Music and writing: creating a moment to last forever

I love writing and composing music. My books have sold okay but my music has been primarily for personal enjoyment and secondarily to serve as a plot device in my scifi novels, Socialite1. (The characters in those books wrote songs and comedy skits for a recurring neighbourhood variety night.) Recently, however, I began a new job, and my focus has been away from personal creative projects. I love my job, but haven't found that balance between working outside the home and working on my own projects. The dream of course, remains the same, to write something that will do for others what literature and especially music has done for me: create a permanent mental oasis in time.

Most of us have that one song we love, that most people have never heard. For me, it's "Chicago" by Sufjan Stevens (I attached it at the end of this post). It's my happy song: the song I play when I'm feeling down, because it provides a pure escape. It's one song that resets my mind.  It doesn't have to be just one song, though - on rainy days, for example, I always feel like listening to Supertramp.

In fact I am constantly finding a private oasis in the works of others. The NY Times ran an article today about Bernie Taupin and Elton John. Their relationship, of course, is magical and, now, pretty much legendary. The article doesn't really add much to what has already been said and written about the duo. It was motivated by the release of their new album , of which there undoubtedly will be at least one song that I will love. I saw Elton perform a new song, Home Again, at the Emmy's last week and was impressed: in my opinion it was one of the strongest songs he has written in a while. I probably won't like everything on the new album, but after that performance, I am sure their will be at least one song that will stick with me forever.

And that's how it is with music, a lot of it does not resonate at all, then we find something that transcends our life, removes us from today into a singular moment in which nothing else matters. Sometimes it's a whole performance that can do that. I watched Arcade Fire on SNL last night, and after SNL during the NBC special, Arcade Fire "Here comes the night time." WOW! The whole show was intense, unusual and creative. Tina Fey was right when she introduced the after-SNL music segment saying, "Things are going to get weird!" The music was amazing, the show, well a little weird. The song "We Exist" was phenomenal, way better than the disco-like "Reflektor" that is playing on the radio - it really doesn't do much for me. But even more outstanding was their last song, "Normal People." The whole show felt like it was about a minute long - despite it running a full half-hour.

Millions of people watched the same show that I did last night, yet each person felt the music in their own way. I wonder how many enjoyed it as much as I did.  But, really, who cares if the artist's music appeals to millions or not: any song has the potential to be important to each of us, and that is all that really matters. Even if a song doesn't sell millions of copies, it may still have that unique effect on just a handful of people. Like the Steven's "Chicago" - it didn't become a smash hit, but for me and many others, it is timeless and important.

And that is motivating for me: to know that even if only a few people ever get to hear my music, or read my books, time may stop for one of them, as it does for me while I am writing.

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Martin Renaud

Will we soon be encouraged to text and tweet during movies?

The financial incentive for movie producers to allow texting and tweeting during their films is obvious: free, broad spectrum advertising. 

The only reason they aren't encouraging it already is fear: many people will complain that the distraction takes them "out of the story." This fear will wane as mobile sharing becomes more ubiquitous in other entertainment venues.

The fact is, if we were given the opportunity to text or tweet during a theatre production or a movie, many people would - without hesitation. Many already are! Few theatres have ushers anymore so you can either complain or take matters into your own hands. Both options may make the situation worse than simply missing out on part of the show.

Theatres have been considering allowing texting for a few years now. An article on the website screenrant.com suggested that some entertainment execs are considering easing up on texting in theatres and possibly even encouraging mobile communication during certain movies (i.e., those aimed at a younger audience.)


Perhaps the first widespread adoption of live tweeting will come from live theatre. A recent NPR article discussed how a new theatre production is hoping to draw a larger audience by capitalizing on its patrons spreading the message during the show. The show, appropriately  called #HASHTAG is about "the daily struggle to stay engaged in the present moment." Its texting policy has already paid off by garnering nationwide exposure in an article on NPR (not to mention a tiny bit more exposure through this blog post.)

While we may not see this policy implemented on Broadway anytime soon, other theatre venues should see that the benefits can outweigh the risk.  For instance, the use of mobile devices would not substantially add to the many distractions that occur during outdoor productions. All outdoor productions, therefore, should consider announcing the following statement before each show:

"We encourage you to tweet and text during this production of (insert play title here!) If you laughed or cried, tell your friends right away while the feeling is fresh. Also feel free to use Vine or Instagram video to share a short clip of the production. Be sure to include our hashtag so we can link all of these great comments and videos to our website!"

This could be the slippery slope that persuades movie companies to ease up and allow similar behaviour  during films. I think under some circumstances it wouldn't be that bad. For example, if the movie is already a flop, or perhaps if all indications are that a soon-to-be released big budget film will most likely flop (as has been suggested of the new movie Pacific Rim), then the studio should make every attempt to boost attendance, including encourage texting, short video clip sharing etc.

Would you have a problem with that?

Jerry Seinfeld returns for coffee: great characters, no acting

Better than any sitcom on television: you will love Jerry Seinfeld's latest show. 

Unscripted (for the most part), off-the-cuff, and original, CCC (Comedians in Cars getting Coffee) is hilarious.

Seinfeld is more popular now than ever. On a recent episode of Jimmy Fallon (see below for video) Seinfeld walked on stage to deliver a short stand-up routine and was greeted by a prolonged standing ovation. He looked at the host and commented, "very nice. It's nice!" Genuine, truly genuine gratitude.

That's could be the hallmark of his new web video series. Several hours of recorded video is edited down to about 15 minutes of honest conversation, clever observations and touching reveals by Seinfeld and his guest.

It's original! The concept is simple. Jerry asks a friend, usually a comedian, to accompany him for a cup of coffee. Jerry then drives to his guest's house in a car specifically chosen to match the personality of each guest. (Part of the fun is to discover what vehicle Jerry has picked out for that day.) They drive to a coffee shop and talk.

