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Friday, July 11, 2008

Vacation Time and a Question

I'm off on a short vacation until Thursday. Yes, I'll be taking my Neo with me. I have it all set up with the ending of my novel and two unfinished short stories.

Have not been doing much other than writing on my Neo. I'm frightfully behind in my blog reading. Must be because of all the time I'm not spending on my computer. I've untangled some plot knots that had me in fits in Starcaster and I'm trying to smooth out my very rocky ending.

I keep meaning to write another Word for the Novelist post. I have actually already written an article on Revisions that I want to post, but I need to rewrite it for the Novelist audience, rather than the Business Analyst. (I originally write it to help out my co-workers.) I have several such documents, but they're rather long and I'll probably have to handle them in chunks here on the blog.

I'm actually considering self-publishing this whole "Word for the Novelist" concept. I've looked into Lulu, and I can sell a 30-40 page 8.5 X 11 booklet for less than 10 dollars. I would write two versions, one for Word 2003 and the other for Word 2007. I suppose, before I self-publish, I should probably see if I can't get a proposal package together and sell it the old-fashioned way. However, I don't think I have enough material for a full-sized book, and I think it would be more useful to the reader in the booklet format anyway.

If I were to self-publish this thing, would you be interested in purchasing it, if I kept the price below 10 dollars?

5 comments:

  1. I don't use MS all that often so not so sure I'd have need of it but I'd be tempted to purchase it only because it's from you.

    Something to keep in mind is if there is any copyright issues writing a how to book. I don't know either way but it's worth looking into.

    Certianly a good idea to put a proposal together for getting it published the traditional route!

    I mostly type in OpenOffice and save to word for Word users. If I'm dealing with a final word document then I start using Word because it can screw with the doc settings bouncing between a word and openoffice settings.

    I've also been having some plot issues, the smaller stuff, the bits in between that keep it going.

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  2. Yeah, the copyright and trademark issues are one of the reasons I might be leery of this thing. I'm fairly sure my concept is "fair use" but I'd have to make damned sure.

    Good for you using Open Office! Once they implement the Document Map or something similiar, I'll give them another try.

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  3. Great concept. I think a lot of writer's would find a booklet on using Word specifically in relation to writing very helpful. I think it'd have to be really inexpensive, though, since with a little web searching, you can pretty much find the answers to many writing how-to's when it comes to Word. But that being said, to have them all in one, easy to access place, would be an asset, too.

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  4. Hope you had a great time on your vacation. I hear you are going to visit your favorite sister. She is probably wondering why you didn't show her your cool Neo thingy.

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  5. Probably because I have hardly used the thing, and whenever my favorite sister is over at Mom's, a mob is over as well.

    I'll have to rectify this dreadful situation today.

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