PlayGame is here
I've been having difficulty getting my longer fiction published. Maybe it would cost editors too much to buy them, due to their length. After all, at 8¢ per word, a 21,600 word story is $1,728. Pretty steep for a single magazine to purchase from a relatively unknown writer. Some top tier magazines pay even better than 8¢, which would cost even more.
Then there's the sheer volume of pages. At 21,600 words you're looking at over 86 pages, which would fill the entire magazine. No editor is going to do that, there wouldn't be room for any other stories. They could choose to serialize the story over 3 or 4 issues, but that has it's own set of headaches, which again, for an unknown writer, most editors are unwilling to take on.
Last but not least, maybe my stories just aren't that good. This one I'm not sure about, as some of my shorter fiction has sold. Maybe it's just that novella length material is a tough sell. In any case, having an over inflated confidence in my writing ability I have decided to go the self publishing route with these longer works.
So after spending quite a bit of time with multiple software packages, I present 'PlayGame', a science fiction novella, where players of a futuristic virtual reality sport face murder and revenge.
I had a good time writing this story. I use 'Abiword', an open source word processor, while I'm writing stories. I then moved over to 'Scribus', an open source page layout program, to create the .pdf file that's used to print the paperback version. 'Scribus' is excellent at creating the final print layout. Abiword doesn't save to .pdf, but it can save out an e-pub file. That's not the end though, as the raw e-pub isn't really ready. So I used 'Sigil' another open source software, to format the e-pub, adding the title page, copyright, and other material to the file. I also had to learn some markup code to adjust font sizes, bold and italic, and other style issues, while making the e-pub look the best that it can be.
Then I moved on to creating the cover. I had an idea of what I wanted, so I blocked out the scene using a 3D program called 'Blender', also open source, and staged the roadway, cars, buildings, and a couple of figures in the foreground. I then used a virtual camera with a wide angle lens to render out a single image at the required size for my paperback layout. This image I brought into 'Krita', an open source painting and image editing program. It took weeks just to paint the final version of the cover. The e-pub cover was easier, as I just cropped the image down to a single page version.
It has been a journey, in which I learned many, many new things. The final result has been worth it. So far I've only gotten a single sale (from a family member!), but this is only the beginning. Next I'm working on formatting another story, getting it ready for publication. The process should be easier, as I already have the first one to use as a template for prepping the next.