Printed Books vs E-Books

We live in a very interesting time. Advances in technology are rapidly changing the way we communicate with one another and how we entertain ourselves.

Many of us fondly recall playing the pinball machine at the pizza parlor and then stood in awe as we watched the first Space Invaders arcade game get delivered. Now we anxiously await Battlefield 4's release so we can unleash devastation on an enemy half a world away while we verbally mock them on our headsets. Not that I would do anything like that.

I mean I would if I could, but I'm not that good....

As I have undertaken this journey in writing, it has caused me to consider things I am not sure I ever would have before.

Since a very early age I have been a voracious reader. Whether it is science fiction, a good mystery or a historical account of some obscure battle during WWII, I just enjoy it.

Until recently, my reading has been limited to printed books. I never bothered to keep up with the new "fad" of e-books, thinking they were more of a novelty. However, as I began to explore the options for publishing my book I have had to come to terms with the fact that this new medium is here to stay and is a force to be reckoned with.

Recently I purchased a Kindle HD for my wife and uploaded my book onto it so she could do some additional editing. The quality of the text is unbelievable and the ease of reading is superb. As a result it is causing me to rethink the entire e-book genre.

Don't get me wrong, I believe there will always be a place for printed books. There is just something about holding a book in my hands that I don't think I will ever be able to let go of. That being said, the convenience of having thousands of books at your fingertips, available whenever the moment hits you, is hard to argue against.

This brings me to the question. Given the option of either a printed book or an e-book, what would you prefer?

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Editing versus Writing

OK, so what do you do when you hit that wall during editing your book? You write of course.

Having been a lifelong "reader" I have to admit that I never imagined the amount of work that actually goes into writing a book. Let's say that the price you pay for a book will never begin to make up for the amount of work that actually goes into preparing it for you to read.

Ernest Hemingway once said “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

It's true, every line you write is yours, you bleed that story. The people are yours. You live your life in that book one conversation and one moment at a time. It becomes an extension of you. But this creates a quandary for the author, when is enough, enough?

I'm three revisions into the first book right now. Continuity is a big thing. I found a number of issues that needed to be resolved the first time around. The 2nd and 3rd amount to a lot of grammar and what I would call polishing. Just making sure you don't use the same words too much in any particular paragraphs. It is as much for me as it is wanting to give my readers the absolute best book possible.

But what happens when your eyes cross and you've downed enough alcohol and advil to stock a small, but heroic, combat unit?

You close that file and you begin anew. So here I am, about 4k words into the sequel. I have tons of ideas for the progression of the new book and it is fun to watch the characters continue to develop.

But I must get back to the original at some point.  Will the book be good? Will it welcomed and appreciated by readers? I don't know, but I know the people I have created in that book deserve the opportunity. 

Everything being said, I guess I am just rambling and recognizing the need to get back to basics and finish the first story.

So you wrote a book, now what?

Wow, I have to admit that I hadn't anticipated that question. I guess that's a good thing. if I had actually invested the time in doing the research about what it takes to get a book published I probably would have turned off my computer and mowed the yard.

This might come as a shock to many avid book readers, but publishing a book is harder than actually writing one. At least that is my humble opinion.

To bumper sticker it, once you write it then you need to find an agent to represent your book to the publishing houses. But there are a lot of writers out there and finding an agent, who is getting hundreds of queries a week, isn't easy. Even when an agent takes an interest, and asks to read your full manuscript, it might be months before you hear back. That's if your lucky. Then it could be even longer to market it to a publishing house and then, if they pick it up, months still before it actually moves forward.

Don't even get me started on formatting.........

Is it any wonder that neophyte authors throw their hands up in frustration and decide to self publish, but is this the answer?

An agent will do a lot of the work to get you published, self publishing is all you baby and their are any number of pitfalls with that. Couple that with the fact that many traditional book stores won't carry self published books and you can see why a lot of authors drink heavily and buy Advil in bulk quantities.

So here I am, completed manuscript in hand and wondering how to proceed. I have to admit it is a seriously tough choice.

Next time you pick up that book, stop for a moment and realize that what you are buying is a labor of love. With limited exceptions (i.e.: Stephanie Meyers, Twilight) getting a book to print is tough, and making money from it......haha, that's rich, well not really.

Having written a book, I can tell you this, if you are so inclined to write, do it as a hobby. This way you will have zero stress. As for me, I'm going to yet another website to research the differences between two online publishers.

Well, I'm going to do this after I knock back my three advil with a rum and coke. Cheers !

Follow me on twitter: @Andrew_G_Nelson

Perfect Pawn

When a woman goes missing from a one car accident on a desolate stretch of road in the scenic Adirondack town of Keenseville, New York, it is only the opening move in a much larger game of life and death.

