Seven Things You Don’t Know About "Moxie’s Problems" by Hank Quense @hanque99 #Fantasy #SciFi

Seven things you don’t know about Moxie’s Problems

The original Moxie story was a short story that I couldn't sell. I loved Moxie’s character and I was determined to put her into her own novel.

I was half-way through Moxie’s Problems when I put it on the side to write a series of non-fiction books called Self-publishing Guides. I did that because I got angry at all the misinformation floating around the internet on self-publishing.

I was able to return to the Moxie novel fairly easily because I always develop a series of mind-maps for my novels before I start to write the first draft. I had maps for the major characters, the plots and subplots and a third which is a graphical synopsis. These mind-maps allowed me to get back into the novel very quickly.

Some of the adventures in the novel, especially for King Artie were originally short stories I wrote a long time ago, but were never published. The Dogs of War and the Isolde adventure are two such short stores. The initial football game between the Knights and the Saxons was a short story I sold four or five times.

Originally, the novel was set in a fantasy land and Moxie was a dwarf. Her three knightly companions were a dwarf, an elf and a human. The fantasy setting conflicted with my plan to use Camelot as a backdrop so I had to change it.

The Camelot background bothered me for a while. The problem was my story bashed against the traditional Camelot legends and not in a small way. My Camelot was radically different and I felt it would annoy reads who hoped for a retelling of the traditional legends. My solution to this problem came with a sprinkling of scifi dust. Once I realized my Camelot took place in a parallel universe, I had my justification and it even encouraged me to develop more non-traditional aspects of Camelot.

One character I really enjoyed writing about was Tristan. In the story he is Camelot’s Bard and the world’s worst poet. I wrote a number of doggerel poems for him. I also made him a schizophrenic. His warrior self and his poet self are in a constant battle for supremacy of his mind. His poet self wants to soothe enemies with words, while his warrior self wants to attack audiences with his sword.

Do you enjoy untypical coming-of-age stories? Well, you won’t find one more untypical that Moxie’s Problem. Moxie is an obnoxious, teen-age princess who has never been outsider her father’s castle. Until now. The real world is quite different and she struggles to come to grips with reality. The story take space against a backdrop of Camelot. But it isn’t the Camelot of legends. It’s Camelot in a parallel universe. So, all bets are off!

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Genre – Fantasy, Sci-fi

Rating – G

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#ReviewShare #BookReview #Fantasy Wotan's Dilemma by Hank Quense @Hanque99

Wotan's Dilemma by Hank Quense
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the second book I am reading by the author and it was completely different than the first. The serious non-fiction tone you expect from him is completely gone from "Wotan's Dilemma" which is filled with mythology, colourful characters and humour.

In some ways, this book felt as if it was poking fun at the Lord of the Rings trilogy. In other ways, it was an original masterpiece that showcases Quense's writing style which I definitely want more chances to explore. Fafner was a strange creature I spent most of the book trying to understand but found his development to be detailed and fascinating.

This is an enjoyable read for anyone who likes an entertaining fantasy read. My only criticism is that not enough time is spent on the many characters and the multiple switches in POV becomes confusing if not makes the story hard to follow. Highly recommended where idea, plot and editing are concerned.

Disclosure - As a Quality Reads Book Club member, I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.


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Self-Publishing Guides #Excerpt on #Indie Publishers @Hanque99 #AmWriting

Excerpt 1 from Chapter 1, discussing Indie publishers

One relevant question we have to address concerns an alternative to self-publishing, the small indie press houses.  There are many of these houses to choose from.  To find listings of these indie publishers, go to Ralan.com.  Some of these indie presses will only publish ebooks or print books, others will put out both ebooks and print books.

The advantage of these indie press houses over self-publishing is that the indie house will do all the work of putting the book together and absorb the expenses of doing so.  Thus, they will provide a cover, edit your manuscript, design the interior of the book and take care of the other details.  If you self-publish, you would have to do all these chores yourself or pay for someone else to do them.  In summary, using an indie house relieves the author of a big chunk of work and expense.

There are many houses in business and they are often open for submissions,  In addition, their response times are much shorter than the traditional publishing houses who may take more than a year to respond.  Nevertheless, the response time can be many months long.

What’s not to like?  Well, when it comes to marketing the book, the indie press houses disappear from the scene.  Most of them won’t do any marketing at all.  As far as they are concerned, marketing is the responsibility of the author.  The only marketing they will do is to put up a web page for your book on their site.  This page will include your book cover, a book blurb, your bio blurb and possibly a buy-link or two.

So, whether you self-publish or use an indie house, you will still be responsible for the marketing campaigns and have to absorb the costs of all the marketing.  However, if you self-publish, you get most of the book revenue.  That’s usually 70% for ebooks and 35% for print books.

If you choose to go with indie publishing route, make sure you read the contract thoroughly.  If you’re not sure about some of the terms, ask the indie house for a clarification.  Make sure the copyrights remain with you and the indie only gets the first publication rights.  If you join a site like Linkedin, you can ask members in the writing groups for advice on confusing contract statements and rights issues.

With print books, here is another issue you must check on before making a decision.  It has to do with how much you will pay the indie publisher to order books to sell on your own at book events and signings.  I know authors who use indie presses and the cost of buying copies of their books from the indie is so high, they can’t make a profit on their copies unless they jack up the price to a point where it drives potential customers away.  This business practice should be given strong consideration in your decision to self-publish or use an indie publisher.

Finally, one last word on indie publishing houses.  These are often owned and operated by a single person and they frequently go out of business due to illness, death or the burden of all the work.  If this happens after your book is published by the indie house, you’ll have to get your rights back and try to get another publisher.

From my personal experience and that of other authors I know, indie press houses have a poor record of sending monthly or quarterly sales reports.  Many of them also don’t distribute the royalties as specified in the contract.  Before you agree to an indie contract, contact a few authors who have their books published by the indie house and ask them about these issues.

Planning on self-publishing a book? Uploading files to a packager isn't the entire scope of work. That's actually the easiest task, but there are many more necessary tasks to be done..  This book explains the entire self-publishing process.  It breaks up the publishing process into four timeframes starting four months before the availability date. This spreads the workload into easy-to-manage chunks.

The book describes the complete process necessary to self-published a book. Unlike those who maintain that self-publishing a book consists of simply uploading the cover and manuscript files, this book details all of the necessary preliminary tasks that have to be finished before uploading the files.

It’s a complete roadmap to get a book self-published. It’s organized by timeframes to break up the workload into manageable chunks.

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Genre - Non-fiction: how-to

Rating – G

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