Describing the show doesn't do it justice. You have to check it out for yourself. My favourites are the episodes with Michael Richards (Kramer from Jerry's sitcom) and Mel Brooks. The show just started its second season - the first show of the new set featured the hilarious Sarah Silverman.

I can't wait for today's show which features David Letterman. Check it out. The series is only available on the website comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com - that's right, you don't need cable, or pay channels, just the internet. And all past episodes are still there for you to enjoy, free!

After you watch a few episodes, let me know which one was your favourite.



Seinfeld on Jimmy Fallon (June 17, 2013)

NASA’s Grand Challenge: Science or Politics?

NASA just announced an initiative to collaborate with scientists and citizens around the world to 

1. search for asteroids that may threaten Earth and

2. develop an asteroid action plan. 

Is this a good thing? While reading the announcement I couldn’t help but think that something isn’t quite right here.

SCIENCE?

Is this “Grand Challenge” truly a new thing? Prior to today, how did NASA deal with announcements of a near Earth object from external agencies?

Farmer in Kansas: Hi NASA, I just spotted a previously unidentified asteroid on a trajectory that will put it between the moon and Earth? It may be heading straight for us!
NASA receptionist: That’s nice. (click!)

Will the Grand Challenge force this receptionist to put down her nail-file and press the red button to sound the alarm? Unlikely. I suspect NASA already has a long history of treating any credible observation of an asteroid with the respect it deserves. A new Grand Challenge isn't going to change that. 

Additionally, the options for dealing with an imminent threat from space are continuously being explored in science and fiction. I am sure members of NASA watch movies just as much as I do. They must have seen the elaborate attempts at diverting asteroids in films like, “Deep Impact” and “Armageddon.” Some of the brilliant minds at NASA have probably already “Mythbustered” these attempts to determine which of them are “Busted” and which are “Plausible.”

POLITICS?

In the announcement NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver states that “we have found 95 percent of the large asteroids near the Earth's orbit.” This sounds like a number they just made up. After all, how could they know that the number of asteroids they currently have identified is equivalent to 95% of the total, without knowing the total?   Even as an estimate, 95% seems irrelevant given that just last week a truck sized asteroid was detected one day before it reached its closest point to Earth. Are we supposed to feel warm fuzzy comfort because only 5% of these extinction level asteroids have yet to be found?

The announcement included a statement from the White House deputy director for technology and innovation Tom Kalil that “… finding asteroid threats, and having a plan for dealing with them, needs to be an all-hands-on-deck effort.” What does that mean? If the White House truly believed that an all-hands-on-deck effort was needed, they would increase NASA funding so more experts in mathematics and physics could systematically search the skies, rather than rely on unpaid, unsystematic, haphazard stargazing.

NASA’s Grand Challenge simply reflects certain truths about space exploration and the current political climate: 

• Giving space exploration more money is politically not feasible (after all, in the USA, even allocating money to health care is controversial)
• While getting hit by an asteroid would be bad, getting hit by an asteroid without previous posturing about trying to stop it would be worse.
• More eyes looking to the skies for an asteroid is a good thing, more eyes doing it for no more money is a better thing
• Until someone proposes a full-proof plan for destroying or deflecting a near Earth object, with a working prototype of proposed technological innovations and test case data demonstrating efficacy in a real-world situation (in other words until someone actually saves the Earth on their own dime) the four letters that we will turn to when an asteroid is on a collision course will not be N A S A, they will be H O P E.

So Excited! Apple just announced iBooks for Mac

This is exactly what many Apple customers have asked for. Textbooks, magazines, and of course novels purchased through iTunes will soon be accessible, searchable etc. on your computer.

I've been waiting so long for this announcement. So far you could only read books downloaded from Apple's iTunes bookstore on a mobile device like iPhone, iPad or iPod.


This has been a pain since I spend much more time on my Macbook than on my phone. Also the full screen allows for an easier, more pleasant reading experience. Lastly, it just didn't make any sense for an innovative company like Apple that provides an incredible user experience to neglect user preference to read iBooks on their home computer. The soon-to-be released new OSX Mavericks operating system will include iBooks for Mac.

To celebrate, I will soon be making all of my books available on the iBookstore again. I had made them exclusive to Amazon to capitalize on Amazon's kindle select program. That promotion will be over at the end of the week so readers will then be able to download all four books of my scifi series, Socialite 1, onto their Apple devices. Similarly, my murder mystery Good Gladys, which continues to get rave reviews from bloggers around the world, will also soon be available at the iTunes Bookstore.

Read more, live longer!

Five crazy potential developments in Wearable Tech

I've been thinking a lot about new technology and where it is heading as I spent the last two weeks working on the next book in my SciFi series "Socialite". Part of the challenge of writing these books is determining where technology will be in ten or twenty years. One type of device that is sure to see an explosion in development over the next few years is wearable tech. 


Wearable tech is just beginning to gain momentum. Of course there is Google glass - the odd looking eyeglasses that will take a picture when you wink among other things. Nike, Motorola and many other companies have bracelets that monitor your heart rate and track your fitness progress in miles or reps. There are also clip-on pedometers and things you stuff in your shoe. One aspect of these technologies I don't like is that they are add-ons - something else you have to remember to grab as you race to pick up the kids or catch the train. We already have too much to remember to take with us. Wearable tech, for the most part is something else we'll forget at home and get annoyed with over time.

Often these devices don't even look appealing. For example, I hate the look of the Google Glass - I bet they made it so weird as a form of advertisement for Google. I appreciate the technology, but wish they designed it to be non-obtrusive, blending in with existing glasses, still functional, but not so much … in your face.

The same goes for the bracelets, watches, belt clips. Why not make the tech a part of the items we already wear?

To that end, I propose 5 Wearable Tech devices that make your life easier by being part of your regular wardrobe.

