Tag Archives: short stories

April 27, 2012 · 11:32 am

“1000 Words” – Now Available in Paperback

Well, the good news is: It’s here. My Honors College Project is done. Turned in. Complete.

Yay. 🙂

Formally titled “1000 Words: A Collection of Short Stories,” is is now available on Amazon. I even fixed the description’s HTML so that it used line breaks. (Though it looks like I’ll have to independently set up the “search inside” feature for the paperback book).

http://www.amazon.com/1000-Words-Collection-Short-Stories/dp/1475227477/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335566292&sr=8-1

Gotta admit, the cool thing is that while I was showing a copy of the printed book to my mentor for the project, a few of the other photo students got a chance to look at it and seemed impressed. Plus, one of the staff who works there decided to buy my book, making him the first official buyer of the paperback edition. Yay! My fiance has first dibs on the ebook edition. LOL 🙂

So now, here’s the part that may or may not be helpful for those of you reading my posts. I’ve taken pictures of the printed book (The Honors College permitted me to buy ten of them, one first myself, one for my mentor, and one for each of the seven models), at different angles. It’s a 6×9 inch paperback book from CreateSpace (they do print-on-demand, or “POD” printing) at 72 pages.

I’ll say one thing. It may be small, but I’m impressed with the interior color printing. The text is crisp, and the colors from the images don’t appear to smudge. The inner covers look great. I might have been a little off on how the spine was supposed to look, but it looks like the guides were correct (once I made a PSD to work from) for the wraparound cover. The paper for the front cover feels a little thin (as opposed to the paper a book printed at Lulu used for the cover) but the quality of the image looks great.

The paper pages are a bright white, but easy to read. I would personally consider extending the gutters out a bit or changing how I typeset the text in word, because the sentence feels a bit short when I try to read a paragraph, but that’s something I personally can do better to improve.

The pages open easily but do not lay flat (I felt a bit concerned about how thin the book is, but the binding appears to be holding).

Now, on to the pictures. 🙂

Front Cover:

Back Cover:

Side View:

Inner Pages:

Text Page:

Cover Page:

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Tagged as 1000 Words, books, createspace, Lulu, paperback, POD, print-on-demand, SBibb, self publish, self-publishing, short stories, Stephanie Bibb, Stephanie Flint, writing

April 25, 2012 · 4:26 am

Updated Website and “1000 Words” Paperback Edition

Last night I uploaded the updated version of my website, http://www.sbibbphoto.com . Now it is split into two sections, Portrait and Event Photography, for the more traditional side of things, and Photographic Illustration and Book Cover Design for my illustrative work. Luckily it only took a couple days to really tweak and update it, but as I’m looking at it, I wonder if my blog and DeviantArt account may be better suited to showing off my work. They’re both easy to update, and you can see the pictures at a much larger size.

Which brings up the question, how large of a size do potential clients want to see images? I already know that I need to update the background for the portrait section of the website, (and tweak the splash page), but I wonder if it might be better to redo the style entirely. My fiance brought up a good point; it’d be a good idea to show both my stronger traditional portraits, as well as my illustrative ones. I know it’s going to take a while to get my book cover design business going. So even though my professors generally say, “Show what you want to sell,” perhaps it’d be a good idea to show both for the time being.

At least until the book cover design business takes off.

And if nothing else, the website works as a good hub for connecting all the different sites I frequent together.

Meanwhile, on the topic of “1000 Words,” I’ve gone into Createspace to set up pricing, and came in for a bit of a sticker shock. Keep in mind, I can order these books for myself for about $6.00. I planned on adding a couple dollars for personal royalties, thus putting it around $8.00. Still kind of pricy, but not necessarilly horrible for a full color book. But with the way the royalties are set up, the minimum I can sell it for is $9.80-something, and that’s not counting royalties on Amazon. My only guess is that it might be for shipping? If I want to make $2.00 off each book on Amazon, I’d be selling it for near $12.00.

