Continuing the series on Where, When and What Tools, here’s the third entry–What tools do you use to write?

While it might seem like a simple question… you’re either writing by hand or writing with equipment (like a computer), there are many more choices available to you than just those two.

The Instrument

• a pen–roller ball, gel, thin-line marker
• a pencil–standard #2 or mechanical
• fountain pen complete with ink well
• calligraphy pen–to give your writing some flair
• colored pencils–useful for marking different kinds of text in different colors, like blue for vision sentences, green for taste, etc.

The Paper

• loose-leaf paper, lined or unlined
• notebook–the Mead notebooks you used in school, $1 specials from the bargain bin (I can’t resist these)
• journal–I love the fancy leather-bound journals with the gilded edges
• the backside of previously used paper–nice for drafts of your novel and for being eco-friendly
• oversized newsprint
• napkins–usually handy in a pinch
• sketch pads
• graph paper

Technology Alternatives

• a computer–desktop, laptop, or palmtop
• PDA (personal digital assistant)
• cell phone or smartphone
• Alphasmart
• dictation machine–if you have an actual person to type for you
• voice recognition software–if you don’t have an actual person to type for you
• typewriter–if you can still find one, maybe in a thrift shop or antique store

What tools do you use to write?

Part of a series…
Where Do You Write?
When Do You Write?
What Tools Do You Use to Write?

Continuing the series on
Where, When and What Tools, here’s the second entry on When to Write. Finding the right time to write can be challenging. Try this list to get you started.

When to Write

• get up an hour earlier in the morning
• go to bed an hour later
• on your lunch break
• on your smoke break (who says you have to smoke to take a five minute break?)
• right before leaving work to go home
• right when you arrive home from work
• before you leave for work
• during a boring meeting (only recommended if no one will notice your inattention)
• while cooking dinner
• while eating (any meal will do)
• while commuting (use a voice recorder if you’re driving – Safety First!)
• while walking the dog
• while walking on the treadmill
• in the afternoon
• when it rains
• when the sun shines
• during an appointment you made with yourself
• while standing in line
• while “on hold”
• during TV commercials
• in the drive-thru line
• during a sporting event
• while waiting for the laundry to get done
• while the children nap
• while the children are at school
• during your spouse’s favorite TV show (you know… the one you hate)

When do you write?

Part of a series…
Where Do You Write?
When Do You Write?
What Tools Do You Write With?

Having the right combination of place, time and tools will help a writer in three ways:

1. It will help him get more writing done, because everything feels right.
2. It will help him feel good about writing… which will keep him coming back to the story.
3. It will help him have more good days than bad days. (Yes, there are bad writing days. We’ve all been there.)

So how do you find the right combination of these three elements for yourself? Trial and error is the best way to find what works for you. Here’s a list of places to get you started on finding the right place for you.

Where to Write

• at a desk
• on the couch
• under a tree
• in a museum
• in a coffee shop or cafe
• in a parked car
• in the library
• at a bus station
• at your grandma’s house during a family gathering
• at an airport
• in a park
• on a bus
• at the kitchen table
• in a shopping mall’s food court
• on a plane
• in the bathtub
• in a hotel lobby
• in a bookstore with comfy chairs
• on a train
• in the school or office cafeteria
• on a ferry
• in a shed made over into an office
• in a room with no view
• in a room with a great view
• in a hotel room
• standing up
• lying down
• in a closet
• in an art gallery
• on the floor
• in a doctor’s waiting room (change the ‘a’ to an ‘r’ and it becomes “writing room”)

Where do you write?

Part of a series…
Where Do You Write?
When Do You Write?
What Tools Do You Write With?

As a follow-up to my post on creating your own ebook, I want to touch on some alternate forms for an ebook that you may want to pursue.

A PDF document is great for printing or reading on your computer, because it is a “fixed layout” format. However, it is lousy for reading on a cellphone, PDA, or ebook reader like the Kindle or Sony Reader. To reach people using these kind of devices you need to reformat your ebook in a different way, as a “reflowable” format. This allows the page to be displayed nicely on different sizes of screens, like portable devices. All of these formats listed below are reflowable formats, so they’re great for your mobile readers.

