Go find something good to read!
I wanted to give some insights into my current project work.
First, I've placed some marketing efforts and other small, fun things on hold for now while my family situation is in flux. I'm still a secondary caretaker to some people, and don't want to detract attention away from how serious the situation is. Mainly, my insta and tiktok accounts are quiet, right now, and for this blog I won't be doing my "influences" series until later this summer. I want to give those full attention because I really enjoy writing them.
Second, my next book. I'm going to shop a collection of short stories I've accumulated. They are works that don't quite fit into the magazines I've submitted them to, but I feel they are still high enough quality that they should be released "into the wild" as it were. So I'm going to see if a literary agent is interested in them as a collection. I'll keep you abreast of the details. I hope to hear from agents (either accepting or rejecting) by September.
Third, I will be publishing "The Collection of Tom du Parque" to Amazon Kindle this summer. The work is of my earliest writings, and some of those stories were actually published. I need to do some research to see what Amazon's policies on previously published work are. I fear the ebook may not be allowed on KDP Select. But I still want to put those out there, and I think the story coalesces into something satisfying that I'd like others to see.
Fourth, if you're interested in my current writing, I've just submitted a short story to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It may not be out-of-the-box enough for them, but we'll see. I also am about thirty thousand words into my current novel, about androids who play professional football. Exciting stuff. If you'd like to be a beta-reader for that book, DM me on social media.
That's it for now.
Go find something good to read!
May 10, 2022
Update
Hey All,
I just wanted to let you all know what's going on with my publishing stuff:
First, I took a break from promoting because I had a family member get sick. I'll spare you the details, but I felt my energy and social capital needed to be devoted to that for a while. I'm not even going to be posting this to my Facebook for now, and through the foreseeable future.
Second, my first phase of promoting Pete vs. the City of Chicago is basically complete. I've done a few giveaways, advertised on social media, learned a ton about Amazon's review and ad sales systems, and understand a lot more about search engine optimization. I feel, as a learning experience, the book was successful. I also feel it gave me some good cred, as many friends and family enjoyed it. I am hoping to do a second phase of promoting and advertising this summer, so I will keep you posted.
Third, I have applied for an LLC for the State of Illinois, in the hopes to start a literary magazine! I've been researching and interviewing, and even building a site, to be named later, that will be taking submissions, God willing, soon.
Thanks for your ear.
Now go find something worthwhile to read!
I just wanted to let you all know what's going on with my publishing stuff:
First, I took a break from promoting because I had a family member get sick. I'll spare you the details, but I felt my energy and social capital needed to be devoted to that for a while. I'm not even going to be posting this to my Facebook for now, and through the foreseeable future.
Second, my first phase of promoting Pete vs. the City of Chicago is basically complete. I've done a few giveaways, advertised on social media, learned a ton about Amazon's review and ad sales systems, and understand a lot more about search engine optimization. I feel, as a learning experience, the book was successful. I also feel it gave me some good cred, as many friends and family enjoyed it. I am hoping to do a second phase of promoting and advertising this summer, so I will keep you posted.
Third, I have applied for an LLC for the State of Illinois, in the hopes to start a literary magazine! I've been researching and interviewing, and even building a site, to be named later, that will be taking submissions, God willing, soon.
Thanks for your ear.
Now go find something worthwhile to read!
April 12, 2022
Review: How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles YuMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I cannot begin to describe the extent to which I disagree with many of the other reviews. This book was simple, fantastical, and simply fantastic. I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a different perspective on the passage of time, family dynamics, or even the importance of writing itself. Without giving too much away, and at the risk of sounding horribly pretentious, I'd describe the writing as J.D. Salinger meets Douglas Adams. Buy this book, read it, and give it to a friend.
