The principles of using Twitter, or any social network come to that, seem to me to be pretty basic. Be honest, be yourself, engage in genuine two-way dialogue, and don’t see others purely in terms of how you can use them and what they can do for you. Other people don’t exist for your convenience alone. They have their own needs and desires, and if you’re looking to them to help you out in your needs and desires, you first need to look at how you can help them out with theirs. Entertain them. Inform them. Help them. Then they might help you. It’s not hard. After all, those are pretty much the rules for all networking, both on and offline.

So what was this attempt that so amused and horrified me? Well below is a screenshot where I’ve displayed the bloke’s entire Twitter history to that point on the left with, on the right, the image that he was sending links to:

Yes. He’d written an entire total of six tweets at that point, only one of which was not related to his book – and that was in text speak, which in my humble option isn’t the best choice to make if you’re trying to present yourself as a serious author. He’d made no attempt to craft any kind of online persona, but had instead simply dived in with spammy type messages sent to various organisations to advertise his book.

And what of the spammy type messages themselves? Well after starting with one that did at least have some kind of message and a link to his website, he then gave up on that and just starting sending a link to an image that contained the front cover and back cover blurb. No explanation. Just a link.

The only reason I found out about it was because I follow one of his “targets” and they did retweet it, but with an added comment explaining to him that people don’t usually click on links that come from people they don’t know and which have no accompanying text.

Writing a book is hard. It takes a lot of time and effort. After all that, I’m slightly mystified as to why someone would appear to put in so little thought and effort as to how they might market it.

It was rather cool.

85,182 words, which is about 75,000 more than I had when I resumed work on the novel after Christmas. And yes, it has already been pointed out to me that while Scrivener records number of words and number of characters, it singularly fails to record the number of Costa Coffee points incurred during the writing process. (Probably in excess of 1500).

You can’t have everything.

I won’t labour the point, but I think there is a fine line between blunt comment and honest opinion on one hand, and egotistical arrogance and plain damn rudeness on the other, and I think that in saying things such as this:

It is indefensible that a novel like Charles Stross’s Rule 34 (Orbit) should be given apparent credibility by an appearance in the Clarke shortlist. Stross writes like an internet puppy: energetically, egotistically, sometimes amusingly, sometimes affectingly, but always irritatingly, and goes on being energetic and egotistical and amusing for far too long. You wait nervously for the unattractive exhaustion which will lead to a piss-soaked carpet. Stross’s narrative depends on vernacular casualness, with humorous asides, knowing discursiveness, and the occasional appeal of big soft eyes. He has PC Plod characters and he writes och-aye dialogue! To think for even one moment that this appalling and incapable piece of juvenile work might actually be chosen as winner brings on a cold sweat of fear.

…he has well and truly crossed that line.

You can read more about this affair at the Guardian.

One of the great things about Scrivener is the degree to which you can customise it, and the key way in which I customise it is to set it to show the point of view (POV) of each scene. The way I write (and as always, your mileage may vary, there is no one true way etc. etc.) is to break the story down into scenes, and then write such that each scene is from the POV of a single “viewpoint” character. That is to say that each scene is told through of eyes of just one character. I try to establish in the first paragraph of each scene who the viewpoint character is. And if I later need to switch POV, I break into a new scene.

Scrivener is perfect for a scene based approach, as each novel is broken up in a hierarchical format: novel => chapters => scenes. By default, Scrivener doesn’t record the POV of each scene, but if – like me – POV is a important factor in when and why you place scene breaks, it’s very easy to do so.

Here’s how. (Note: all screenshots are from the Mac version of the application, but I imagine the Windows version works similarly).

Let’s take a sample Scrivener project:

We have four scenes written, over two chapters, but as you can see, there’s no obvious way to tell which POV each scene is written from.

But if we look at the right-hand side of the screen, we can see that each scene is given a label, in this case of type “scene”. I personally don’t find these default labels useful, so I replace them with POV tags.

STEP 1: Go to the General Meta Data panel on the right and click on the topmost drop-down (which will be captioned “Label”).