Personally, if I was considering buying a paperback for myself, I’m not sure that’d be worth it, for any book that size.

So now I’m trying to decide if I should actually try selling it in paperback version. I suspect that once shipping costs are added in, I wouldn’t do much better trying to sell it myself (unless I was selling it by hand). I probably will upload a paperback version, so it’s there, but I’ll definitly recommend going for the ebook version, if all you want is the stories. (Now if you want your own, personal, handheld copy with all its cool formatting, by all means, go for the paperback version).

But it looks like I won’t be able to sell the paperbacks for under $10.00, like I’d originally planned. Either way, I plan to release it this Friday.

It does bring up one problem that self-publishers have trying to sell thier books, though. Being price-competitive has its complications.

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Tagged as 1000 Words, Amazon, anthology, createspace, photographic illustration, photography, pricing, SBibb, self publish, self-publishing, short stories, Stephanie Bibb, Stephanie Flint, website, writing

April 24, 2012 · 12:41 pm

“1000 Words” Anthology Available on Kindle and Developing a Novella

I’m almost done with the “1000 Words” posts, really. 🙂 But I thought it’d be worth mentioning that the anthology is now available on Kindle : http://www.amazon.com/1000-Words-Collection-Stories-ebook/dp/B007WMXV6O/ref=sr_1_24?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1335312063&sr=1-24

The paperback version will be available starting this Friday the 27th, assuming that all goes well. It should be available on Amazon and Createspace. At this point in time I’m not doing expanded distribution, since I don’t think it will have the drive needed to pay itself off. The book will be under $10.00, and will include all ten short stories, have special print formatting, and be in full color (hence the price) that includes each of the ten book covers. 🙂

On a side note, I’ve found that I enjoyed putting all this together. So while short stories themselves may not be my thing (I can now focus on my YA novel, yay!), I’m considering writing a collection of short stories that develop into a novella. Reason being, a few reviews I’ve gotten on Smashwords suggested interest in seeing The Hunter or Socks developed into a longer story. While I don’t see The Hunt becoming much longer (unless I get a few short story ideas I decide to develop), I am considering writing Socks into a two or three part novella. That is– write three sections that are approximately 10,000 words (but not strictly linked to that– I learned from this project that’d be a bad idea). Each one would be a complete story, but the whole project would be linked. Each of the three parts would probably cost a dollar or so.

For a quick reminder, Socks is the YA sci-fi romance short story I wrote for “1000 Words.” It has hints of dystopia, and can be found free on Smashwords if you’re curious to see which one I’m talking about: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/154150

So if you guys are interested in seeingSocksdeveloped into a novella, please bring up your thoughts and comment. That way I know if it’s worth dividing my time between it and the YA novel I’m working on. 🙂

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April 22, 2012 · 10:43 am

Self-Publishing “1000 Words” – Ebook Anthology Now Available

Well, the good news is in! “1000 Words: A Collection of Short Stories” is now available as an ebook on Smashwords, and soon to be available on Kindle. 🙂

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/154613

Here’s the cover reveal (went through a couple transformations, but this is by far the one I like best. Yay for a “Twilight Zone” feeling):

Overall, converting it into an ebook wasn’t so hard. Mostly just time consuming, and tweaking things here and there (I’m pretty sure there’s still a couple issues with the Smashwords format, but I’m not sure what). Once I had the Smashwords one done, converting it to a Kindle ebook didn’t take long. Unfortunately, you don’t get all the neat layout designs of a print book, but the content and images are the same.

It’s available for $2.99, and comes with one additional short story not available for free (unlike the other nine stories in it). I will soon be making a print edition available through Createspace, and the price is to be determined.