View all my reviews
March 26, 2022
Reviews: Jesus and John Wayne
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du MezMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
In her book, Du Mez walks through the history of the Evangelical movement to support Donald Trump. Her thesis is based off two figures: 74% of those who in some way would identify as Evangelical Christians voted for Trump. Meanwhile, 80% of all Trump voters indicate that their personal value system (not considerations of economic policy, as many have guessed) led them to support him. Therefore, close to a majority, or perhaps a healthy majority, of Evangelical Christians voted for Trump based off his purported values. So in what ways does the Evangelical movement align its values with those of a Trump White House?
Du Mez does an excellent job of walking the reader through the political history of major Evangelical leaders post-WWII all the way through 2020. This paints a picture of what motivated the slow but steady turn of Evangelical alignment with conservative platforms. To see what leaders were involved, what mechanisms they used to consolidate power, and how certain books, movies, and senators you've never heard of created a culture that came to see Donald Trump as its savior, I'd recommend grabbing a copy.
I enjoyed reading this book. It is filled with insight and research that I was both horrified and fascinated to see put together all in one place. Some may find this unpalatable for varying reasons, but as one review on the cover mentions, it is probably a book many people need to read right now.
View all my reviews
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
March 18, 2022
Influences: An Age of Men for All Seasons
In 1916 a young lieutenant in the British Army is writing to his wife. By Army law, he is not allowed to divulge the classified movements of his battalion via mail, and therefore his beloved has no idea where he is and whether he is heading into the thick of the squirmish. Luckily, this clever young man has been developing his own languages for almost a decade. So he invents a series of dots which can be decoded by his wife to track his whereabouts as he weaves through small towns around France. War takes its toll on him. He is horrified not only by the inhumane nature of the soldiers he is fighting with, but his body and spirit weaken in and around the events of the Battle of Somme. He develops trench fever and is eventually sent countryside. In his recovery, which lasts for the duration of the Great War, he begins to write novels. He has been a poet most of his life- a promising enough one that he deferred enlistment to finish a degree in literature. The young man begins work on a series of stories known as "The Book of Lost Tales." This takes him through the rest of the war, after which he begins a posting as a tutor for Leeds and thereafter Pembroke College. During his time in teaching, he begins composing mythology for a work later titled "The Silmarillion." As he and his beloved wife Edith settle into a quiet life in the world of English academia, the young solider-turned-professor begins a decades-long journey into the fantasy world of Arda, beginning with a work known as "The Hobbit" (or "There and Back Again"). The young man infuses his experiences with war, illness, familial separation, and the sometimes acutely thin line of hope, into his writings.
J.R.R. Tolkien was a man of faith before anything else. It was the single most important element in his writing, and the layers of complexity baked into both the fantasy world and the allegorical messaging was astounding, and still warrants multiple re-reads. Only literary giants like James Joyce and St. John can outclass Tolkien in levels of understanding within a text, and even they relied on the quite understandable crutch of not making up their own Universe or inventing their own languages and cultures.
Volumes have been written of Tolkien's life, his greatness, his contribution to literature, and analysis of the works themselves. I have not read nearly enough of them, but I will suggest one anyway. I am quite the fan of "On the Shoulders of Hobbits" by Louis Markos.
I consider Tolkien my greatest fictional influence. So even though I'm not in any way a Tolkien scholar, and everything I'm about to write has already been written (or mansplained to someone who just doesn't understand why it takes three movies to explain one camping expedition), I'd still like to share a few things about Tolkien's writing as it has influenced me:
First, the infusion of allegory at the core of a story is something I am awed by when I read Tolkien. It is so good and so seamless and so right that one gets the sense that J.R.R. Tolkien was put on this Earth to teach us about God and faith and friendship and war through the written word. As a result of this influence, I deviate from some writers in the respect that many story-tellers create a story first, and then upon editing the work, find the themes and reinforce them. I, because of the intricacy of allegory present in Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" (what I consider to be the greatest book/books I've ever read). find it impossible to build such a weighty foundation without some idea of the themes and symbolism beforehand. So I generate ideas for allegories, and then generate those into stories, instead of the other way round.
