Category Archives: WB3–World Clinic

The Apple iBooks Author Issue: Small things, and large principles
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The short version: I have removed my books from sale on iBookstore because Apple has included a clause in software I don’t use and wouldn’t have used anyway a clause claiming the right to refuse publication on its platform of works created with this software (which is fine and I applaud their right) and further stating that if they reject your work you cannot sell it in the format the software created anywhere else.

THE LONG VERSION:

Here’s the clause:

B. Distribution of your Work. As a condition of this License and provided you are in compliance with its terms, your Work may be distributed as follows:

(i) if your Work is provided for free (at no charge), you may distribute the Work by any available means;
(ii) if your Work is provided for a fee (including as part of any subscription-based product or service), you may only distribute the Work through Apple and such distribution is subject to the following limitations and conditions: (a) you will be required to enter into a separate written agreement with Apple (or an Apple affiliate or subsidiary) before any commercial distribution of your Work may take place; and (b) Apple may determine for any reason and in its sole discretion not to select your Work for distribution.

And then the next paragraph is bold-faced, just so you don’t miss it:

Apple will not be responsible for any costs, expenses, damages, losses (including
without limitation lost business opportunities or lost profits) or other liabilities you may incur as a result of your use of this Apple Software, including without limitation the fact that your Work may not be selected for distribution by Apple.

Here’s the guy who found, dissected, and posted about it, along with his dissection, and it will save us a BUNCH of time if you read his article.

So what’s the problem? You’re not going to use the damn software anyway!

Nope. I’m not. But I had ten books up on the iBookstore, which I put there using iTunes Producer, which is software. I do my epub versions of most of my books in iWorks Pages, which is software. And I work on Apple computers, an iPad, and an iPhone, all of which use Apple software. OS X and iOS 5 at the moment.

And the rule of software is this: Software does not get to dictate the use of output. Period. Software does not get to tell you WHERE you can sell what you’ve created, only that you have the right to sell it (in the cases where software requires a commercial license if you are producing for profit).

Software does not get to tell you, “If you create this work on our software and we don’t want to distribute it, we own the rights to the version our software created, and if you want another version, you will have to disassemble this one, and rebuild it from scratch on other software.”

The purpose of purchasing and/or using software is to make your work easier.

It is not to have the software claim ownership of any part of what you have created with it.

There is no difference—except in number of people affected—between a company claiming ownership of the rights to something you created with its ebook publisher, and something you created with its OS.

    The principle is identical.

(Apple is not claiming to own rights to your work if you work on OS X. My removal of my own work from their site is on principle, not because my own work is affected.)

And there is no number of people affected that is insignificant. The smallest minority is the individual, and minority rights protect the rights of the individual because those are the only rights there are.

So THAT is why I pulled all my books from distribution on the iBookstore, why none of my further books or any of my writing courses will be going to the iBookstore, and why I can no longer recommend the iBookstore to my students.

And this in spite of the fact that Apple makes my favorite products in the world, and I hate like hell having to do this.

And if they remove their damn clause and respect the purpose of creative software and the rights of the individual, I’ll go back.

COMMENTS have now been closed on this post.  Please read the follow-up post, and if you choose, comment there.

A pic from my office: My path-to-freedom workboard
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What I have to do to retire from teaching

My office workboard, now with what is probably going to be a two-year checklist in place.

If you’ve taken any of my courses (or read some of my more detail-oriented posts, you’ll recognize me as big on goal-setting, getting a plan in place, and making sure it’s where you can see it.

So the day before yesterday, I erased all the short-term stuff off my office workboard, and put up my BIG goal, which is to retire from teaching inside of two years so I can write JUST my fiction again.

And I put up the steps on how I’ll accomplish this, in order, and with checkboxes.

I love checkboxes.

They’re physical proof of progress. Sitting there blank, they’re a reminder of a step to be taken. Checked, they’re a square on the game board you’ve now covered.

I don’t know how you organize goals, but on the MACRO level, this is how I do mine. On the micro level, I have a notebook I carry with me all the time, in which I keep lists of the small steps that help me accomplish the big steps. I’m pretty close to finishing the first of the four Self-Pub lessons. I’ll check that off on the little list, then make a check on the board when all four are finished.

How do you get from where you are to where YOU want to be?