For retired NYPD Detective, James Maguire, the pieces of his life were finally starting to fall into place. He had successfully made the transition to the private security sector and had just met Melody Anderson, a successful Southampton business woman, whom he felt he could have a real relationship with. Everything, it seemed, was looking up for him. That was until the morning newscast reported that the woman who has gone missing from the accident was someone Maguire once loved.

When he arrives back in his hometown he quickly learns that no one else, including the missing woman’s husband, the local sheriff, seems interested in pursuing the investigation into the accident that Maguire is starting to have doubts about. As he struggles to put the pieces together in time, he finds himself being drawn deeper into a game where people are as expendable as chess pieces and the only goal is to take down the king.

A crown Maguire unwittingly wears.


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The road to becoming an Author

My life has been interesting.

For me, each new day brings a better perspective on where I have been and the things I have accomplished.

I dropped out of high school, yet I graduated college. I stocked shelves in a supermarket, but retired as a sergeant with the largest police department in the United States. 

Today marks another milestone in my life. I wrote a book called Perfect Pawn.

It has been a long and circuitous journey and I felt that it was only fitting to document the story as my inaugural post.

Like most things, it had humble roots. At the time I was living on New York’s Long Island and was still working for the New York City Police Department. It was post 9/11 and it was a crazy period in my life.

The concept of the book actually started out as a goof.

I had been talking to my wife about writing and explained how I had gotten good at it. To be quite honest, when I was in school I was actually horrible. English was never my strong suit and I didn’t care whether a sentence needed a colon or a semi-colon. Quite frankly, I didn’t know what the difference was anyway.

During the early years of my career I became a bit more skilled in writing reports. I guess I developed a flair for it. A transfer to an investigative unit changed my life and laid the foundation for my writing.

It was the advent of the personal computer. Prior to that all reports were either done with typewriters and copious amounts of “white-out” or handwritten. We had a secretary that would transcribe the handwritten notes into the cutting edge IBM 386 computer and print them out for the case folders.

The problem was, when you had a dozen or so investigators, one secretary doesn’t make for timely turnaround times on revisions. As a result, case closures took much longer. So my partner and I began doing our own.

Back then we had an Assistant Chief who must have gone to St. Mary’s by the Sea parochial school, because everything came back red lettered for revisions and corrections.

It became a game.

My partner and I began to spend more time engaging in what I referred to as Creative Writing 101. Let’s be honest, saying “The witness was interviewed” several times in a report gets old quickly, so we invested in a thesaurus. Soon, the reports came back with fewer and fewer corrections. I spent the remainder of my career in various investigative units where I honed these skills.

Then one night, as my wife and I were talking I explained that writing a story was easy and proceeded to show her. It was a very short story, only about a half dozen pages or so. The premise revolved around a guy who wakes up one morning with a girl in his bed. He goes out for a run and when he comes back the girl is gone, but she left her number. He jumps in the shower and when he comes out he stares at himself in the mirror. He has scars on his chest from a recent shooting and he is suddenly flooded with memories. After shaking them from his mind he goes out to the kitchen to get coffee and the front page of the paper shows a photo of his former high school girlfriend who has been killed.

Several years later I had retired and we moved to Illinois. One day my wife was talking to someone about this incredible book she had read but couldn’t remember the ending.

It was the short story that I had written.

I still wasn’t convinced it was anything more than her being nice and the idea languished. Finally, in the summer of 2012, a decade after I had first put pen to paper, I caved in to my loving wife's demands for "closure" to the story and began to write.

The original story had been lost to time and two moves. So I took the original premise and began to rework it. I started with the prologue. I figured if I couldn’t get that part right, no one would be interested.

In the beginning it was hard. I mean how do you write a book?

“Once upon a time” and “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” had already been done.

I had always been a voracious reader from an early age. By the time I was in my teens I already had my own “library” of about a hundred books. One thing I had always possessed was an ability to “see” the books as if watching a movie. I took the characters and scenes and literally created the world in my mind.

I sat down and asked the basic question: “What happened to her?”

From this premise a story developed, characters took shape and a plot evolved. I decided to let the story take me where it wanted to go. I had thoughts, ideas, opinions, but I didn’t stay anchored to them. The story came to life in my mind and I just wrote what I watched.

One hundred and fifteen thousand words later, I wrote the final line of my book and allowed myself to bask for a moment.

That was yesterday, this is today.

Now comes the really tough part, editing and polishing it and starting to submit it to agents.

So there you have it. I hope you bookmark the page and stay for the journey.

Follow me on twitter: @Andrew_G_Nelson