Second, Tolkien embraces the hardship of existence in a way that many writers fail to capture. Louis Markos in his analysis points out that for Tolkien, The Road itself is actually a character, with attributes and even some agency (see: The forest near Tom Bombadil's home). Tolkien does this because the Fellowship's path is arduous, as in life, and only by creating a deep texture to the world around the characters can this be embodied with any fidelity. It is a mark of mastership that Tolkien can take the dullness of long walk and use it as a way to make all of us marginally grateful for the mundane struggles we see in our day-to-day. So I also try to add particularity to a story in order to capture even a fraction of this same effect, though my approach focuses more on small insights as opposed to long descriptions. But I won't lie, I actually enjoy writing long, tedious, Tolkien-like descriptions, and I find it hard to edit them out afterward so my readers don't end up getting painfully bored.
Finally, Tolkien's Arda (Home of Middle Earth and the Lord of the Rings mythos) is constantly fueled by rules. This is slightly different than the allegory element, in that this is running all the time, whereas the allegories run in and out of the story arc. Each decision and contextual event and even some of the mild descriptions are powered by concepts Tolkien has carefully crafted so the story runs itself. From Tom the Barman's forgetfulness (powered the weakness of Men) to Gandalf's steadfastness (born of his heritage as a reincarnated Valar, a being of pure faith) to Pippin's shortsightedness (a representation of Hobbits as child-like, in the Beatific Virtue sense). I mean, damn, even the trees are powered by a sense of Natural Order and come alive to set things right at Isengard. A lot people complain about how the Ring gets to Mordor, but the truth is, for Tolkien, it doesn't matter who takes the Ring to Mt. Doom. A powerful force that is embedded to existence itself will implore someone to take it there, and some other, semi-connected force will corrupt the Hearts of Men to make that journey difficult. Everything else, at the risk of offending Samwise, is small potatoes.
I also try to set rules for my stories, however, unlike Tolkien, I try to only have two to three rules running at any given time (though you can have multiple rules for each individual character, if your story is set up that way). I can't keep track of much more in my head, and the story can get clunky if you add more constraints than your brain can handle.
It's also pretty cool that Tolkien invented an entire elvish language for the books, but I do not plan on creating an entire language for a book at any point in my career.
Tolkien turned his grief from WWI atrocities, intertwined it with his love of God and family, and made something revolutionary. There are a slew of writers who've tried to accomplish even a pale comparison of what he put together. I count myself among them. There's entire websites devoted just to the Tolkien-esque genre of literature (see: Beneath Ceaseless Skies).
If you've never read Tolkien because you don't think you could ever get into something with elves and castles and whatnot, I'd challenge you to give it a try. You may not like the winding prose. You may not enjoy the long descriptions of a craggy cliffside. You may be bored reading about Hobbits and knights chowing down on lembas bread for weeks on end. But The Road will always be there, waiting for you, even if you don't make it until your eleventy-first birthday.
As always, Happy Reading,
Frosty Rosty
J.R.R. Tolkien was a man of faith before anything else. It was the single most important element in his writing, and the layers of complexity baked into both the fantasy world and the allegorical messaging was astounding, and still warrants multiple re-reads. Only literary giants like James Joyce and St. John can outclass Tolkien in levels of understanding within a text, and even they relied on the quite understandable crutch of not making up their own Universe or inventing their own languages and cultures.
Volumes have been written of Tolkien's life, his greatness, his contribution to literature, and analysis of the works themselves. I have not read nearly enough of them, but I will suggest one anyway. I am quite the fan of "On the Shoulders of Hobbits" by Louis Markos.
I consider Tolkien my greatest fictional influence. So even though I'm not in any way a Tolkien scholar, and everything I'm about to write has already been written (or mansplained to someone who just doesn't understand why it takes three movies to explain one camping expedition), I'd still like to share a few things about Tolkien's writing as it has influenced me:
First, the infusion of allegory at the core of a story is something I am awed by when I read Tolkien. It is so good and so seamless and so right that one gets the sense that J.R.R. Tolkien was put on this Earth to teach us about God and faith and friendship and war through the written word. As a result of this influence, I deviate from some writers in the respect that many story-tellers create a story first, and then upon editing the work, find the themes and reinforce them. I, because of the intricacy of allegory present in Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" (what I consider to be the greatest book/books I've ever read). find it impossible to build such a weighty foundation without some idea of the themes and symbolism beforehand. So I generate ideas for allegories, and then generate those into stories, instead of the other way round.