I’m considering offering formatting services for both print and ebook editions for self-published authors if this goes well, so let me know what you think. 🙂

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Tagged as 1000 Words, anthology, createspace, e-publishing, ebook, editing, honors college project, Kindle, SBibb, self publish, self-published, self-publishing, short stories, Smashwords, Stephanie Bibb, Stephanie Flint, writing

April 21, 2012 · 7:49 am

Self-Publishing “1000 Words” – Socks

The last “1000 Words” short story, Socks, is now available on Smashwords. It’s young adult themed, mostly sci-fi romance with a hint of a dystopian background. I say a hint because they’re never actually in a dystopian society, but it was in the back of my mind when I wrote it. Needless to say, I had an interesting time working on the cover. It didn’t like me.

First of all, I wanted a pair of socks on the cover, one of the elements in the story. So I decided to make it plain and simple, aiming for something like the cover of Matched. Only, if you think about it, that cover isn’t really simple. Clean, yes. Not simple. (Awesome book, by the way, if you like dystopias and romance).

So I did up a pair of socks to look like the ones in the story, threw it on a white background, used a grungy text in watermelon pink to match the coloring. Too plain (as you can see below).

So then I decide to do a soft background, one with an industrial or city look and a grungy texture over it. Ah-ha! Awesome! I showed it to a few people… who pointed out that socks would do nothing to sell the story, especially considering that it was pink… and looked nothing like a dystopia. (Nevermind that at this point I realized the story isn’t dystopia. It’s sci-fi, maybe post-apocalyptic, but not dystopia). I was disappointed, since I thought the cover was well done… until someone else pointed out that it looked like a children’s book.

Well… rats.

As you can see below… it doesn’t fit the market.

So I tried again. Borrowed from the background, grabbed a couple pictures of people, did some more tweaking… and hated the cover. Didn’t look right, wasn’t going well at all, and I needed to be formatting the print version of “1000 Words,” not fiddling with covers.

Finally, I tried again. I borrowed the original background and softened it. Found a picture of a girl in my stock, tried to give it that sci-fi dystopia look. Made it kind of ambiguous. Image was kind of soft, so I played with that more in my favor. Added text… no socks this time, and didn’t make it pink. Played on the gray, grungy look. Liked the title being center, and added a bar running behind it.

I actually like this cover. Now the only problem is that it looks military sci-fi/dystopian… when the story is sci-fi romance (in a post-apocalyptic world). *Sigh.* Well, it works for the point of showing cover art, but if I had more time, I’d try again. Maybe a couple teens laying back on a grassy hill, overlooking the destruction of the city. A nice, opening scene. And in the gray sky, “Socks” would be written in the clouds.

Why didn’t I think of this three days ago? Now I know I need to get more couple stock photos.

So there you have it. The process behind the cover art for Socks. What did I learn? You can make a cover you like, but if it doesn’t look the genre, you’re still going to have problems.

Read Sockfor free on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/154150

Up next: I’m working on revamping sbibbphoto.com, where I’ll split it into two sections. One will be for “real world” photography, while the other will be for book covers and illustrations. Also, I’ll soon be announcing the release date for the print version of “1000 Words,” and I’m currently in the process of formatting it for an eBook.

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Tagged as book cover, book cover art, book cover design, editing, marketing, photo illustration, romance, SBibb, sci-fi, science fiction, self publish, self-publishing, short stories, Smashwords, Stephanie Bibb, Stephanie Flint, writing, young adult

April 20, 2012 · 10:38 am

Self-Publishing 1000 Words – Four-Way Stop

Originally titled “Stuck at Twilight,” Four-Way Stop was supposed to be about a guy who comes to a stoplight, then realizes all four lights are red. He waits around, then finally decides to run the lights… only to find himself stuck in the crossway of another dimension.

Instead, Four-Way Stop turned into some literary/horror mix, about a man whose choices lead him directly to a four-way stop. Maybe later I’ll write the original idea as a short story, or maybe not. Now that I’ve completed the short stories for 1000 Words (and I have the print book formatted, too!), I’m going to be quite happy to return my focus to my young adult novel I’m working on, Distant Horizon (you’ll probably hear more about that in future posts, when I run out of things to say about 1000 Words).