MOBI

This is short for Mobipocket. Mobipocket products support most Windows, Symbian, BlackBerry and Palm operating systems, but not Linux or Macintosh.

To create a file in this format, you need to download the Mobipocket Creator. It’s free to download. If your document is already in Word or RTF format, you can easily import it into the Creator and create the .mobi file.

Microsoft LIT

LIT files can only be read by the Microsoft Reader program, so a person would need to download Microsoft Reader to view them. To create a .lit file you use “Read in Microsoft Reader”. It’s an add-on, available from Microsoft, that can be used in conjunction with Microsoft Word (versions 2000, 2002 and 2003) to create .LIT extension e-books. It is not compatible with Office 2007, though.

eReader

This is a freeware program for viewing Pam Digital Media electronic books. Versions are available for PalmOS, iPhone, Symbian, Windows Mobile Pocket PC/Smartphone, desktop Windows, and Macintosh. The reader shows text one page at a time as paper books do. eReader supports embedded hyperlinks and images (a nice touch!). Additionally the Stanza application for the iPhone and iPod Touch can read both encrypted and unencrypted eReader files. eReader.com offers two Windows/MacOS programs for producing ebooks: the free Dropbook and the paid-for eBook Studio.

In Summary

If you’re going to be creating a large number of ebooks for your audience or fans, you may want to consider investing some time in creating these alternate formats. It will give your fans many more ways to enjoy your writing.

*Much of the info here is taken from Wikipedia.org — a great resource when you need to know something.

There are a lot of opinions in the publishing world about the future of print books. Some feel that print books will be around forever. Others think that we’re slowly moving to all electronic reading. Whichever side of the discussion you fall on, it is true that ebooks are gaining popularity.

March 8-14 is Read an Ebook Week. It is a week set aside to inform the public about the pleasures and advantages of reading electronically.

For a writer, ebooks open up more avenues for getting your work published. It can be easier and cheaper to set up as a digital publisher than a new print publisher. More publishers mean more possibilities to get published. And some print publishers are adding digital delivery to their formats. The more formats that are available, the more chances you have as a writer to find readers.

How Can I Get In On the Ebook Craze?

The easiest way for you to “cash in” on the popularity of ebooks is by publishing some of your own work as ebooks. I don’t mean just self-publishing your novels, though many writers choose to go that route. Instead, some authors are writing short stories or novellas to accompany their books in print. They make them available for free to their fans to enjoy. Lynn Viehl has done this regularly for the last few years and her fans love the new, original stories she puts out.

Why Do I Want to Make an Ebook?

You want to offer short stories for free download on your website (or through a document hosting site like Scribd) for two main reasons:

1. It provides a “reward” to your current fans by giving them more stories in a fictional world they like or starring characters they’re already familiar with. Short stories can be a great boost for your readers during the long intervals between book releases.

2. It provides a chance for non-fans to discover you and get hooked on your writing or your story worlds without making the larger commitment of buying a book.

Writers need readers and this can be a very low-cost (just requires your time) way to put your words in front of more people.

How Can I Create My Own Ebook?

It’s simple and easy to create your own Ebook to give away on your website.

1. Create the original document. Make sure it has good margins (at least 1″ all the way around) and line spacing (double-spacing is best) and choose a font that is clear and large, like Times New Roman 12. You want your story to be easy for people to read.

2. Next, save the doc in the PDF format. (I recommend you don’t save it as a “doc” type. That makes it a little too easy for someone to grab and copy your story.)

If you use Microsoft Office 2007, the ability to save a file as a PDF is already built in. Just do a File, Save As, and choose PDF as the type.

If your word processing software doesn’t have PDF functionality built in, there are several free PDF converters available for download or online. Keep in mind, some of the free converters will place a footer or a watermark on your document advertising their converter. If you don’t want that, keep looking around until you find one that doesn’t have that feature.