1. The techie tie

I guess it could also be a techie scarf, but for now we'll stick with the businessman's tie. It looks just like a regular tie, comes in a variety of styles and colours. Its large surface area is perfect for a faintly lit, touch activated bluetooth keyboard to appear on its surface. Even if you don't want another keyboard, you'll still appreciate the huge storage capacity of the battery that occupies the immense volume of the tie's interior. Who wouldn't want a readily available backup power source - plug in your smartphone and recharge!

2. Mood tuque

It monitors the heat rising from your head and your movements to assess your moment to moment mood. You can set it to change colour based on your mood or to send updates to Twitter when your mood changes. Integrated GPS could result in posts like, "I am hot and bothered at the 1st Ave Dairy Queen." Sure to generate a following!

3. Locator Belt

Belts are a part of everyone's wardrobe. And like a tie, they have a big surface area and volume to exploit. Belts also wrap around the person, making them ideal to be used as a locator. Currently companies like Hitachi and Murata offer Radio tags (RFID tags) small enough to be placed on almost anything. Imagine embedded tags in your keys, your wedding ring, the television remote. Tell the Locator Belt that you can't find your keys and the portion of the belt closest to the keys vibrates, orienting you in the right direction. Get closer to the tag, and it vibrates faster.

4. Sniffer shirt

Not only is it embarrassing when you realize that your deodorant didn't last the whole day, it's annoying for everyone around you when you don't realize it. "Nose Tech" is currently used mostly for explosive and drug detection in places like airports but as all tech is trending toward miniaturization it shouldn't take long for manufacturers to devise a shirt with integrated sensors for moisture and unpleasant odours in the underarm area. A text sent to your phone that says, "YOU ARE RIPE!" will help you avoid becoming a water-cooler gossip topic.

5. Porous Pants

Imagine you are at a tense meeting in a hot stuffy boardroom craving relief from the heat. Press an inconspicuous button on your pants and instantly the pant fibres expand slightly, allowing more airflow to reach the skin on your legs. This may not be too far fetched. Piezoelectric polymers that respond to electricity by expanding or contracting have been around for decades. PVDF, for example, is extensively used in sensors and other electronic devices, and is manufactured in all shapes and sizes, including as fine threads. Pants integrating such fibres could put airflow manipulation under user control. While everyone else swelters during stressful negotiations, you would be cool, calm and in total control.

Bonus #6 - Smart Purse

Actually, I'd be shocked if no one already thought of this. Most women carry their purses everywhere so it's an obvious choice for integrating many of the features that I listed above. Purses should include a backup power source that charges the phone sitting within. It could also display a full keyboard when desired like the techie tie. It should do GPS linked instant Twitter postings like, "Hey, I'm chilling at Starbucks!" Its 3-D shape would be ideal for multi-dimensional locator functions - pick up your purse, press a button and it leads you to your keys! With all of these functions, the man-purse might finally become a must have item as well.

So the possibilities really are endless for the future of wearable tech. What would you like to see on store shelves in the near future?

Research and Writing: Sharing discoveries

Research is an integral part of the writing process. Many of the components in the scenes I am writing come from my daily reading. Sometimes research is directed toward answering a specific question that arose while building a scene. More often it merely adds to the growing "things that would be cool in a novel" list. I spend a couple hours each day reading online: news, science, tech, politics etc. I thought I would share some of more interesting bits and pieces. I am sure that some of these things will stick in my head and eventually find a home in one of my novels.

1. smartphones with a dumb flaw

We've known for  a long time about "spyware" on smartphones that record the keystrokes typed into the phone. Creepy, yes, but also great fodder for a fiction writer! An article just came out is even more unsettling. It seems that smartphones automatically store everything you type in a special database, an unencrypted treasure holding everything that you entered on your phone.

In retrospect the existence of such a database shouldn't be surprising. Typing on one of those things is seriously simplified by the intelligent, learning software that each manufacturer has included with the device. The more you type, the easier typing becomes as the phones learn your habits of wordchoice. How? By accessing the database of your previous typing behaviour. The "dumb flaw" isn't the existence of the database, it's the fact that it is unencrypted. Encryption comes in many forms, but essentially it makes the information harder for a thief to use. If they gain access, encrypted data is unreadable. Encryption is older than me. It's been around for decades and continuously gets better. Apple, Google, Blackberry etc. should have included it to protect their customers, but apparently they didn't.  Clever, mischievous and most likely criminal app designers could include code in a smartphone app and gain access to this database, and therefore to every password, search topic etc that you have entered on the phone.

2. Apple applies for patent to enable iphone to predict your needs:

Again much of this isn't new or unexpected. Apple's latest patent would enable the iPhone to automatically brighten or dim, become silent or louder and many other things in appropriate situations. The phone would essentially "learn" your needs at certain times, in certain places. How? Again, the information of your past behaviour has to be stored somewhere. Based on their history with the keystroke database, we can assume that this data will also be unencrypted and susceptible to theft.


These two capabilities offer some interesting options for a fiction writer. What would a thief do with such information, beyond just the obvious choice of accessing your bank accounts and robbing you blind? Imagine if they could also modify the data stored on the device. Instead of having the phone simplify the users life, a prankster could have it do the opposite: alarms could go off during meetings, it could dim in dark lighting or use precious battery life unnecessarily all day long. I'm sure their are clever app developers already planning on taking advantage of this new insight into the lives of phone owners. If you had access to such information how would you use it?

Gimp or Photoshop: Creating Book Covers

Self-published authors have to do everything on their own, including book covers. There are services available, of course, that can be paid to do this. Most of us, however, do not have excess resources so we either do it ourselves, or ask family or friends for help. The DIY approach can also be costly if you do not have graphics software on hand for the task. Photoshop is regarded by most as the best tool for the job, but it is very expensive. For my latest round of book cover designs, I choose to try the free software called GIMP and was pleasantly surprised. Combining Gimp with the Createspace cover template allowed me to overcome the hurdle of creating a cover for my latest book, and editing and redesigning the photoshop generated covers of my previously published books.

