Tag: publishing

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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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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 Featured on Talk Show

J. Tordsen was featured on Our Thing Detroit with Gunner Lindbloom to talk about The Gigabytes Guide to Writing.

The episode aired on May 19, 2023. While the episode was partially pre-empted by PGA Golf, the segment was front and center immediately following the conclusion of the sports coverage.

The book – that was written, edited, designed, and published in 7 days – gives a lighthearted overview of the self publishing process.

Among the topics covered was the surreal circumstances of writing, editing, and self publishing a book about the process of writing, editing, and self-publishing a book.

J. Tordsen also explained that one of the hurdles he had to overcome when writing this book was the “ubiquity of chat bots” writing in a human sounding voice. He talked about writing the book in his own voice with a little humor because if he wrote it in a purely informative way, it might be indistinguishable from what a chat bot might write.

You can catch the replay of the Facebook live stream here: https://fb.watch/kDPRiAxPKp/

You can purchase The Gigabytes Guide to Writing on Google, Amazon, and right here: https://gigabookspress.com/product/gigabytes-guide-writing-paperback/

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