The cover for Four-Way Stop was probably one of the easiest for me to complete, even though it was one of the fastest I had to finish. I knew from the start that I wanted to have a red stoplight play a prominent feature in the image. Better yet, it needed to be gray, and preferably have rows of corn or wheat, as well as a road running through it.

So I searched through my personal stock imagery, and found an amalgamation of images to put together. A road, tall grass, a red stop-light (knew I had to have that picture somewhere…) and a weird tire-texture that I motioned blurred for the rain. Put it together, and by itself, it looked horrible. This is where textures came in handy. Since it was supposed to be rainy, I added a bit of cloud texture to give it a foggy look. Blurred the background, since who can see in heavy rain? Added the rain texture and tinkered with the effect. Finally chose the image of the girl, and blurred out the side of the face as part of the story. Made it look ghostly, changed the color to a stormy green.

Gotta admit, I was pretty happy with the result.

Anyways, I then worked on adding the text. I wanted to play with text placement, and conveying the idea of a stoplight. I also wanted “Stop” to be in red, and play a prominent feature. Thus I placed the texture into the corner, all nice and small. It did show the background, but it didn’t really look like a title. So I made it larger, and while I’m not happy that it obscured the background as much as it did, I am happy about the placement, now.

Below is the background image, as well as the final book cover.

You can find Four-Way Stop, a literary/horror short story, for free on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/153784

In the meantime, if you’re curious about the statistics for the project as a whole, Dreamkeeper is in the lead with 122 downloads, easily surpassing The Carrier, which has been up a week longer, and stands at 102 downloads. It’s possible that people are downloading in multiple versions, or not reading them, but still, I found it interesting to see. I’ve gotten a couple more reviews on the stories (mostly good, yay!), but Dreamkeeper has none at this point in time.

Aside from the short I just did upload, Shafted Dreams has a measly 19 downloads, and no reviews. I do wonder whether this is because of the cover or the blurb, since everything else is between 30-70 downloads.

After this, I only have one more 1000 Words short story to upload, Socks, and I’ll have a little bit to talk about its cover, as well. The final short story, dubbed “1000 Words” for the title of the anthology, will only be available in the eBook and print anthology versions. I’m not quite sure what I’ll sell the print version at, but the eBook version will likely cost $2.99. I don’t expect a lot of sells, especially since I don’t have any marketing plans in place for it, however, I think it’s nice to offer something for those who want to “contribute to the author.”

Meanwhile, the print version of 1000 Words is in the proofing stage (to be printed as soon as possible, in order to get in turned in on time), but I’m fairly happy with it. Reminds me that I actually enjoy formatting print books. Of course, the next step is the eBook, which means seeing how to implement special text as well as embedding images into the file.

Let me know if you have questions, I’d be happy to answer them. 🙂

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April 13, 2012 · 3:37 am

Self-Publishing “1000 Words” – The Hunt

I’m trying to get these done faster as I get closer to the deadline with which I need to order this book. For those of you just now joining in, “1000 Words is my Honors College Project. The plan is to write ten short stories, each 1000 words in length (because “a picture’s worth a thousand words”) , accompanied by a book cover I design. I’m hoping to go into book cover design, so I’m trying to create a portfolio that I can use to promote my work.

Anyways, the latest short story I’ve completed (and published on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/151461) is called “The Hunt.” It’s a short story about a young hunter defending herself against an intelligent cougar stalking her family’s village. This one is meant to be young adult/adult, and adventure themed.
As an update on the previously published stories, Snow Witch is standing the same in statistics, The Carrier now has 70 downloads and one review, while Shafted Dreams has only 12 downloads. Though there’s only been a few days of having Shafted Dreams self-published, it has far fewer downloads than The Carrier did. I suspect it may have something to do with an uninteresting blurb, or the difference in being published late at night versus early morning (though the fact The Carrier is still getting downloads make me think this should be a mute point).

Anyways, I have two more stories currently written that need to be edited, one story that needs to have edits finalized (which also needs adjustments to the typography on the cover), then three more stories/covers to complete. I also need to create a cover for the anthology itself. And this really should be ordered next week. Needless to say, it’s not a good idea to procrastinate. Especially when it comes to editing.