First a little history:

Last year I wrote a four book scifi series called Socialite 1. While working on the time consuming task of editing I had little time to work on the covers, so my son (14 years old at the time) offered to do them. He used a combination of tools available on our iMac.

The basic design he used emphasized the dichotomies of good and evil with contrasting dark and light triangles.  (here is a picture of the cover of book 1 of the series.) I was very appreciative of his efforts, of course, but knew that I would need to make them more visually appealing at some point in the future. At the time Photoshop was offering a thirty day trial, so I used photoshop to create the back page and spine of the print book covers. I had never used it before, but found it quite easy to learn for this task (using youtube videos as my teacher.)

This fall I completed my fifth book Good Gladys (pictured above) and figured that at the same time as I was designing its cover, I would redo the covers of my Socialite books. I looked for an alternative to Photoshop (because of price) and found that many websites recommended GIMP. I downloaded it (for free!) onto my MAC (the PC version is also available), watched a few youtube HOW-TO videos (here's a sample) and went to work.

I asked my sister-in-law, a wonderful photographer, for a photo depicting a sunrise or sunset—something kind of mysterious looking, appropriate for the murder mystery genre of Good Gladys. She sent this to me (pictured at right). A little cropping and some manipulation of the colours turned that photograph into the cover pictured above. GIMP was really easy to use, and the whole cover took only a few hours from start to finish. For the print version of the book, I just opened the cover template provided by createspace, then added the image of the front that I had created and sized it appropriately. I found that this process was just as easy and effective as it had previously been with photoshop. The resulting pdf document of the cover was instantly accepted by the Createspace editors, just as the photoshop version of the Socialite covers had been.

Here's the final print book cover:

Finally I decided to tackle the socialite covers. The files were Photoshop files (.psd). I was surprised that GIMP had no problem opening these files, preserving all of the layers that I had created in the past. Although I am not very experienced I found the tools in GIMP were fairly easy to use and with some trial and error, I was able to transform that image of book 1 shown above into this:




I highly recommend GIMP. I don't know if really seasoned Photoshop users would experience severe limitations in its functionality, but I do know that inexperienced users, like myself, can get very satisfactory results, with minimal effort. The software is free, and there are many, many instructional videos on youtube to get you started.

To see all of the new book covers for the Socialite series, go to my Good Gladys website and scroll to the bottom. I hope that this was helpful for other self-published authors considering trying their skills at creating interesting, effective book covers.

Fund This? Will my donation make a difference?

Crowd Funding sites like Indiegogo, Kickstarter and many others do not hold any of the campaigns that they host accountable to the people who donate. Nevertheless, very few scams have been reported. Most campaigns are genuine and most donors get what they sign up for. Regardless of the type of campaign, be it a tech gadget, a music album or a life-saving operation, the campaign organizer and the donor to that campaign are joining forces, working together to realize a dream.

There have been numerous stories in the news lately of projects having difficulty responding to donors. As a spokesperson for the very successful Pebble Watch Campaign stated ,"there are 65000 people who ordered a watch that doesn't exist yet."  Obviously there are a lot of poeple who don't mind paying $100+ to hitch a ride on someone else's dream. Crowd funding has made hitching a ride on a dream extremely easy. Millions of people are contributing $1, $10 $25  etc every day to share in someone's crowd funding project.

And there are a lot of dreams to choose from on crowd funding sites. In the past few posts I have already shown six that I thought were interesting, and worth looking into. In this post I am presenting a few more. Dream along with the creators of these projects in two ways: give them a donation to help the project get completed and/or tell your friends about the project so they can also share the dream.

The first one is shown in the image above. It is an album of cover songs (donors can even request one of their favourites) all done bluegrass style. Watch the video, it's funny and makes you want the guy to succeed. Here is the link: Guilty Pleasures.

The second one is a cool variation on the game chess. It's an animated chess game where the pieces show emotion in their facial expressions, body language and movement. This is only a couple steps away from the Wizard's chess game we saw in Harry Potter!

Here is the link: Chess Peeps

This third and final one was brought to my attention via the comment section of an earlier blog post. This is a short film, a scary mystery that is complete and ready for presentation at film festivals. They already won an award but need funds to get to more festivals so their film has a chance of success. And they are sooooo close to reaching their goal.

Here is the link: Drei von eins  (three of one)


Finally:

And of course you can always share in my dream by contributing to my book campaign:

Here are the links:
INDIEGOGO - MYSTERY OR SCIFI: YOU DECIDE
GOFUNDME - MYSTERY OR SCI-FI: YOU DECIDE

Fund this? Give a Boost to the Cool and Quirky in the world of Crowd Funding

Anyone who has perused the pages of a crowd funding website realizes that there are a lot people  receiving donations for their cause or project, often in the thousands of dollars, from complete strangers.  Some of these projects request help with medical emergencies, desperate financial need or similar social cause. As with most crowd funding campaigns, the majority of these cries for help do not get answered. A few, like Karen the bus monitor, do the impossible by motivating thousands of people to contribute to the cause. Though that campaign asked for $5000,  Karen received over $700 000. This example illustrates one of the main drawbacks of crowd funding: a few projects tend to receive the majority of the donations. Many really good causes and projects fail to raise anything.

Sites, like Indiegogo and Kickstarter recommend that projects seek their initial funding from family and friends to give their project initial momentum. Only after they have sufficient funding will their project get featured on the site. This means that most projects will not even get exposure from the site hosting it. How then can a campaign gain exposure?

Gaining traction isn't easy. Rather than focussing on the problem, I am using this blog as a partial solution for some campaigns. The campaigns that I list are ones that I thought were interesting. If you agree, then you should tell others about the campaign. If you really like it, perhaps send a donation their way. Even $1 helps the organizers of the campaign know that someone has seen their page and likes what they are doing. I know from personal experience that both of these things, publicity and donations (of any size) are a huge boost.