• doPDF – PDF converter that you can download.
• PDF converter – For this one, you upload your document to their site. It converts the doc to a PDF and emails it to you.
• PDF995 – This free version displays a sponsor page in your web browser each time you run the software.
• CutePDF Writer – A PDF converter to download.

3. Upload the new PDF file to your website. If you don’t have your own website, you can sign up for a free account on Scribd and upload it there.

4. Notify your friends and fans that you have a new story available for them to read and send them the link.

Places to Find Ebooks to Read

If you’re looking for some good material to read yourself (always important for writers to keep reading!) check out the Ebookweek website for links to free ebook sites.

And check out these sources:

ebookguru.org

Online Novels

Writers read. A LOT in many cases. Our love of reading is often the push that starts us writing. But with all the economic woes in the world today, many people are finding it necessary to cut expenses. And that sometimes means that there is less money for buying books.

If you haven’t heard of it yet, PaperbackSwap.com is a great alternative to buying new books. You list the books you want to get rid of and get credits to spend on “buying” someone else’s books. You pay only postage to ship your books to a requester and you receive books you request for free.

I signed up for it last Saturday and let me share with you my hard-earned wisdom on what NOT to do on PaperbackSwap.

1. Do not list 78 books immediately after you first sign up. This way lies MADNESS. Listing so many books greatly increases the chance that some of your books will be on other people’s wish lists and you will get bombarded with requests that you must fill promptly. Wrapping books for four hours and then hauling all 24 to the post office is not something you want to do, especially if half of them are hardbacks. Trust me on this.

INSTEAD: Start with 10. 10 books is enough to get you 2 credits to spend on 2 books. Then add books in blocks of 10 every few days. This will keep the flow of requests manageable.

2. Don’t wait to get your packaging supplies until after you sign up. You don’t want to make two or more trips to Staples (or your local office supply shop) in one night.

INSTEAD: Stock up on 2″ wide clear packing tape, bubble mailers, if you want to go the easy route, and find your scissors.

3. Don’t think that you’ll save money by taking the books to the post office and using the automated machine to weigh and buy postage. Those Automated Postal Center machines don’t have a setting for Media Mail and you’ll end up spending twice as much on Parcel Post pricing.

   Addendum to Tip 3: Don’t waste your time standing in line to have the postal clerk weigh the book and apply postage.

INSTEAD: Buy postage and Delivery Confirmation service through PBS for only 43 cents per package. You can print out the mailing label, slap it on the package and drop the book in your mailbox for your carrier to pick up. Your time is worth a lot more than 43 cents, trust me.

4. Don’t assume you must buy a postal scale to be sure the weight of the books is 100% accurate. Unless you really want to buy a postal scale just to have one in your home as a symbol of your Uber Writer status.

INSTEAD: Go with the estimated weight that PBS provides. It was pretty accurate on most of my books. (If you do decide to buy a postal scale, get a mechanical one that weighs up to 5 pounds. They were around $30 at Staples. Not that I bought one myself, you know, and then had to take it back because there were pieces rattling inside that shouldn’t rattle. Nope, not saying that at all.)

5. Don’t spend all your credits at once. If you have an item on your wish list and it becomes available, you have only 48 hours to confirm that you have credits available to get that book. If you don’t have credits available, the book goes to the next person who wants it.

INSTEAD: Hold one or two credits back as long as you have items on your wish list. If you don’t use the wish list, feel free to spend them all.

And there it is… 5 tips to make your PBS experience blissful and pain-free. For the most part.

Honestly, give PBS a try. You can get books for $2-3 each and send your unneeded books to a good home. It’s green-friendly and a great way to check out new authors for less money.

If you do sign up on PBS, add me to your Buddy List. My user name is cccorbin. And if you feel so inclined, you can list me as your referrer. It gets me a credit for each referral and you get the joy and delight of helping out a favorite writer. And the Muse Fairy of All Writing Knowledge will bestow fantastic plots and unforgettable characters on your novel.*

*Not a guarantee of service. Some restrictions may apply.