Second, Tolkien embraces the hardship of existence in a way that many writers fail to capture. Louis Markos in his analysis points out that for Tolkien, The Road itself is actually a character, with attributes and even some agency (see: The forest near Tom Bombadil's home). Tolkien does this because the Fellowship's path is arduous, as in life, and only by creating a deep texture to the world around the characters can this be embodied with any fidelity. It is a mark of mastership that Tolkien can take the dullness of long walk and use it as a way to make all of us marginally grateful for the mundane struggles we see in our day-to-day. So I also try to add particularity to a story in order to capture even a fraction of this same effect, though my approach focuses more on small insights as opposed to long descriptions. But I won't lie, I actually enjoy writing long, tedious, Tolkien-like descriptions, and I find it hard to edit them out afterward so my readers don't end up getting painfully bored.
Finally, Tolkien's Arda (Home of Middle Earth and the Lord of the Rings mythos) is constantly fueled by rules. This is slightly different than the allegory element, in that this is running all the time, whereas the allegories run in and out of the story arc. Each decision and contextual event and even some of the mild descriptions are powered by concepts Tolkien has carefully crafted so the story runs itself. From Tom the Barman's forgetfulness (powered the weakness of Men) to Gandalf's steadfastness (born of his heritage as a reincarnated Valar, a being of pure faith) to Pippin's shortsightedness (a representation of Hobbits as child-like, in the Beatific Virtue sense). I mean, damn, even the trees are powered by a sense of Natural Order and come alive to set things right at Isengard. A lot people complain about how the Ring gets to Mordor, but the truth is, for Tolkien, it doesn't matter who takes the Ring to Mt. Doom. A powerful force that is embedded to existence itself will implore someone to take it there, and some other, semi-connected force will corrupt the Hearts of Men to make that journey difficult. Everything else, at the risk of offending Samwise, is small potatoes.
I also try to set rules for my stories, however, unlike Tolkien, I try to only have two to three rules running at any given time (though you can have multiple rules for each individual character, if your story is set up that way). I can't keep track of much more in my head, and the story can get clunky if you add more constraints than your brain can handle.
It's also pretty cool that Tolkien invented an entire elvish language for the books, but I do not plan on creating an entire language for a book at any point in my career.
Tolkien turned his grief from WWI atrocities, intertwined it with his love of God and family, and made something revolutionary. There are a slew of writers who've tried to accomplish even a pale comparison of what he put together. I count myself among them. There's entire websites devoted just to the Tolkien-esque genre of literature (see: Beneath Ceaseless Skies).
If you've never read Tolkien because you don't think you could ever get into something with elves and castles and whatnot, I'd challenge you to give it a try. You may not like the winding prose. You may not enjoy the long descriptions of a craggy cliffside. You may be bored reading about Hobbits and knights chowing down on lembas bread for weeks on end. But The Road will always be there, waiting for you, even if you don't make it until your eleventy-first birthday.
As always, Happy Reading,
Frosty Rosty
March 14, 2022
How Do You Write?
Last week I posted some thoughts on Stephen King's "On Writing," and included some methods on what worked for me as a writer. However, I'm curious- what works for you?
If you read this, place a comment below on what works for you when you write. Or, even what works for you when working on anything at home that takes some modicum of creativity.
Some famous examples I enjoy are: Stephen King wrote in his laundry room for years before buying a huge writing desk and eventually throwing it out because he enjoys cramped spaces. Antoine de-Saint Expurey would only write after midnight while drinking coffee. And Ernest Hemingway would only write in the morning with coffee and brandy.