In yesterdays post I discussed three creative campaigns (a band, a book and a mentalist).  Today's selections are a few cool and quirky invention campaigns that I came across this morning and liked. As I said before, I don't know any of the people running these campaigns, and have no vested interest in any these projects.


The first is the Bubble Worm. A new twist on an old idea. You blow into it and make a cool foam. I know my kids would have had a blast with this when they were young. The creator's campaign is having a slow start so take a look and see if it's something that you would endorse.

Here is the link: BubbleWorm

The second project is an interesting techie version of a hoola-hoop called KolaHoops. It's a hoola hoop with a computer and lots of led lights inside so patterns and colours can flash as it spins. The effect as shown in their photos (one at the top of the page and the one to the right) is really cool.

Here is the link: KolaHoops

This last one is for the smartphone crowd. It basically turns your phone into a roaming, tilting robot. It's called Helios. Put the phone into it, than you can control it from any web browser. The camera on the phone gives you a view of where Helios goes. You can move from side to side, in circles and pan up and down. It even has downward sensors to detect table edges so it doesn't drop off. Pretty cool!
Here is the link: Helios



Finally:

I'll share some more projects in a future post. Until then, check them out and also check out my campaign too.


Once again, here are the links for my campaign.
INDIEGOGO - MYSTERY OR SCIFI: YOU DECIDE
GOFUNDME - MYSTERY OR SCI-FI: YOU DECIDE

I should re-emphasize, if you can't contribute with a donation, no problem.  I hope you will please share this post, or even just the link to one or all of these campaigns.

Leave a comment suggesting other campaigns that you think I should discuss in the future. No guarantees that I will write something about your campaign (I will never put negative comments!) but even having your site in the comment section for readers to see will be another way for people to find out about you. 

Fund this? Crowdfunding comments and samples

The number one impediment to a successful crowd funding campaign is lack of exposure. Not enough willing contributors find out about it. I am a crowd funding donor and recipient. As such, here are a few comments on my experiences and a few projects that I saw on crowd funding sites that I think more people should be made aware of. I know you can't contribute to every interesting campaign, neither can I, but we all can spread the word a little bit better, and ask others to do the same so these projects find a large enough pool of contributors to succeed.


Some people may think that the popularity of crowdfunding sites over the internet has made getting funding for a project, a social cause or sudden need brought on by personal tragedy a cinch. Not so! In fact most projects on Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or any of the other sites fail to reach their target; many fail to raise any money at all.

My Experiences: 

My own experience is fairly typical. I first created an Indiegogo campaign in June to raise funds for the marketing and distribution of my new four book series Socialite 1. I am very grateful to all those who participated and supported the campaign. I followed the advice on the site, told family and friends, used Facebook, Twitter, Reddit etc. I had excellent perks for donors. Nevertheless, at the end of the campaign I received less than 10% of my goal.

My campaign ran on Indiegogo, which allows flexible funding, so I did get to keep the money that was contributed. The many people who use Kickstarter and don't reach their funding goal, get nothing. Kickstarter only pays out when the goal has been reached. I feel bad for them. Not all of them: some projects are just weird.

I just started a second campaign to raise funds to publish another book. I am running it as a contest: I am writing two books (shown in the image above) and I will decide which one to finish and publish first based on the donations by readers who prefer either Mystery or Science Fiction.  I hope that by giving people a say into the publication of a new book, the campaign may get more exposure than my previous one.

This campaign is at Indiegogo. (Creating a campaign on Kickstarter is not an option for non-US citizens). I am also trying a new crowdfunding platform called GoFundMe. These two platforms are similar in that they allow people to donate to projects and causes. They are different in a number of important aspects for those running a campaign. Firstly, Indiegogo requires that a minimum of $500 must be donated with the first two weeks of the campaign or else the campaign will never be included in their search results, shown on their homepage or get any exposure to their crowdfunding community. My first attempt at crowdfunding missed the mark, so my campaign never really got off the ground. By day 15, I couldn't even find it on their site.

GoFundMe on the other hand requires that $100 be raised prior to them listing it on their site and making it available to searches. They don't put a time limit on campaigns either, so your cause isn't dead after two weeks if you don't get $100.

So I am trying both and will post updates on their progress over time.

Other interesting campaigns:

I don't believe we should ever ask for something without giving something back when we can. As I said I can't give to every campaign that I like, but I can give them a little more exposure. So here are a few campaigns that I like. Note, I don't have any connection to these campaigns, and have never met any of the people running them. I just like what they are trying to do.

The first one is a blues band from Chicago: I like their bluesy sound, and the perks they offer are reasonable - only $10 helps them out and gets you a copy of their debut CD. Awesome! Here is the link:

THE HOOKS

The second campaign was for a book. I liked the concept of the story: time travel becomes possible but people are allergic to it. There are lots of ways the story could go that would be interesting. The author generously gave donors a copy of the ebook too. This campaign was at Indiegogo, but it expired there before the author reached the target. I'm putting it here so anyone who likes the concept can watch for the book, or email the author for a copy. I am also including this book because I'm sure the author still wants people to know about her hard work. 

Here's the link:

ALLERGIC TO TIME
(update: I just learned that the author has another campaign running to fund editing. Here is the link: Editing Allergic to Time.)

The third and final one comes from Kickstarter and is for a Mentalist in Utah to fund promotion of his first stage show. I think his pitch is kind of cool, and I love the TV show the Mentalist. Also, one of the books in my campaign involves a mystic/medium so I have done a lot of research on this form of entertainment. If you think it's cool, then tell other people, and perhaps send a donation to that campaign.
Here is the link:

GAMES OF THE MIND




Finally:

There are a ton of interesting projects out there. Perhaps I'll share some more in a future post.


