Tag: book

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Okteveos Release Delayed

the 8 fates of okteveos

The 8 Fates of Okteveos is getting major rewrites at the suggestion of beta readers.

Parts of the anticipated book are going back to the second edit process which could delay the release by several weeks. J. Tordsen explains.

I am going to delay the release of The 8 Fates of Okteveos based on the feedback I received from beta readers. I use a self-edit process and to ignore the feedback from the beta readers is ultimately self-defeating. As this is my first foray into novel writing, it is worth taking the extra time to make the manuscript the best it can be.

What did the beta readers say? In a nutshell, the first half of the book was too much of a lift for the readers. So much so that one reader even began skimming and missed some important details that helped make sense of the story in later chapters.

In fairness, I have only been working on this book off and on since about January 2023. Ten months of work on a novel that might take years to write is better than I expected – especially considering how slow I type.

J. Tordsen

The original release was planned for October but with the delay, a new release date has yet to be determined. Gigabooks Press will announce the new date once it becomes available.

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Excerpt: Dealing With Writer’s Block

This is an excerpt from The Gigabytes Guide to Writing Second Edition on sale in paperback and e-book on this site.

The first thing to know about writer’s block is that the condition we call “writer’s block” is not unique to writers. When software developers experience the same thing we don’t call it “programmer’s block”.

The second thing you need to know is that is isn’t real. Seriously. It is not an ailment, a condition, or an affliction. You won’t find it in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual as a mental disorder however, you can find a book written 30 years ago called Understanding Writer’s Block: A Therapist’s Guide to Diagnosis and Treatment. The first sentence of the blurb?

“This innovative book explains writer’s block as a symptom of a larger disorder.”
Source: Google Books

Allow me to save you the time reading this 195 page “only to find out you aren’t crazy” book. Yes, writers and creative people can get stumped sometimes and we call it writer’s block because some Austrian psychologist living in New York named Edmund Bergler coined the term in 1947. Yeah, Bergler. Not Hemingway, Bronte, or Verne.
Source: ncbi.nim.nih.gov article PMC7965145

The long and the short of it is that writer’s block is a symptom of a larger issue. While chronic writer’s block may be caused by a mental disorder, your writer’s block may just mean you are tired, sick, or need a new source of inspiration. In other words, rest or do something else for a while. (Incidentally, have you watched the British version of Ghosts? I bet you haven’t.)

Pro Tip: There is literally no rule saying you have to write as the reader will read it. If you are feeling stuck at a certain point, stop writing, create a new document, and start writing a section that you are more inspired with. You can fill in the gaps later. It may even be easier to do so because all you have to do is connect the dots.

The good news here is, not only do you not have to write in sequence, what if I told you that you don’t have to write parts of your book at all?

I often skip parts of the writing and just make notes in brackets like these: <insert yet another joke about Ghosts on Paramount+>. I also use markers like xxx to bookmark the spot where I leave off writing and editing. Those marks are not often used in writing, so you are able to use your word processor’s search feature during editing to search for these sections and fill them in.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (of Sherlock Holmes fame) anecdotally started with the end of his mystery books and wrote the plot backwards. Plotting backwards is a legitimate technique used by mystery writers. So, you are allowed to skip around when writing your saucy romance novel (we all know what parts you really want to write anyway).

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Use of “Artificial Intelligence” in Writing

This is an excerpt from The Gigabytes Guide to Writing available on this site in paperback and e-book.

Let’s start off by calling it what it is: a large language model chat bot. Not only is it not artificially intelligent, it is well known for making factual mistakes and outputting terrible writing. “AI” is effectively a marketing term.

The temptation to use chat bots to write some or all of a work is great for any writer – particularly if they are struggling. Without getting into how these systems actually work, my advice as a writer and as a technologist is: Don’t.

The reasons are, quite frankly, both numerous and serious. First off, copyright law is not settled when it comes to chat bots and writing. If you let a chat bot write any part of your work for you, it is entirely possible you could find yourself on the end of a lawsuit over the rights and royalties to your work by the company that developed the chat bot. As ridiculous as it sounds, these companies may legitimately have a case against you.

Second, there are many publishing houses that will ban you if you try to submit a work that was written by AI – even in part. This could limit your audience and publishing options.