So what works for you? Leave a comment below please.
As always, Happy Reading,
Brian
If you read this, place a comment below on what works for you when you write. Or, even what works for you when working on anything at home that takes some modicum of creativity.
Some famous examples I enjoy are: Stephen King wrote in his laundry room for years before buying a huge writing desk and eventually throwing it out because he enjoys cramped spaces. Antoine de-Saint Expurey would only write after midnight while drinking coffee. And Ernest Hemingway would only write in the morning with coffee and brandy.
So what works for you? Leave a comment below please.
As always, Happy Reading,
Brian
March 7, 2022
Influences: Stephen King and the Brilliant "On Writing"
My brother Tim likes to say he created the monster that is me because in the winter of 2017, he gifted me Stephen King's "On Writing" for Christmas. To a great extent this is true. My primary instincts as a writer come this work.
The book, written in 1997, has achieved cult status among writers. It is considered the gold standard of writing advice. I could review the book for paragraphs upon paragraphs, but that wouldn't be a very interesting read for you. So I'd like to shave off some verbiage and focus on how the book affected my own writing.
The most important advice King gives to any writer is "...read and write every day." In truth, that's the only real beginning advice a writer can be given. Everything starts there. You can't build a foundation without working into something that looks like that. Now, how that manifests for different writers varies wildly. Some writers do that for months at a time, and then take breaks. King himself said he takes two weeks off after a book. Other writers have to do it every day. John Hodgman, he insinuates, goes months at a time without. But you have to, when actually working on a project, read and write everyday. It can't be twice a week. It can't be when you feel like it. It has to be forced through your fingertips, even when you're not feeling "the vibe."
That advice is priceless. And that advice is why I suspect some people who would be unbelievably good writers never do it. They're not built to sustain something like that. I thank God I had ADHD and a mother who metaphorically whooped my ass. I thrive off routine. So I write everyday, because it makes me happy to have assignment everyday. I'm that kind of guy.
So not everyone can follow Stephen King's advice about writing. But it has helped me, and really, as cliche as it sounds, transformed my life for better. Why? Because King also tells you how to write.
Writing is meditation. King tells you to turn off your brain to an extent when you write. As he phrases it, "Write with the door closed, edit with the door open." In other words, don't edit as you write. Don't correct yourself as you write. Put it all down on paper, and see how it comes out. What King doesn't tell you is how therapeutic this is.
I always feel much better after I write. Not like a weight's been lifted, because I often have more questions about my plot and my characters running around in my head afterward. But I feel like my brain just went for a jog. There's a cleanse to it, but you also just built something up. It's difficult to describe, and it's hard to do when you're tired, but it feels good.
Writing in a meditative state for an hour a day can be life-changing for many. It was for me. I feel like my brain is quicker, my empathy is more attuned, and my heart is lifted more easily since I started. Following the advice of writing every day is a great way to build efficacy in a lot of surprising areas.
I will admit, it doesn't work for everybody. And more importantly, there's a lot more steps to becoming a decent writer. I say decent because that's where I'd put myself currently. I'm not great, but I'm not bad. And it's because after I started writing an hour a day, I also sought out other writing advice and feedback, and grew my skills.
Other advice King has that I follow resolutely include things like "The editor's always right," "Omit needless words," (which he takes from E.B. White), and "Find the beat." The book really is a treasure-trove of literary wisdom.
I highly recommend his book to anyone who writes, or is interested in the lives of writers. Not to mention the fact it's fun to read, because it's so damn well-written.
Happy Reading,
-Frosty Rosty
The book, written in 1997, has achieved cult status among writers. It is considered the gold standard of writing advice. I could review the book for paragraphs upon paragraphs, but that wouldn't be a very interesting read for you. So I'd like to shave off some verbiage and focus on how the book affected my own writing.