Once again, here are the links for my campaign.
INDIEGOGO - MYSTERY OR SCIFI: YOU DECIDE
GOFUNDME - MYSTERY OR SCI-FI: YOU DECIDE

If you can't contribute with a donation, no problem.  I hope you will please share this post, or even just the link to one or all of these campaigns.

Some revision notes and epub conversion lessons

I just finished a full revision of the four books of Socialite 1 and learned a few lessons that some of you may find helpful.  This stage of the self-publishing process was initiated by a desire to make the books available in print form.  I choose CreateSpace for the outlet because it's free, has a lot of helpful tools and templates for the design of the books and the covers (the image shown here is my final version of the cover for Book 2, created using the latest free demo version of Photoshop) and offers very reasonable royalties…but mostly because it's free to create the books.  This process was worthwhile, though time-consuming.

I began the edit step by placing the text of each book in a Word template (supplied by CreateSpace) that I selected for the size that I wanted for the final books.  I choose the 5X8 format.  I initially wrote the books in Pages - Apple's version of Word - and the cut and paste into Word was simple.  There were a couple of glitches involving page numbering and section breaks but nothing too complicated.  I loved that the margins were automatically adjusted for alternate pages to account for the binding.  I read helpful articles on the CreateSpace site about editing and cover design.  These resources led me to construct a short checklist for the final product.  Going through the checklist for each of the four books ensured consistency across the chapters and across the four books in the series.

Checklist:

1. start chapters on odd numbered pages: this is a matter of personal preference, but at the very least I wanted to ensure that the book title page, dedication page, table of contents, first chapter, acknowledgement page and author's page started on an odd numbered page so that the reader would see it on the right side (not the left) when they opened the book.
2. empty pages that separate sections or pad the end are totally empty - no numbers or headers
3. justify text in chapters - I had found problems with this for my ebooks since I first created them for the Amazon Kindle and their .mobi format doesn't allow justification.  In this iteration I fixed that issue (though I noticed that after sending the files to Amazon's Kindle site the new books revert back to left aligned text.)
4. Don't indent first paragraph of each chapter.  I set the tabs to 0 and used paragraph formatting (at 1.5 inches) for the remaining chapters as was suggested and it worked great.
5. ellipses should be created using the single character rather than 3 periods - on a MAC this is done using the keyboard shortcut Alt + semicolon
6. use proper hyphens, en- dashes and em-dashes - I found this article very helpful to fix any improper forms of these characters in the text (http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/finetypography/ht/dashes_hyphens.htm )
7. I had used 1.5 line spacing for my earlier epubs but found that single spacing looked better for the print versions

Once I had the text looking the way I wanted it I used the Edit-Find function to check that each of these points on the checklist was consistently followed. 

I loaded these books into CreateSpace, along with the newly created covers (again created using the appropriate template for the 5X8 book size.  I am now awaiting delivery of the book proofs.  Soon these will be available for marketing to book stores.

Creating new Epub Files:

Having completed the editing of the text, I had to make the ebooks consistent with the soon-to-be released print books.  For this stage I copied and pasted the Word version of the text back into Pages since Word does not have a SAVE to EPUB function, but Pages does.  I reused the formatting from my earlier files that worked as epubs ensuring that each type of text was assigned to a unique "style".  For example, the chapter titles were formatted as "Heading 2" in the paragraph styles section on Pages.  These styles are critical for proper conversion to the xhtml language of the ePub files.  Again, this was quite simple, but errors here can cause problems later, so I checked and rechecked all of the styles for consistency.  Once everything looked good I used the SHARE as EPUB feature in Pages to create the four files that would work on eReaders (iPads, Kobo, Sony etc.) except for Kindle.

I tested these on an iPad, iPod touch and a Kobo and they looked great - text was justified as I wanted, the table of contents worked great and the cover looked amazing.

The next step was to create the .mobi files for the Amazon Kindle.

Creating Kindle files:

I loaded each file into a free epub editing program called Sigil.  The program window is divided into sections to facilitate editing each part of the epub (an epub is actually a set of files and Sigil enables the readers to change each portion of it).  Learning how to use Sigil isn't hard, but figuring out which parts of the epub to change takes a little time.  I just Google each thing that I wanted to change and readily found answers to all of my questions.  Here are the most important things I learned:

1. paragraph padding - ePubs created from Pages appear in Sigil with each paragraph separated by a huge gap.  This was annoying.  I found out that Pages inserts a piece of code at the beginning of each chapter that creates this padding.  The code looks like this: div.sgc-2 {white-space:pre-wrap}. I deleted all instances of that code and the paragraphs came out looking professional, without all that white-space.
2. The book browser on the left side of the Sigil window shows all of the files in the ePub - one of them "cover.xhtml" will cause the Kindle to show two pages of your cover.  I simply deleted this file (right clicked on it and hit Remove).  Now the kindle will show a single cover of the book.
3. The book Browser does not have the table of contents file needed by the kindle - I created a new one (right clicked on the "TEXT" folder and selected "New File" then renamed it to "toc.xhtml". I found a version of this file on a website and copied the code from that version into the code window for my file, then renamed the chapters accordingly. Here is a sample for anyone who wants to use my toc.xhtml code  (you don't have to understand all of it for it to work):                              
   
   
   
   
   
                                                                 
4. Besides a few other minor adjustments, like asking Sigil to generate a separate table of contents file using the section on the left side of the Sigil window (this is the toc.ncx file a separate table of contents file from the first that must be in an epub) I had to add a piece of code into the file called "content.opf" to tell the eReader that I added a toc.xhtml file. the line of code makes the section called "guide" look like this:

Getting the Kindle files to look perfect was a little tedious but in two days I had all four books looking great.  I tested them using the free Kindle reader application on my mac - the latest version allows me to switch between different devices (Kindle fire, Kindle eReader and mobile versions of the Kindle reader) so I could adjust my ePubs for maximum compatibility.  It also automatically converts the ePub into a .mobi file. When everything looked great I sent these .mobi files to Kindle and voila - SUCCESS!