Third, flooding the market with poorly-written, self-published dreck – even if human edited – hurts the entire writer / reader community. If readers spend their hard-earned money on a terrible book that isn’t up to standards, then there is the potential to lose that reader forever. One bad book can be dismissed as a fluke, but if book after book is terrible, a reader might wonder why they are wasting their time and money.

Finally, if you can’t write for yourself, put this book down now and find another hobby. For example, I hear this show, Ghosts, is pretty compelling.

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J. Tordsen on The Author’s Voice

J. Tordsen will be on The Author’s Voice Podcast with Donnie Lansdale on September 14, 2023.

He will be discussing past projects like the recently released The Gigabooks Guide to $0 Publishing, The Gigabytes Guide to Writing, and the upcoming The 8 Fates of Okteveos.

To listen, you can search for The Author’s Voice with Donnie Lansdale anywhere you get your podcasts.

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Guides now available on Barnes and Noble

Gigabooks Press is now publishing its original guides on Barnes and Noble.

The Gigabytes Guide to Writing and The Gigabooks Guide to $0 Publishing e-books just went live on Barnes and Noble today. Gigabooks Press currently publishes to Amazon and Google Play Books.

The Gigabytes Guide to Writing is available here.

The Gigabooks Guide to $0 Publishing is available here.

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New Gigabooks Guide Announced

Gigabooks Guide to $0 Publishing

The next guide has been announced and will be The Gigabooks Guide to $0 Publishing. The book will be released on Gigabooks Press in paperback and e-book August 29th, 2023 with Amazon Kindle and Google play to follow shortly thereafter.

The best kept secret in the modern publishing landscape is that you don’t need to spend a single penny pursuing your dreams of being a self-published author – well, except maybe picking up a copy of this book. This publishing system is one that few authors know about and even fewer use. J. Tordsen used this technique to publish The Gigabytes Guide to Writing and details exactly how to do exactly what he did in this new guide.

J. Tordsen, author of The Gigabytes Guide to Writing, independently published the book in 7 days for absolutely $0. In this guide, he will take you through the complete process of publishing your own work with little or ZERO cost.

An author’s name is a brand and the the book is a product. The more money you put into the product, the more you have to sell to make that investment back. Keeping costs as low as possible makes making money on your book faster and easier.

The Gigabooks Guide to $0 Publishing takes you through all of the most cost-effective writing, editing, publishing, and marketing strategies available to the modern writer. Along the way, J. Tordsen will give you advice based on his own personal experience dealing with the publishing process as well as scam artists and vanity publishers – and how to deal with them once and for all.

The Gigabooks Guide to $0 Publishing is a comprehensive template for new and established authors to save tens of thousands of dollars on the publishing process.

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Editing The 8 Fates of Okteveos

The 8 Fates of Okteveos has completed its second edit and author J. Tordsen has been tracking word counts throughout the process.

The following table shows how the book’s word count has evolved through the writing process.

Section Draft Edit 1 Edit 2 Change Edit 1/2/Total
1 24,112 22,098 23,013 -2014/+915/-1099
2 4,392 5,286 6,453 +894/+1167/+2061
3 3,086 3,397 3,471 +311/+74/+385
4 – 5 5,243 5.457 5,884 +214/+427/+641
6 2,789 3,248 3,255 +459/+7/+466
7 11,730 12,602 14,483 +872/+1881/+2753
8 2,517 2,957 3,287 +440/+330/+770
Total 53,869 55,187 59,846 +1318/+4659/+5977
Okteveos Word Count Table

Section 1: The first section is consistently the largest part of the book, however, during the first edit, a massive 2000 word chunk was deleted to move the story along. In the second edit, some detail was added back in but the overall length is about 1000 words down from the original draft.

Section 2: This section grew by nearly 50%. Detail needed to be added consistently as the other sections took shape.

Section 3: It was the least developed story in the draft. After the first edit, very little needed to be added to it.

Section 4 – 5: Section 4-5 are combined for a very good reason in the book. While not a lot of detail needed to be added, it need to be added consistently like section 2.

Section 6: This section was probably the most developed part of the book. Edit 1 involved some corrections but by edit 2, the story was polished enough where it only needed a small edit.