STEP 2: Click on the bottom-most option in the drop-down list, Edit…

This will bring up the Meta-Data Settings dialog box.

STEP 3: Click on the add button to add a label for each of your characters (i.e. use the character’s name as the label).

STEP 4: Use the minus button to remove all the other labels.

STEP 5 (Optional): If you wish, you can double-click on each colour box next to the characters’ names, to bring up a colour editor that allows you to change the colour assigned to the character. I like to make the colours descriptive in some way, so if I have an angry character, a logical character and an emotional character, I might set them to red, blue and green respectively. I often have a catch-all category of “Other”, for minor POV characters, and this I tend to set to grey.

STEP 6: Change Custom Title to “POV”.

It should now look something like this:

STEP 7: Click on OK.

We’ve now given ourselves the ability to set each scene to a particular viewpoint. And the viewpoint will be displayed in the Meta- Data Settings panel on the right. However, this doesn’t help us gain an overview, since we still need to select the scene in order to see whose POV it is from. However, Scrivener allows us to change the display to rectify this.

STEP 8: Click on the View menu, and then on “Use POV Color In” (this will be called “Use Label Color In” if you didn’t rename “Label” to “POV”).

A sub-menu will pop out.

Make sure that Binder and Index Cards are ticked (click on them if they aren’t). You might have to click on the View menu twice, first to check Binder and then to check Index Cards.

After doing this, the left-hand binder will now be colour coded according to POV, enabling you to keep track of who’s getting “screen- time” at a glance. (This is especially handy if each of your POV characters is engaged in a different sub-plot).

The synopsis in the top-right corner will be shown colour-coded. (For the purposes of this demonstration, I haven’t entered any text for the synopsis). This is also the case when using the Corkboard to look at the chapter as a whole.

Scrivener’s a very powerful package, and I probably only scratch the surface of it. There may be better ways to handle POV, but the above works well for me. And if POV isn’t a huge factor in your writing, then you can still set the labels to something that is, and have them appear in the binding.

Like I said, if you do any sort of writing, I’d strongly suggest checking out Scrivener. If you want to learn more about how to use it, I’ve heard very good things about Writing a Novel With Scrivener by David Hewson. And if you’re interested in trying it out, you can download a trial edition from here:

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php

Hope this proves useful!

However, it’s now 19th February 2012 and I haven’t posted since last December. So much for assumptions.

Anyhow, the mundane truth is that I’m currently bashing away on a novel, which is taking up pretty all of my writing time. Hopefully, I will at some point post something else here, but in the meantime, at least my last post isn’t from 2011.

Click here to read it.

When you publish your book to Kindle, you can’t specify that it is the Kindle version of an existing paper book. Instead, you’re supposed to wait and allow the Amazon database to figure this out and link them together.  In my case, that didn’t seem to happen, resulting in me having to contact them, supply the details of the paper and Kindle versions, and ask them to do it – which they did.

The process takes several days and isn’t yet complete. When it is, reviews written about the paper version should appear on the Kindle version’s page (which is currently reviewless), and when going to the paper version’s page, you will be offered the option of purchasing the book on Kindle.

But there’s a third benefit, which didn’t occur to me until I was looking at the (now partially linked) Kindle page, and seeing how the price is displayed now that it is lined to the print version (click to make bigger):

Now I’m not an expert in the psychology of prices and pricing. But I think that might be quite cool.

See, if I had only a Kindle version, the price would be £0.70. A browser might come across this and conclude that it is “cheap”. But they might also conclude that it’s clearly not worth much. But now, they see that the price is £0.70 compared with a price for the print version of £7.99 – a saving of 91%. It’s no longer £0.70 for something worth £0.70, but £0.70 for something worth £7.99. I’m hoping that the word that will come to mind now will be “bargain” rather than “cheap”. (There is a proper name for this “price expectation” effect, but I can’t remember it now).

Well here’s hoping, anyhow.

Or it might fizzle out and die, taking my hope and dreams with it.