Please let me know if any of these instructions are unclear and I'd be happy to clarify.  There are many steps that I did not include in this post, so leave a comment or question if you are having problems with your own book conversions.

And - check out my books - the first one Bees to Benny is still free as an ebook. The new versions of my books are available to download at Amazon's Kindle site and will soon be available at Apple's iBookstore and at the Kobo ebookstore.

Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&search-alias=digital-text&field-author=Martin%20Renaud

Apple iPad, Ipod, Iphone: http://itunes.apple.com/ca/artist/martin-renaud/id477163464?mt=11

Kobo: http://www.kobobooks.com/search/search.html?q=Martin+Renaud+Socialite

What do Aliens look like?

Science fiction has offered us a plethora of images of potential alien life.  They are all rooted, to some extent, in assumptions about differences in their evolutionary history as compared to humans.  Some of these images are bug like, some warrior like, while others look more like an average, hairless, baby faced human (like the image shown here.)  Most presume that aliens would share certain human-like characteristics like bipedalism (walk on two legs), bilateral symmetry (right and left sides are mirror images of each other), and a similar arrangement of the major body parts (head on top with eyes and mouth, long central torso etc.)  These add familiarity for the reader but lack a level of ingenuity that we expect in fiction.

In the Socialite 1 book series, the aliens, Ray, Grace and Elle Amis, were designed on their planet to look exactly like humans.  This was important for the story since they had to blend in and be accepted by the Liebe family if they were going to have a chance of completing their mission.  I did not even describe the Zozian species in any detail, except for a few general remarks.  For example, in Book 2: Mission to Mission, Elle and Jacob are walking through the forest near Harrison Hot Springs in British Columbia and  Elle explains why she believes that we are never alone:

Jacob stumbled on a decayed piece of cedar, revealing a community of beetles, and isopods.  “Don’t step on them!” shrieked Elle.  She bent down and looked at the assortment of life.  “They have such a small circle of life, especially compared to these huge trees around us, that can live for hundreds of years.  Even compared to ourselves:  within a year these little ones are born, become adults, reproduce then die.  Although their circle of life is small, they deserve just as much respect as creatures with larger life cycles.”  They cautiously stepped over the crawling creatures.  “You see - even we aren’t alone out here.”

“Oh, is that what you meant.  What about in space?  That astronaut stuck up there on the space station - he’s alone.  There aren’t even any bacteria up there.” 

“He’s not alone, either,” argued Elle.  “He’s in constant communication with the people in Houston, who are trying to figure out a way to get him down.” 

“He could simply turn off his speakers, turn his back on Earth if he wanted.” 

“Even then, he would just be facing all the other inhabited planets in the universe,” said Elle.  She was skipping over a log as she spoke, pulling on Jacob’s arm, forcing him to skip as well. 

“You believe in alien’s, do you?” asked Jacob, sarcastically. 

“My dad does, that’s for sure,” said Elle.  “He says that life on other planets is a certainty.” 

“Really?  Do you mean, life like us?” 

“Now who’s being silly?  They aren’t like us...not exactly.  He told me that they have to look a lot different from us, because of different evolutionary histories, and different planetary conditions.” 

“It sounds like your dad has thought a lot about this.”  Jacob tried not to sound too skeptical, or else Elle might think he was judging her father’s sanity.  “I guess while you were growing up he had a lot of time to think about these things, thoroughly.” 

“Now you’re just being silly.”  She stopped, looked into Jacob’s eyes and asked, “is it so hard to imagine life beyond this atmosphere?  When you look at the stars at night, don’t you sometimes wonder if someone may be looking back at you?” 

“Yeah.  Sometimes.  I just never went the extra step that your father has in speculating on what they look like.” 

“Try it.” said Elle.

Elle is subtly trying to get Jacob to believe in the possibly of alien life, a necessity if he is to eventually accept that she is alien.  In the backstory to Socialite, the Zozian Diaries, Ray Amis is translating the diaries of previous Zozian explorers to Earth.  Ray's commentary is meant to allow humans to understand what Zozians are like and how they think.  I used this format so that I could periodically add details of Zozian physiology, sociology and psychology to that story.  For example, in Part 2, Ray explains why the Zozians used to call humans "animals with holes" by describing how Zozians look.  Keep watching for additions to the Zozian Diaries as I will add new parts to the story each week, explaining more about these aliens and their adventures.

Remember:  Book 1: Bees to Benny is still free at:

Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&search-alias=digital-text&field-author=Martin%20Renaud

Apple iPad, Ipod, Iphone: http://itunes.apple.com/ca/artist/martin-renaud/id477163464?mt=11

Kobo: http://www.kobobooks.com/search/search.html?q=Martin+Renaud+Socialite

Please tell your friends about Socialite Books - people are more likely to buy books that their friends recommend than books they find on their own.

Find socialite books on Facebook at http:www.facebook.com/socialitebooks

Today's Inspiration: people in my life

I remember a scene from the comedy series "Kids in the Hall": a writer is struggling with his work when the image of Queen Elizabeth (Scott Thompson, of course) appears above his head advising him to "write what you know."  After all, when requiring advice we Canadians always turn to the Queen of England.  I'm not sure if I am remembering the scene correctly.  Regardless, the sentiment has value: writing what you know is good advice.  In developing characters for my stories, I often draw from the people that I know.  Often this takes shape as the character interacts in a particular scene of a story.

The characters in my books are never based on a single person, though some people may see themselves or someone they know in the actions or descriptions portrayed in a particular scene.   For example, the main character of Socialite,  fourteen year old Elle Amis, is an amalgamation of some of the most important people I know, my wife, and my kids.  I wrote her character description years ago for a very different story that I didn't finish.  When I decided to begin writing again, after my wife's passing,  I was reviewing some of my previous notes and became reacquainted with Elle and realized immediately that she was the femme fatale of my books.  I still find that her character drives the creation of her own scenes as I am writing.