The most important advice King gives to any writer is "...read and write every day." In truth, that's the only real beginning advice a writer can be given. Everything starts there. You can't build a foundation without working into something that looks like that. Now, how that manifests for different writers varies wildly. Some writers do that for months at a time, and then take breaks. King himself said he takes two weeks off after a book. Other writers have to do it every day. John Hodgman, he insinuates, goes months at a time without. But you have to, when actually working on a project, read and write everyday. It can't be twice a week. It can't be when you feel like it. It has to be forced through your fingertips, even when you're not feeling "the vibe."
That advice is priceless. And that advice is why I suspect some people who would be unbelievably good writers never do it. They're not built to sustain something like that. I thank God I had ADHD and a mother who metaphorically whooped my ass. I thrive off routine. So I write everyday, because it makes me happy to have assignment everyday. I'm that kind of guy.
So not everyone can follow Stephen King's advice about writing. But it has helped me, and really, as cliche as it sounds, transformed my life for better. Why? Because King also tells you how to write.
Writing is meditation. King tells you to turn off your brain to an extent when you write. As he phrases it, "Write with the door closed, edit with the door open." In other words, don't edit as you write. Don't correct yourself as you write. Put it all down on paper, and see how it comes out. What King doesn't tell you is how therapeutic this is.
I always feel much better after I write. Not like a weight's been lifted, because I often have more questions about my plot and my characters running around in my head afterward. But I feel like my brain just went for a jog. There's a cleanse to it, but you also just built something up. It's difficult to describe, and it's hard to do when you're tired, but it feels good.
Writing in a meditative state for an hour a day can be life-changing for many. It was for me. I feel like my brain is quicker, my empathy is more attuned, and my heart is lifted more easily since I started. Following the advice of writing every day is a great way to build efficacy in a lot of surprising areas.
I will admit, it doesn't work for everybody. And more importantly, there's a lot more steps to becoming a decent writer. I say decent because that's where I'd put myself currently. I'm not great, but I'm not bad. And it's because after I started writing an hour a day, I also sought out other writing advice and feedback, and grew my skills.
Other advice King has that I follow resolutely include things like "The editor's always right," "Omit needless words," (which he takes from E.B. White), and "Find the beat." The book really is a treasure-trove of literary wisdom.
I highly recommend his book to anyone who writes, or is interested in the lives of writers. Not to mention the fact it's fun to read, because it's so damn well-written.
Happy Reading,
-Frosty Rosty
February 27, 2022
Free Book Alert
I am running my first promotion!
Title: Pete vs the City of Chicago
Free on Amazon starting Sunday February 27th and ending Monday February 28th.
Description: Pete Martinen’s Dad has abruptly decided to move, and Pete’s life is turned upside down. Journey with Pete back to the year 1996, as he learns how to navigate the West Side of Chicago, and all the characters that come into his new life. Available for free on Amazon (today and tomorrow)!
Link below:
https://www.amazon.com/Pete-City-Chic...
Title: Pete vs the City of Chicago
Free on Amazon starting Sunday February 27th and ending Monday February 28th.
Description: Pete Martinen’s Dad has abruptly decided to move, and Pete’s life is turned upside down. Journey with Pete back to the year 1996, as he learns how to navigate the West Side of Chicago, and all the characters that come into his new life. Available for free on Amazon (today and tomorrow)!
Link below:
https://www.amazon.com/Pete-City-Chic...
February 25, 2022
Let's Try this Again
Last night a package arrived at my house via Amazon delivery. It was the first batch of my author copies for "Pete vs the City of Chicago." The cover was magnificent. The binding was perfect. The back was exactly to order. And so was the inside. KDP really is an amazing service.
But when I opened it to the pages, my heart sank. I had submitted the file incorrectly. When I saw inside the book was my manuscript, the text without page breaks for chapters, no kerning, no copyright page, no acknowledgements, and courier new font.
What did I mess up?
Kindle Create allows you to save your work. When you save a document, it populates in a self-created folder in your hard drive a word document with your manuscript. However, to incorporate the changes you made to your manuscript, like styling and extra pages, you have to generate a .kpf file from the Kindle Create software itself. That file, when uploaded to KDP, brings all the changes you made to your manuscript to turn it into a book. I had missed this step. I could have caught it, but when I previewed the book, I only previewed the cover.
