Category Archives: Create A Character Clinic

Clinic Week Sale
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Holly Lisle’s Create a Culture ClinicI’ve put all three Clinic books on sale from today through Friday, each one $2.00 off.

Character ClinicWhy? For karma. I’m struggling on the Ruby Key revisions, and the last time I put books on sale, the bad karma cleared. The line-for-scene is crawling, and most of the cards so far are red or orange. Not good. My stress level is rising, my confidence is falling.

Language ClinicI’d had some serious, bad stuff going on for a while the last time I put books on sale (also for karma), and everything got better. It may be New-Agey, it may seem crackpot. No matter. It worked last time, so I’m trying it again.

ADDED LATER:

Hunting the Corrigan’s BloodAlso put Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood on sale for a flat $3.00 (57% off). It’s not a clinic, but….

Anyway, I hope the discounts are a good thing for some of you, and provide good content and a useful service.

One-Day-Only Hump Day Sale
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SALEWednesdays suck in general. Today, mine is worse than usual, so I decided to do something good to offset all the bad karma.

There’s a one-day-only Hump Day sale on my writing books—15% off on any of them that you buy. Buy one or all three and get the discount.

Create A Character Clinic Goes Gold
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Both Create A Character Clinic and Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood are now available in print versions at the OneMoreWord Bookstore on Lulu.com.

The second version of CCC landed on my doorstep Saturday afternoon, and it came out just right. I was overjoyed that it turned out so well…and incredibly relieved that it turned out at all. Getting this book into print has been a real challenge.

On a personal note, I haven’t felt like myself since late last year (something you may have noticed from the tenor of this weblog). While I wrote most of this off to a whole lot of years of overwork and (since about December) the depression that sometimes affects me, I discovered not too long ago that the horrible headaches and the constant exhaustion are primarily being caused by high blood pressure. I’ve reverted to a vegan diet, and the blood pressure has already started to come down. I still don’t feel like myself. But I am starting to feel better.

Oh. And the e-book store is down for maintenance. If you’re hoping to buy any of the cool books we have up on the site, please keep checking.

It’s Mud Everywhere
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So. I spent all day yesterday slogging through Lulu and CCC, and I think I have fixed the problem. Heavy emphasis on think. I’ve ordered a second copy, and should have it early next week. But I should know before then whether or not this method will work, because HTCB shipped on Monday, and I used the same method to produce it that I used on the character clinic.

Today I’m back to the language clinic, which I’d hoped to have done already. This year, everything is taking longer, everything has grown thorns, and I feel like I’m perpetually fighting my way through a briar patch with my feet mired in good Ohio mud. (Which is some of the finest mud on the planet, too–it ate more than one pair of my galoshes when I was a kid, and there were a couple of times I was pretty sure I was a goner.)

I’m rebuilding the worksheets today. I thought I already had them somewhere on the hard-drive. These are, after all, the worksheets I use when I create my languages. But I can’t find the templates anywhere. So I dug out my Matrin Languages notebook, and am going through and redoing everything.

As I said, mud. And briars.

Got My Copy of CCC
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In the following post, click the thumbnail images to see the larger ones.

Front cover, print version of Create A Character ClinicI received my copy of Create A Character Clinic yesterday. It arrived promptly, in excellent condition, and the quality was exceptional. The cover artwork is on good, sturdy stock, very glossy, and the colors came out rich and well-separated.

Back cover, print version of CCCThe text is crisp, too, and the ringbound binding is inset deeply enough that the pages, which are of good-quality paper, should not tear out even with heavy use.

Interior illustration, print version of CCCI was worried about the interior illustrations. I had to do them in grayscale, rather than the color that I used in the e-book version, and I was afraid that they would be muddy and hard to read. I was plesantly surprised to find that they had printed very well, though I think I may redo the whole lot in black and white when I redo this. The colors were useful–the grayscale really isn’t, and I think I’d prefer crisp lines.

Interior text of CCCWhy will I be going back to redo this instead of putting it on sale now?

Well, there was a tiny little problem with the interior text, you see. It all looks like this. Every word, every page number, every chapter heading and bullet.

…….. Sigh ………

I’m off this morning to see how to fix this.

HAH! CCC Has Shipped
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I’m delighted to announce that my copy of Create A Character Clinic has shipped. One step closer to reality — I could never get a copy all the way through production before. Lulu has improved the production process so that now you immediately know it didn’t work, which means I’ll never have something up there for sale again that they can’t actually print and ship.

When I get my copy, if the print is good and the binding is good, I’ll make it available, both here and through the shop.

The Print Version of CCC … Again
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I think I might have finally cracked the whole Lulu thing. I have CCC published in “Only available to me” mode, and have ordered my own copy. If it works and I get my copy and it doesn’t look like crap, I’ll go ahead and make the ring-bound workbook version of Create A Character Clinic available and post the link.

I was completely over the migraine, by the way, when I came in from dumping the trash yesterday, and my feet were wet because it was pouring rain, and they went out from under me. Slammed my head on the door frame and then the floor, hurt my right wrist and my butt, cut my right foot. Also I scared myself, and Matt, and the poor kid to death, and now my ribs ache, and the head is hurting again. No permanent damage. But … damn.

So Very Cool
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I was a complete podcast neophyte when I decided to put mine together, and I’m just now exploring the podcasts other people have done. I discovered Tim King, who does be the story. I’d listened to a few of his early episodes shortly after doing my first one, but didn’t realize until last night, when searching for something else entirely, that he’d done a podcast titled “Great Characters and How to Make Them,” in which he creates a character using my Create A Character Clinic. I was really surprised to find this out there, and enjoyed the episode, so I thought I’d pass along the link. If you want to listen, but aren’t sure how, you can use the episode player at Yahoo.

Email Is Down From the Shop and Affiliate Sites
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As far as I can tell, this is the only glitch, but since this is the first of March, affiliate payday, it means I can’t send out the newsletter. So for this month, I’ll post it here, as well as on the Affiliate Support Board.

MARCH HollyShop Affiliate Update

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AFFILIATE OF THE MONTH
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Congratulations to Monica Jackson, (http://monicajackson.com/blog/), who, as Affiliate of the Month, receives a $7.00 bonus. Monica linked a personal recommendation for both Character Clinic and Way of the Cheetah through her weblog, and got her traffic through this, plus a one-line recommendation in a post. Her site gets a lot of traffic; this approach worked for her.

Thanks, Monica!

Be sure to stop by the Affiliate Support board (http://shop.hollylisle.com/salesteam/) to congratulate her, get ideas, and offer suggestions on encouraging readers to take a chance on e-book purchases.

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TEAM UPDATE
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February was a slow month for the shop (and hence, for affiliates). I ran into snags transferring the Cadence Drake novel HUNTING THE CORRIGAN’S BLOOD to Word, and am still laboriously manually editing my way through it, line by line, taking out all the hidden code that was screwing up the production process. So we didn’t have new sales for that to boost things.

I’m going to offer a $2-Off discount when I put it up, though. $1 off HTCB and $1 off Lazette Gifford’s MUSE to people who buy both. I’m hoping that will get readers to take a chance on Zette’s book and on e-book fiction in general.

I’ll start working on Worldbuilding Clinic once I get HTCB debugged and posted, too, so there will be that to look forward to in the near future, too. And I’m hoping to have more professional authors write e-books on writing, too; Sheila has done really well with hers so far.

That’s it for February.

Hang in; March is looking brighter already.

Cheerfully,
Holly
http://shop.hollylisle.com/idevaffiliate/