One of my favourite minor characters in Socialite is Mrs. Therese Austen.  She is an older woman, who lives a few doors down the street from the main characters, and is often seen walking her little dog Bixby.  She was partly inspired by my sister-in-law's mother, who talked very softly and had a way of making you feel like you were the most important person in the world.  In the books, Mrs. Austen treats Jacob in exactly this way: to her, Jacob Liebe is the most important person in the world.  When I was writing the description of Mrs. Austen the image that kept coming to mind was one of the Queen mum in a green cloche hat - I couldn't resist how exquisitely Canadian it felt to describe her as I saw her in my head.  I liked the character so much that I decided in the early stages of preparing Socialite 1 that she would play a major role in the ending of this series, as you will see when you read Book 4: Unless Rules.


None of the characters in my books are exact replications of people I know.   Instead, I tend to see a scene play out in my head, and imagine how the emotions or reactions should be described.  In the process a memory of someone acting similarly will come to mind, and often that imagined person is someone I know.  Sometimes, the process happens in reverse: I'll remember how someone handled a particular situation in a clever or unusual way and make a note to use that memory at a later time.  The ordinariness of everyday life is often interrupted by one of these brilliant, living vignettes - unfortunately we tend to forget them all too quickly.  When looking for inspiration as I'm writing, I kick myself sometimes for not heeding the advice given in another Kids in the Hall, Scott Thompson skit: speaking as the character Buddy Cole he ends a comedic monologue with:

"It all reminds me of something that Moliere once said to Guy de Maupassant at a cafe in Vienna... That's nice. You should write it down."

Here is a small scene with Mrs. Austen meeting Ray Amis for the first time from S1B2: Mission to Mission.  After fourteen years of seclusion in his house, all the while watching and learning about his neighbours by watching projections from the many cameras that his daughter's chauffeur, Morse, had installed around the neighbourhood, Ray Amis is finally going for his first walk outside just after dawn.  He doesn't get far before his peaceful solitude in interrupted by Mrs. Austen and Bixby.

He was alone in his thoughts as he walked past the sleepy houses lining Homedale Street.  As he reached the end of the block, he noticed an old woman walking her dog coming toward him.  He recognized her as Mrs. Therèse Austen.  “Good Morning,” he offered, smiling cordially. 

“Where’s your dog?” she kindly asked.

“My...what makes you think I have a dog?” he asked puzzled. 

“No one comes out at this time without a dog,” she reasoned.  “Here you are, so what happened to your dog?  Did he get off his leash?”  Ray looked curiously at her.  He had seen her many times on the AmisVision screens, walking her dog to and from her house.  His curiosity had prompted him to ask Morse to install additional cameras along her route, so that he could learn more about this strange behavior.  For hours, some days, he would watch her slowly walking, sometimes to the grocery store, sometimes to the diner, but usually, just casually walking in circles, cleaning up after her pet.  She always wore the same lime-green coat, with a matching Cloche hat.  She was also constantly talking to her dog.   

“I have no dog, nor have I ever felt the compulsion to subject a creature of this planet to subservience or confinement,” he confessed. 

“No dog.  Well, that is new.  And you live close by?” she continued, undaunted by issues of animal slavery. 

“I live at the yellow house down there,” he said, pointing down the street, no longer afraid of being identified by his neighbours. 

“You mean the house across from Jacob’s?” 

“Yes.  Are you one of Jacob’s friends?” asked Ray. 

“Oh ye-e-es.  I am,” she said, enthusiastically.  “Ever since he was a little boy.  I used to watch him sometimes when his mom would go shopping.  A wonderful, kind, intelligent boy.  Are you a friend, too?” 

“My daughter is.” 

“I hope she’s pretty.  Is she pretty?  I was hoping that Jacob would meet a pretty girl.” 

“I am her father, of course, so my opinion may seem biased.” 

“Are you new here?” she asked, moving on to another subject without completing the previous one. 

“No,” said Ray.  He was becoming tense due to his lack of control of the conversation and the inquisitional verbal delivery of his neighbor.  He didn’t want to be rude during his first, real conversation with an outsider, so he answered, “I’ve lived here for many years.” 

“You don’t walk much.  I’ve never seen you.  I guess you drive instead.” 

“No, I don’t drive.  As it happens, this is the first time that I’ve taken a walk around here.” 

“You don’t have a car and you don’t walk, how do you get around?” she asked, looking concerned and confused. 

“I have a car, but it’s just for my daughter.  She has a driver who takes her places,”  explained Ray, trying to direct the discussion in a new direction. 

“You don’t go with her?” she asked, still confused. 

“No, I don’t go with her.” 

“Poor girl, all alone.  Well not quite alone, now that she has Jacob.  Then, how do you get around?” Mrs. Austen repeated. 

“I must confess that I don’t want to seem rude by avoiding or refusing to answer your benign question.  I absolutely don’t condone dishonesty.  So, perhaps we should conclude our discussion for now and continue some other time on a different subject.” 

“Perhaps you could borrow someone else’s dog for your walks,” suggested Mrs. Austen. 

“Why would I want to do that?” returned Ray. 

“Then we could talk about our dogs,”  said Mrs. Austen plainly, without a hint of sarcasm in her voice.     

“You are very astute.  I look forward to speaking with you again some time,” said Ray.

All four books in the Socialite series are available at:

Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&search-alias=digital-text&field-author=Martin%20Renaud

Apple iPad, iPod, iPhone: http://itunes.apple.com/ca/artist/martin-renaud/id477163464?mt=11

Kobo: http://www.kobobooks.com/search/search.html?q=Martin+Renaud+Socialite