FAQ

Questions you may have as well as their answers will be put here when they come up.

Q. What do you write your books on?

A. I actually write on two different devices. The first two "A Walk Beyond" books were written on my old Acer Aspire 5050 laptop. I now have an Acer Aspire Midnight E-15 that subsequent books will be written on, and the other is my Samsung Sidekick 4G smart phone. This phone has the best keyboard (for a phone) I've ever used.

Q. What software do you use when writing?

A. My phone is an Android so I use Jota Text Editor. It does everything I need it to and can open a text file of immense size (i.e. more than 100,000 words) and since it uses a simple text file I can open it on any computer.

My laptop is running a version of Linux called Debian Linux, so the more well known office suite everyone else uses isn't really an option for me. So instead I use LibreOffice. For me it works better than that other more well known office suite, and on top of that it's free. I use it mainly for spell checking, thesaurus, and standard sentence structure issues.

I actually have an FTP server running on my laptop so when I want to write on my phone I log into the FTP using my phone and copy over the file I'm working on at the time. I do what I want to it and then log back in and send the file back to my laptop. It ensures I have access to my writing no matter where I am.

For designing the e-books, specifically EPUB format, I use a program called Sigil. It seems like a very cryptic program, but in reality it just doesn't hold your hand while using it. It takes a bit of learning to master it, but once you understand its simplicity it is wonderfully useful. There is also a plugin for LibreOffice called Writer2Epub that will take your document and convert it to an EPUB e-book file that can easily be edited using Sigil.

Q.Why did you go the indie route?

A. I just wanted to tell my stories the way I wanted to. No, they are not perfect, but then I wouldn't be happy if they were. Anyway, with the advent of certain technologies these days it is easier, and easier to do these sort of things. So I just learned how to do it. It's so much easier than trying to get hooked up with a publisher these days, by an order of magnitude. The major downfall though is you don't have a massive company pushing out advertising on your behalf. Instead, I rely on word of mouth. Fans are awesome like that.

Q.When are you going to finish the next book?

A. If I had a nickle for every time I've heard that question I could retire to a cabin in the mountains and say screw you all, now you'll never know how it ends... I mean it will be done when it's done.