I've learned my lesson. I've changed the file and ordered new author copies. Specifically, one author copy. I'm not ordering ten copies again until I've previewed a single copy myself.
These are the things I learned last night. If you're thinking of publishing on Amazon, I highly recommend it. But make sure you preview your books, and make sure you order a single paperback before you announce to your friends and family that your book is published.
As Always, Happy Reading
-Brian Rosten
But when I opened it to the pages, my heart sank. I had submitted the file incorrectly. When I saw inside the book was my manuscript, the text without page breaks for chapters, no kerning, no copyright page, no acknowledgements, and courier new font.
What did I mess up?
Kindle Create allows you to save your work. When you save a document, it populates in a self-created folder in your hard drive a word document with your manuscript. However, to incorporate the changes you made to your manuscript, like styling and extra pages, you have to generate a .kpf file from the Kindle Create software itself. That file, when uploaded to KDP, brings all the changes you made to your manuscript to turn it into a book. I had missed this step. I could have caught it, but when I previewed the book, I only previewed the cover.
I've learned my lesson. I've changed the file and ordered new author copies. Specifically, one author copy. I'm not ordering ten copies again until I've previewed a single copy myself.
These are the things I learned last night. If you're thinking of publishing on Amazon, I highly recommend it. But make sure you preview your books, and make sure you order a single paperback before you announce to your friends and family that your book is published.
As Always, Happy Reading
-Brian Rosten
February 22, 2022
First Entry!
Holy cow.
I can't believe I'm a Goodreads author, to be honest. I can't believe I chose to self-publish. I cannot believe that if you type my name into Amazon, my book is the first thing that comes up. The beginning of that path was as follows -
I began writing as all writers do: with a vain sense of self-satisfaction. In my mid-twenties I started writing a fictional book based on my life. I read a few passages to my wife. It was terrible. If I had known how therapeutic writing was, I would have kept going despite things like my plot and character development being as woeful as they were. But I stopped because I quickly realized I wasn’t going to write the Great American Novel. It was too hard. Which was a dumb decision.
Luckily, a man named Paul Suh asked if I wanted to join a reading contest at the school I work at. I very much did. So I read hundreds of pages a day of different novels to help my grade level accumulate the most pages read in the whole school. We lost. But, I learned that reading is my number one destresser, and my work life has never been the same. I still devour as many books throughout the year as I can, and I feel energized and invigorated whenever I come across a real page turner.
This new attack on the ink smeared across any available literature led to my falling in love with Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and Rowling’s Harry Potter series. I had read those books as a child, but never appreciated their allegorical elegance. As an adult, it struck me in a life-changing way. I knew I wanted to write something life changing for someone else. I had also seen the writing of my brother Andrew. Drew is not a talkative man. And yet, when I read his writing for the local paper, I saw a new side of him. I heard a different voice and saw someone totally new, just through his writing. I very much wanted to steal that ability.
I wanted to write religious allegory, just like Rowling and Tolkien. So I started again. This time, I began working on a fictional series entitled Orbiting the Hero Cage. It began in fits and starts until my younger brother Tim bought me Stephen King’s “On Writing” for Christmas that year. And everything clicked. I began to write a little everyday. I started to ignore writer’s block. I stopped editing while I wrote and used writing as a form of meditation. I started letting my characters have autonomy. I started finding beta readers. And I started writing short fiction to submit to literary agents.
A year after it was finished and edited, I revisited what my wife had wisely advised I start calling merely The Hero Cage. It was awful. Unreadable. Wouldn’t wipe my ass with it.
So I started on a new book. It was also not very good.
But writing had given me so much. It truly is therapeutic, if you take the meditative approach described in King’s book. I slogged through project after project, hoping something would stick and become worthwhile. I started to doubt my abilities (which I should have; most people, myself included, start out as terrible writers). Until I invented a character named Tom Du Parque for a writing contest. And my first published short story came through.