Oh. By the way, CD II and CD III on the right are shorthand for Cadence Drake 2: Warpaint, and Cadence Drake 3: The List of Three (working title). So my list does include the completion of two novels along with all the rest of the work on the board.

NovelWritingSchool.com coming in November
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I have the temporary front page up here: http://novelwritingschool.com/

I have beta testers going through a free plot-outline course (a major upgrade on the current version done via e-mail on THIS site). We’re finding bugs and getting them out of the way now. Once we get the bugs out, this will go live for EVERYONE, well before November. Probably next week. I’ll post here with a link when it does.

I’ll have some of the simpler existing courses ready for you in November, and will gradually build out until all of my courses and existing freebies are transferred to the new school—and then I’ll start adding new courses.

The reason? Site maintenance on a bunch of different platforms and at a bunch of different domains has become too much for me to handle. So Holly Lisle’s Novel-Writing School will free me up to concentrate on course building, NOT web work.

What About YOUR Success Story?
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Have you had success with one of my courses? If you have, I really want to hear about it. Please tell me below.

Members-only Sale Updates
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If you’re on the Writers’ Updates newsletter and you have questions about or need help with the February Sucks sale, you can ask or post here. I’ll be checking the blog all day. And all day tomorrow. And by putting everything here, some questions might be answered that folks participating while I’m asleep might need.

If you’re not getting the newsletter, it’s not too late to join. Still about twenty minutes left on the countdown before things actually start.

Added.
Typing in the live countdown by hand. Four minutes left.

10:21

Gone In Seven Minutes

The Hawkspars and All the Talyn Hardcovers plus the Talyn ARC were actually gone in seven minutes.

Lots of stuff left. I’m doing a mad cut and paste just to keep people up with the book they got. Thank yous will go out when things slow down.

Holly

Last 13 Books

I can’t believe it, but I’m already out of all the books but the last thirteen, which are one-offs. I got caught up on the notifying folks of which book they got (check your PayPal email if you haven’t heard from me yet), but I haven’t had time to send out thank yous. This is the first time I’ve had a chance to breathe.

Corrected Hawkspars

Uploaded the correct versions of the Hawkspar First Draft Manuscript and the Hawkspar Revised Manuscript. Very sorry about the error. Weather here is unreal, but for now, power is still on.

Power Went Off, Came Back On

We’re through the first line of storms, but there’s another even bigger one behind in. Keep your fingers crossed that the hamster stays healthy.

Have Lost Internet Twice

And the next line of storms is almost to us. I’ve been answering e-mails in the meantime, but I’m not holding my breath on us having either internet OR power when the next storms come over.

Getting there on the site
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I’ve reclaimed the early morning hours for writing, which has done wonders for my mood. The rest of my day, however, has been split between homeschooling the kid (fifth-grade science is wonderful!) and doing an enormous amount of work on the site behind the scenes.

The day before yesterday I completely rebuilt the site templates, stripped out all the old code by hand, attached the pages to the new templates, and reloaded whole site. Now it works with a lot fewer errors.

Yesterday I got the Affiliates’ board working (thanks to Margaret for help on a weird PHP 5 bug) and got the Courses mailer set up.

Today I’m doing my best to create new ad campaigns for the rest of the lost ads for the affiliate program.

I’m also hoping to get the first couple of lessons for the affiliate program written.

Once the many ripples from last month’s exhausting double-move of the site have died down, I’m going to get back to work on the third Worldbuilding Clinic , Create A World. And do the first of a few free e-mail writing courses.

My to-do list is still pretty awful. But I’m getting there.

Your Menu Options Have Changed
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Holly Lisle’s Create A World ClinicMy favorite (insert glyph of rolling eyes here) phrase when dealing with inescapable, interminable, utterly frustrating automated phone answering systems—”Please listen carefully, as your menu options have changed.”

This should be a whole lot less painful.

Look to the Works In Progress block to your right on the weblog. Two, and only two, books are now in progress. Moon and Sun II, currently and temporarily titled The Moonroads, and Holly Lisle’s Create A World Clinic. I finally figured out how to do the world-development book without burying everyone in way too many illustrations. And done this way, it should be as much fun to go through as Plot Clinic, and have as many useful tools.

ADDED LATER: Have posted this small version of the cover art, too. I was thinking “chocolate, chocolate, must have chocolate,” at the time.

