Story telling game

I posted yesterday about how I had been "distracted" by the role playing game I'd started writing...well I finished the game off and pushed it up onto the biggest RPG web site on the web for sale today.

Next, I'll be converting the ODF file into an ePUB.  Once in that format I'll be able to push it onto Kindle via the "kindlegen" software, and onto the iBook Store/Nook Store via LuLu.

The ODF is only about 37 pages and the cover art is already done, had to do that for the PDF release mentioned above.

So this afternoon will be dedicated to using my favourite ePUB software, the free and excellent "Sigil".

P.S. Now ePUB'ed at LuLu

One step closer to some actual writing

Last post, I was moaning about the non-writing things I have to do. Well one of the jobs at leas,t is now out of the way.

The ePUB version of Cthulhu and How I Found Livingstone is now available. After much swearing and angrified typing, the ePUB was finally completed and uploaded.

I pushed it up to LuLu, they also submit the eBooks to Nook and iBookstore so over time it will make its way onto their digital shelves too. Tomorrow I hope up upload to a couple more places, including the Kindle store.

I am constantly amazed just how much non-writing work there is in writing! The formatting for the various stores is hours and hours of dull boring work.

Sigh

I'm starting to think that I'll never write again! Other projects seem to be piling up and getting in the way.

One of the tasks on my plate at present is getting the Gamebook "Barsoom! Rise to Power" through the submission process for the Nook store and the iBookstore.  These two places are really picky about how you build your ePUB file. Despite the book looking good and passing all of the validation checks there are always a number of things they want fiddling with.

At the moment I'm having to hand-edit the NCX file in the ePUB to add sections in that aren't really sections, they dont having headings indicating they are sections. Yet their people have examined it and arbitrarily decided they should be sections... so sections they shall be. It's not worth the fight.

The really mind bending part of the process, is that its takes anywhere from 3-7 days to get the rejection, and when they reject a book they stop checking after the first problem. So even if they book has 5 problems they only tell you about one. And each one has to go round the cycle. Ho-hum.

The other task currently getting in the way, is the job of formatting another ePUB. This time it's the recently finished "Cthulhu and How I Found Livingstone" book.  Although it's now ready in paperback, I'll get more sales as an ePUB, so now I'm slogging through converting it.

I have a short story and another book all plotted, but I just don't seem able to get to em!

The Resurrection

It's back! The Gamebook that I and my collaborator had released only to quickly withdraw from sale, is back on sale.  At present, only in ePUB from LuLu, but the other formats and locations will come online over the next week or so.

What was the problem, you ask? We decided to write a book set in the "Barsoom" universe, it seemed like a good idea what with the upcoming release of  the "John Carter" movie. We thought ourselves safe to write in that universe as the John Carter books are in the public domain. Alas and alarms! Be warned!

We opted to star in our book, and indeed name the book after, a secondary character in the first book (Princess of Mars) by the name of "Tars Tarkas".  Having written the book and even started to sell it, did we realise that the words "Tars Tarkas" had been trademarked!

What did this mean to us as authors. Well to start with, we are both hobbiest writers, so getting into anything "legal" was not in our remit, we wanted no part of any court case, so we immediately withdrew the book from sale.  Although the book (Princess of Mars) is in the public domain, once a phrase or name is trademarked it can be legally protected forever if the trademark owner wishes. So we would have had no standing in court anyway.

Back we went to the drawing board. We decided to stay "true" to the Barsoom universe, but avoid the trademarked names. Unfortunately for us changing our protagonists name meant that the relationships between the characters established in "Princess of Mars" no longer applied. So we couldn't get away with just a cut and paste name change in our text.

We changed our protagonist be a tertiary character from the original book then set about the editing the story line to match the position of the new character. Fortunately this only required a minimal number of edits, a few changes at the beginning and and at the end of the book, with simple name changes being sufficient throughout the rest of the text.

So here we are a month or so later just starting to put the book back on sale. Detail of outlets will be added to my Book page as they come online.

15th July 2012 :A footnote to the above : We have decided to not sell the book in ePUB format. Although we initially created a fully working ePUB we found that on some devices the navigation from entry to entry failed.  It worked fine on Sony readers but would fail on some of the others. For instance, when navigating backwards on the Nook, from page 200 to 105, the page would  be aligned with the bottom of the page rather than the top. At times this meant you could not see the text. We found this issue insurmountable and have decided that the ePUB format is not ready for bi-directional navigation.

Gamebook released in ePUB format

My latest collaborative book project has started to become available via electronic outlets. "What is it?" you ask!

Well, here it is. Tars Tarkas of Mars. This book is based in the "John Carter of Mars" universe and is a prequel of sorts to the first John Carter book, "Princess of Mars".


In this gamebook adventure we follow Tars as he carries out a solo mission to recover a lost treasure.


It's not an ordinary novel, but rather a game in a book. You read the first entry and are given some choices about what you want the protagonist to do, and depending on the choices you make you will read different segments, thereby controlling how the story is told and the eventual outcome.


Your choices in this game can lead to the successful completion of the mission or even to the death of Tars!  Check out the Kindle link below and take a look at the sample, if you've never seen this sort of thing before you're in for a surprise.




The book is available as a DRM free ePUB from LuLu.com and on the Kindle.  Soon to appear in print as a print-on-demand book, and in the iBook and Nook stores.

WITHDRAWN FROM SALE UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE ( just found out that "Tars Tarkas" is trademarked, what a bummer!)
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