I’ve been chasing that high ever since. I’ve had some other stuff published. I got tired of waiting on a literary agent though. I feel like my writing is getting better and better and has even more room to grow. I look forward to sharing that growth with others. And I want to share all the crap I write along the way, as my writing improves. I felt like Pete vs the City of Chicago was the first thing I wrote that needed to be shared with others but that literary agents, for various reasons, just weren’t interested in. I don’t wanna sit around and wait for the perfect agent who loves Chicago and 90’s nostalgia as much as I do. So I hired an editor and moved on with my life. Hence the self-publishing. If you’re interested in my work, please check it out on Amazon. If you’re not, thanks for following me along this quick trip down the writing hole.
Happy Reading.
-BR
I can't believe I'm a Goodreads author, to be honest. I can't believe I chose to self-publish. I cannot believe that if you type my name into Amazon, my book is the first thing that comes up. The beginning of that path was as follows -
I began writing as all writers do: with a vain sense of self-satisfaction. In my mid-twenties I started writing a fictional book based on my life. I read a few passages to my wife. It was terrible. If I had known how therapeutic writing was, I would have kept going despite things like my plot and character development being as woeful as they were. But I stopped because I quickly realized I wasn’t going to write the Great American Novel. It was too hard. Which was a dumb decision.
Luckily, a man named Paul Suh asked if I wanted to join a reading contest at the school I work at. I very much did. So I read hundreds of pages a day of different novels to help my grade level accumulate the most pages read in the whole school. We lost. But, I learned that reading is my number one destresser, and my work life has never been the same. I still devour as many books throughout the year as I can, and I feel energized and invigorated whenever I come across a real page turner.
This new attack on the ink smeared across any available literature led to my falling in love with Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and Rowling’s Harry Potter series. I had read those books as a child, but never appreciated their allegorical elegance. As an adult, it struck me in a life-changing way. I knew I wanted to write something life changing for someone else. I had also seen the writing of my brother Andrew. Drew is not a talkative man. And yet, when I read his writing for the local paper, I saw a new side of him. I heard a different voice and saw someone totally new, just through his writing. I very much wanted to steal that ability.
I wanted to write religious allegory, just like Rowling and Tolkien. So I started again. This time, I began working on a fictional series entitled Orbiting the Hero Cage. It began in fits and starts until my younger brother Tim bought me Stephen King’s “On Writing” for Christmas that year. And everything clicked. I began to write a little everyday. I started to ignore writer’s block. I stopped editing while I wrote and used writing as a form of meditation. I started letting my characters have autonomy. I started finding beta readers. And I started writing short fiction to submit to literary agents.
A year after it was finished and edited, I revisited what my wife had wisely advised I start calling merely The Hero Cage. It was awful. Unreadable. Wouldn’t wipe my ass with it.
So I started on a new book. It was also not very good.
But writing had given me so much. It truly is therapeutic, if you take the meditative approach described in King’s book. I slogged through project after project, hoping something would stick and become worthwhile. I started to doubt my abilities (which I should have; most people, myself included, start out as terrible writers). Until I invented a character named Tom Du Parque for a writing contest. And my first published short story came through.
I’ve been chasing that high ever since. I’ve had some other stuff published. I got tired of waiting on a literary agent though. I feel like my writing is getting better and better and has even more room to grow. I look forward to sharing that growth with others. And I want to share all the crap I write along the way, as my writing improves. I felt like Pete vs the City of Chicago was the first thing I wrote that needed to be shared with others but that literary agents, for various reasons, just weren’t interested in. I don’t wanna sit around and wait for the perfect agent who loves Chicago and 90’s nostalgia as much as I do. So I hired an editor and moved on with my life. Hence the self-publishing. If you’re interested in my work, please check it out on Amazon. If you’re not, thanks for following me along this quick trip down the writing hole.
Happy Reading.
-BR