Wandering Ways
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I’m almost done with the first draft of The Ruby Key. Due to the fact that I left out a lot of important and exciting things in the middle portion of the story (because I write very, very tight in first draft and almost always have to expand in revision) I’m going to end up wrapping the first draft at around 55K, and then going back and adding in. The story might go a bit longer than that, but my editor, Lisa, assured me that organic writing and running long was okay with her, so long as I didn’t go over 100K. Since I’m pretty sure I can do what I need in 65K, I think I’m good to go on this one.

But that’s not all I’ve been doing. C—The Secret Project is
back in my life. I cannot leave it alone, which tells me that I shouldn’t try. I’ll give you the first two paragraphs; maybe those will tell you why this story is still eating at me after years of playing with it. (Maybe not. If not, then I concede the possibility of insane obsession. Otherwise, I’m holding out for sane obsession.)

Down the red clay road, dirt bone-dry and hard beneath her feet, with dust kicking up behind the heels of her cowboy boots, Kay strode with purpose. Blood on her palms, tears on her face. In her pocket, two wedding rings, a silver pin, an old harmonica. In her right hand, a shovel.

She’d left her purse in the car she’d abandoned a mile back. All her ID was in it: credit cards, driver’s license, birth certificate, a load of things she was leaving behind. This was the last shot, last time, last gasp, last hope. And how much hope was it really, hoping to be reborn but being ready to die, too, if that was the way things went?

I’m slowly putting together the paperback workbook version of Worldbuilding 2: Culture Clinic.

And I’m outlining WB3: Build-A-World Clinic.

Add in homeschooling the kidlet, and I’ve been a shadow of my former self online. But beneath the silence, a lot is going on.

Oh. And the business-related stress that had be tied up in knots for a couple of weeks? Resolved, all good, and there is a reason you want the very best agent you can get—and a reason I am grateful every day to have the best agent there is: You the writer are one lone, insignificant flyspeck in the universe of megacorp publishing—the industry that eats its young—and when you’re making deals with the giants, you want a master duellist negotiating for you.

ADDED LATER: Forgot the Sympathy for the Devil screenplay. Doing that for the film school kid, who’s finished film school, is casting for her second short, and to whom I promised a screenplay. I figure one from one of her favorites of my books would be good. At the moment, I’m notecarding that, which means lots of words but no visible progress.

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.

Updating the Schedule
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So around June, I had everything planned out. And then I needed to write one book a full year earlier than it had been planned. And I did. But doing so wrecked every other item in my schedule. Obliterated. Toasted. Annihilated.

Turns out, I could do the insane “everything at once” provisional schedule only for a few days, and then my brain shut down, and I had to step back. I got the Language Clinic and NIGHT ECHOES written. And will finish the write-in of NIGHT ECHOES today, and the type-in in the next couple of days.

But that leaves a lot of stuff languishing. I have a student thing that’s been hanging fire; that’s next. Then the final HAWKSPAR edit, a lot of which is done—that had a lot front-end problems that went away by the end of the book, so having most of the front-book issues already finished, I’m thinking (just thinking here) that the rest of that will go more or less smoothly.

And then what?

Create A Culture Clinic (Worldbuilding II)
The Ruby Key (Moon and Sun I)
Create A World Clinic (Worldbuilding III)
Project Blue
Create A Plot Clinic
Moon and Sun II
Storyshowing Clinic
C, the Secret Project
Finish the Book Clinic

And more stuff after that…God willing and the creek don’t rise.


NOTICE: The Surgeon General has declared that creating schedules can be detrimental to your health and sanity, and that schedule dependence has been linked with weight gain, weight loss, hirsutism, hair loss, nervousness, nausea, vomiting, auditory hallucinations, angina, GERD, hypertension, hypotension, insanity, and death. Pregnant women, women who might become pregnant, persons with preexisting liver or kidney or heart conditions, and people with eyelids should avoid scheduling. If you experience side effects from scheduling, stop immediately and consult your doctor.

DISCLAIMER #1: This schedule is subject to Life, which happens while one is making other plans.

DISCLAIMER #2: (Marine Adage) No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.

DISCLAIMER #3: (Yiddish Adage) Men plan, God laughs.

DISCLAIMER #4: (Nursing Instructor Adage) CYA