There isn’t so much I can do to determine which of those two outcomes occur. But there is something that you can do. Two things in particular. It’s really quite cheeky for me to ask you to do them, but it’s really important to me, and I’m hoping you won’t mind.

Firstly, you can buy the Kindle version of Game Night, even if you’ve already got the paper version. You don’t need a Kindle. Amazon do free Kindle applications for Windows PC, Mac OS X, iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry and Android. These allow you to purchase and read Kindle books just as if you had an actual Kindle. (It’s pretty straight-forward, but I’ve put some instructions at the end).

During this initial launch period, it will only cost you 99c in the US, or 70p in the UK, which I’d like to feel is a small enough amount that I can ask you to do as a favour to me, albeit a rather considerable one for which I will owe you a drink. (In case you’re interested, the amount of money I’ll get out of that is 35c, but it will be worth far, far more than that to me).

Buying Game Night is pretty crucial. At present, if you type “Game Night” into Amazon you get a long list of books with Game Night in the title, not one of which is my one. If enough of you buy Game Night I’ll be at the top of that list. Sales will also give it a high Amazon ranking, which gives the book credibility with readers and will help it get into Amazon’s crucial recommendation system.

Secondly, assuming you’ve enjoyed reading Game Night, you can recommend it to people who follow you on social networks like Twitter and Facebook as well as the many forum sites out there. I’ll be doing tweets about Game Night. If you’re a twitter user and could retweet one of them (or even better do your own tweet), I’d be very grateful. When it comes to making Game Night really take off, I can light the fire, but it’s those around me who have to blow on the flames.

The best links to use are:

US: http://www.amazon.com/Game-Night-ebook/dp/B0057JPZSG

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Game-Night-ebook/dp/B0057JPZSG

Finally, as always, if you liked Game Night then I would be very happy if you did a short review, either on Amazon or your own blog, saying so. Alternatively, you can go to the Amazon pages for the book (the above links) and click on the “Like” button, to say that you like the book. (Assuming you do, or course!)

And it would be especially nice if you comment here, or on Twitter or Facebook, to say that you’ve bought or retweeted or posted.

I know this entire post is just a tad cheeky, but I really will be grateful for any and all help. Thank you. I really appreciate it.

HOW TO BUY A KINDLE BOOK (IF YOU DON’T ALREADY HAVE A KINDLE)

1) Download and install the appropriate app. If you have a Windows PC, you can download it here. If you have an Apple Mac, you can download it here (it will only work Macs bought within the last five years, as you need an Intel one and it needs to be running at least OS X 10.5 Leopard). Otherwise, if you have an iPad, an iPhone, a BlackBerry, or some kind of Android phone or tablet, you should download the “Kindle” app from whichever app store you normally use. In all case, it’s free.

2) Enter your Amazon account details into the app (i.e. you log in). US customers can enter their Amazon.com account details. UK customers can enter their Amazon.co.uk details.

3) Click on the “Kindle Store” button. This will take you to the Kindle Store. (Which is basically the Amazon website, but showing only Kindle titles).

4) Search for “Jonny Nexus”. Pick Game Night from the resulting list. (It should be either 99c or 70p, depending on whether you’re on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk).  Click that you want to buy it.

That’s it. It should then be automatically downloaded to whichever app you’re using to make the purchase. If you have multiple Kindle apps (on both your iPad and iPhone say, or Windows PC and Android phone) you can download it to the “other” app by going into the “Archived” section and selecting Game Night. (You only pay once, even if you read it on multiple devices).

US: http://www.amazon.com/Game-Night-ebook…

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Game-Night-ebook…

As part of his I’ve done a press release, reproduced below. Please feel free to grab any or all of it if you want to post something up on a blog, on Facebook, or on a forum.

PRESS RELEASE

Game Night, Jonny Nexus’s 2007 ENnie-nominated novel of roleplaying gods, is now available on Amazon’s Kindle platform, with versions available both for standard Kindles as well as the Kindle apps for PC, iPhone, iPad and Android. To celebrate this event, it will initially be sold at a bargain launch rate of just 99 cents in the US (Amazon.com) and 70 pence in the UK (Amazon.co.uk).