Section 7: This is the second largest section of the book and where a lot happens. It also needed massive edits to tell the story properly.

Section 8: The rest of the book leads up to the events at the end so, any changes here almost require changes elsewhere in the book and vice-versa.

As you can see, the book started out smaller and grew as the story was refined. Most of the time we hear about authors “over-writing” a manuscript and the tug of war that happens between the editor that wants to cut it down and the author who wants to keep every word. This is not how J. Tordsen writes.

“For me, the story has always developed in editing. The rough draft is, well, rough. While I am not afraid to cut out entire sections out of a story to make it flow better, on the potter’s wheel of writing, I only start off with enough clay to make an ashtray before adding clay to build up the story into a vase. I have a short story I wrote decades ago and I have revisited that story many times over the years to re-edit it. With each edit, it got better and more detailed. If anything, I under-write a story.”

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Beta readers wanted for Okteveos

the 8 fates of okteveos

A call has been put out for beta readers for the upcoming The 8 Fates of Okteveos.

Author J. Tordsen is looking for beta readers for his upcoming novel, The 8 Fates of Okteveos, a supernatural fiction novel written as a series of short stories with an overall story arch connecting them all.  Readers will be invited to read some or all of the sections and provide feedback to the author. Those who complete one section of the beta reader project will be given an ebook copy of the finished product. Those who beta read for the entire novel will be given a special paperback copy of the novel signed by the author. 

This announcement coincides with the new Beta reader program hosted by Gigabooks Press. As stated on the Beta reader application page:

Beta readers are an important part of the publishing process at Gigabooks Press. Beta readers get early access to some or all parts of an unpublished work to critique it and provide the author with useful feedback.

There are no prerequisites for being a beta reader apart from a willingness to read and provide the requested feedback. As long as you provide the appropriate details, acceptance into the program is a given.

How it works: An author will invite you to beta read their manuscript based on the information provided in your application. Beta readers can then accept or reject any assignments they are invited to. The author may provide incentives to complete their particular beta read. Gigabooks Press facilitates the program but does not have any bearing on who is invited for a particular beta reading assignment or what incentives are provided that is entirely up to the author.

Interested readers can signup for an invitation at the Beta Reader Application page.

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Guide to Writing Second Edition Now Shipping

The Gigabytes Guide to Writing is now shipping copies of its second edition on Gigabooks Press. It is a revised and expanded version of the popular guide and includes a highly anticipated section on Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Ebook versions will follow in the next few days.

The Gigabytes Guide to Writing is author J. Tordsen’s first published work and is unique in the fact that it was written, edited, designed, and published in 7 days without the use of AI or chat bots. It has been highly regarded by peers and new writers alike.

J. Tordsen has appeared on various podcasts and talk shows to talk about the book with the most recent invite being a guest blogger on the site Author’s Lounge. More appearances are pending.

The Gigabytes Guide to Writing has been described as a sort of “pocket atlas” to self-publishing. It gives aspiring authors an overview of the process and pitfalls of self publishing. It includes helpful tips on how to avoid writer’s block, using AI tools, and effective world building techniques among others. It is written in a casual and humorous way that makes it a light and easy read.

The Gigabytes Guide to Writing can be found here: https://gigabookspress.com/shop/

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The Gigabytes Guide to Writing now available on Google Play Books

Not a fan of Amazon? The Gigabytes Guide to Writing e-book is now available on Google Play Books.

The Gigabytes Guide to Writing is a lighthearted road map to your book writing journey

A writer with over 25 years of professional writing experience, J. Tordsen escorts you down the path less traveled by other guides as he takes this book from concept to published work – without the use of chat bots – in only 7 days.

Covering everything from the first draft to effective marketing strategy, this book mixes both wisdom and wisecracks as it takes you through an overview of the entire self-publishing process – all told from the author’s unique perspective.

With an emphasis on writing technology, literary world building, and effectively combating writer’s block, this guide can help you avoid the pitfalls on the writer’s journey.

An easy and enjoyable read, The Gigabytes Guide to Writing can show you how to enjoy the ride to becoming a self-published author.

Get it on Google Play Books: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=SbG7EAAAQBAJ&pli=1

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