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March 7, 2012 · 12:07 pm

Self-Publishing 1000 Words – Snow Witch is on Smashwords

I have completed the cover for Snow Witch and finished formatting the short story for Smashwords. (Next up will be a Kindle edition). It is now up on Smashwords. The process felt surprisingly easy, and I only had one issue (had to change it from .docx to .doc), but the solution was easily remedied. I’m currently reading through and getting the hang of sales versus downloads, but hopefully it will work out well. I’m not sure if downloads also includes downloads of the sample.

Since Smashwords currently has a sitewide promotion going on this month for downloading an ebook, I choose to give “Snow Witch” the option to be downloaded for free. I’m hoping to entice people to download and review it, but we’ll see if anything comes of it. I missed the first half of the promotion, though, so it will only be free for three days, until March 10^th. I would be curious to know how many people are interested in it because of the cover, and how many people are interested in the story due to the short description.

I also posted a note about it on my photo illustration Facebook page, made an announcement via Absolute Write’s announcements forum, and posted it here to my WordPress blog. I currently have two sales, one with the Smashwords coupon, and one an actual purchase. I’m not sure if the actual purchase was intentional or not. I’ll be curious to see how it tracks for the next few days (and will probably have to tell myself not to keep checking Smashwords’ dashboard for updates).

Next up is to create the Kindle edition, and then I need to edit and write the next short stories to be published. One down, nine to go.

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Tagged as 1000 Words, Absolute Write, author, book cover, book cover design, e-publishing, photographic illustration, SBibb, self publish, self-publishing, short stories, Snow Witch, Stephanie Bibb, Stephanie Flint, writing

March 5, 2012 · 11:36 am

Self-Publishing “1000 Words” Project – A Collection of Short Stories

For my capstone honors college project, I elected to merge both my major and minor together. I’m a photography major with a creative writing minor, and for my photography I have a special interest in book cover design and photomanipulation.

Therefore, I decided to create a project consisting of ten short stories, each approximately 1000 words long, which would each be illustrated with a book cover. The title of the project, 1000 Words, comes from the phrase, “a picture’s worth a thousand words.”

While I will be creating a print, photobook version of all ten stories as the completion point, I realized I needed some sort of motivation to write, edit, and illustrate each individual short story.

Enter self-publishing.

I’ve long had an interest in self-publishing, but I also want to try the traditional route, and intend to start off trying traditional for my novels. Now, with the advent of ebooks, I want to try selling the short stories as a side project. Part of this is because I will be using my own first printing rights for the project, and the other part is to help me get a feel for the process and book cover design in order to aid future clients.

So I decided that I will create an e-version of each short story, and self-publish them as I complete them through Smashwords and Kindle. I’ll start off using Smashwords so that I can learn the formatting, then create a Kindle version afterwards.

I am currently planning to price each one at .99 cents, then once all of them are written, compile them into the final anthology called 1000 Words. I have not yet decided on its price, though I’m considering $2.99 and $3.99 at this point in time.

I honestly don’t expect to make any money off of this, especially since I have little in the way of marketing planned. I do intend to announce on my facebook page when I release a story, but seeing as how I have few followers on the business page, I’m not sure how effective that will be.

Also, I am hoping to offer a promotion of a couple day free downloading period (or give coupons to those who ask) for friends or people who might be interested in reviewing the short stories. I have considered leaving one story free once I get multiple stories uploaded.

In the meantime, my first short story slated to be published (hopefully by the end of this week), is “Snow Witch.” A young witch ventures outside of her town for the first time in hopes of transferring her brother’s illness to a willing creature.

I’m in the process of reviewing the short story (which I posted in AW’s Share Your Work forums) and I’m also currently editing the book cover to make it the best I can. 🙂

Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts. I’m hoping that sharing the process will be helpful to multiple people. 🙂

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