As well as achieving the prestigious ENnie nomination, Game Night was widely lauded in reviews. Cartoonist and writer John Kovalic said:

“A Pratchet-esque debut novel of gods, roleplaying, and game-night kerfuffles … Buy Game Night. It’s a fun, fresh, irreverent read that’ll ring true to any gamer even if, unlike the protagonists, you happen not to be a god.”

And on RPGNet, RPG writer and reviewer Steve Darlington declared:

“The best novel ever written about gaming. One of the funniest novels ever written about anything.”

The novel’s author, Jonny Nexus, says: “Launching Game Night on the Kindle is a big thrill for me. The paper version of Game Night got a better response than I’d ever hoped for. People really enjoyed it, both gamers and non-gamers. It really seemed to strike a chord, and I can’t wait for a whole new group of people to read it.”

Game Night on the Kindle can be found on Amazon at:

US: http://www.amazon.com/Game-Night-ebook/dp/B0057JPZSG

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Game-Night-ebook/dp/B0057JPZSG

204 words

ABOUT JONNY NEXUS

Jonny Nexus lives in Brighton with his wife, their dog, and an array of chew toys that the dog invariably leaves on the top-most step but one.

He is the editor, co-founder, and chief-writer of the cult gaming webzine Critical Miss. He wrote The Slayer’s Guide to Games Masters for leading roleplaying publisher Mongoose Publishing, as well as writing a monthly column for their magazine Signs & Portents.

His debut novel Game Night, published by Magnum Opus Press in 2007, was shortlisted for a Gen Con EN World Award (an “Ennie”). This August, Mongoose Publishing will publish “The NeXus Files”, a compilation of Jonny’s Signs & Portents articles. And a short story of his (“On Her Majesty’s Deep Space Service”) will be appearing in a forthcoming anthology from new publisher Stone Skin Press.

A ten-thousand-year quest is about to be completed. Prophecies will be fulfilled, ancient riddles answered, legendary evils bested, and the nature of the universe revealed. All that’s needed is a band of mighty heroes to do the completing.

Unfortunately for the locals, some of the gods have taken a personal interest in the chronicle of these heroes’ adventures. Now they are each guiding one of the characters towards the conclusion of their epic journey. That is, when they’re not squabbling, backstabbing each other, blowing things up by accident, refusing to play by the rules, and turning the AllFather’s creation into a mess of petty arguments, fantasy cliché, gratuitous combat and unnecessary dice-rolls.

If you thought your games group couldn’t be any worse, Game Night shows just how bad things can get when a bunch of unruly deities decide they want to play. And may the heavens help us all.

“The best novel ever written about gaming. One of the funniest novels ever written about anything.” —RPGNet review (rating 5/5) by Steve Darlington

But wait, there’s more!

Sorry, appear to be channelling the inner QVC I wasn’t aware I had.

But there is more. While I’m not necessarily aiming for world domination, it’s important to me that Game Night does well. Not just on a personal level, but because I need something to show agents and publishers that, contrary to what they might think, there is actually a market for humour fantasy/SF, and that just maybe I’m someone who can write it. So far, it’s done okay in terms of sales (probably around 1800 copies sold so far), and very well in terms of how well people liked it. But it seems I need more if I want it to be something that causes agents to sniff at my door.

So the second bit of news is that Game Night will launch on the Kindle at a special launch price of 99 cents (and a similar amount in the UK). Yes, that’s $0.99. This isn’t what I think my novel is worth – I think it’s worth a lot more. But it is an amount that I’m hoping will provoke curiosity, interest, and those all-import re-tweets.

At some point the price will go up to what I think the novel is worth (I haven’t yet determined what that is, but I know it’s more than the price of a small bottle of cola). So if you’ve got access to a Kindle device or app, and you haven’t yet read Game Night then I’d suggest you buy it when you can.

Actually, you know what? I’d just ask you to buy it.

And if you have another device, I will be trying to get Game Night out in other formats just as soon as I get this out of the way.