Catholic Fiction

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You can also create a kindle book (AZW or MOBI file format) yourself. Download **Sigil **for free to create the epub ebook. You will need to do a little editing in CSS but there are plenty of online tutorials for that. Then convert the epub file into a Kindle format using Calibre, also downloadable for free. You can even create an account at Amazon and Smashwords and upload the book yourself, bypassing a publisher altogether.

The big headache then is publicising your book. You are one of hundreds of thousands of author hopefuls. I can’t suggest anything easy and reliable. Your best bet is to write a ***good ***book and follow it up with a dozen other good books. Sooner or later people will begin to notice.

Let me toot my own horn. *Centurion’s Daughter *(links in signature below) takes place at the very end of the Western Roman empire, and explores the themes of filial love and loyalty at a time when the last stretch of the Roman world is falling apart. In many ways it was a unique era.

PS: I created the ebook version of Centurion’s Daughter. A fair amount of work but straightforward enough to do.
 
Your best bet is to write a good book and follow it up with a dozen other good books. Sooner or later people will begin to notice.
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Years ago I became fascinated by Joan of Arc. Her story was amazing.
She was amazing.

I talked about her on the internet. The response of people was, “It happened a long time ago. Who cares?”

You may write a good book, but if it’s not about the present day people won’t find it something they can relate to.
 
I have watched a couple of interviews with Ron Hanson and he seems to have written some interesting Catholic fiction
 
Reep said:
No one will buy ebooks in pdf format because pdf docs will not flow properly. Ebooks need to be in either Kindle or epub formats, preferably both.
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My book is available as epub and it is from Tate Publishing. I’m also informed that within a number of weeks, it will be directly available for purchase via a Kindle or Nook device, it just takes them time to process the publisher’s order. My book is still brand-spanking new though. :o
 
OGormanRB said:
I totally agree with you that fiction is good or bad. And if I want my novel to impact others, it has to be well-written. But at the same time, if my work doesn’t provoke some introspection on the part of the reader, then for me, it has no purpose. And if my novel would lead the reader to a false belief, I would feel I’d committed a great sin. Thus, although my characters may murder, commit adultery, etc, I hope that the reader is clear that these are sins, and salvation comes from recognition of sin and repentence.
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I applaud your deserve to draw others closer to God. Be aware, however, that the interpretation of your readers is ultimately out of your control. Is the Harry Potter series a triumphant defense of courage and freedom or a subversive tract for witchcraft? Does Lord of the Rings offer insight into the most noble elements of the human condition or does it fetishize bucolic antiquarianism and racism, sexism, and a caste system? And so forth.
 
My two cents:

The book industry is rapidly moving to self-publishing, even if traditional publishers are fighting it.

Createspace (owned by Amazon), lulu and others, last time I checked, are free, and you keep all rights to your book.

Now, if you want help with cover design, layout, editing etc they will do that for you for a fee. Note that editing is not ghost writing - they will not rewrite sections of your book for you to make it better - they will restructure your content (move chapters, paragraphs etc around) or at least recommend that you do it, from what I understand, on some editing plans, and of course correct grammar, spelling errors, and remove some redundancy. You have to go through the manuscript and accept/reject the changes.

Createspace books are automatically sold on Amazon, on createspace, and you can select other distribution channels too,

And for a small fee (last time I checked it was $65 in most cases) they will turn your manuscript into a Kindle book in a couple of weeks and get it ready for submission to the Amazon Kindle platform. All you have to do is review what they set up, set a price, hit submit and off it goes to Amazon to ‘publish’ it on their Kindle platform and within a few days it is available on amazon.com.

(You can make the Kindle yourself if you want to give it a try - Amazon provides free tools like Mobi creator, from what I recall reading.)

Createspace, for one (maybe lulu too but I can’t research them all!) , has free tool to help with book covers, free templates for book layout, and all kinds of free advice on forums on the site from other self-published authors that offer advice on setting a book’s price, marketing, covers, most common fonts to use, book trim sizes to use, etc. Also for setting your selling price they have a free royalty calculator that let’s you see how much you get and amazon/createspace gets for whatever price you set.

They offer distribution channels too. I think if you want higher royalties and a few other things, you have to pay a one-time fee or something, of $50 or thereabouts (this might have changed).

All in all it is a great deal - FREE!!!

Anybody writing a book, or a second book, might want to consider self-publishing.

(ok, maybe this was a full nickel’s worth!)

God bless you.
 
beehumble.
Now, if you want help with cover design, layout, editing etc they will do that for you for a fee. Note that editing is not ghost writing - they will not rewrite sections of your book for you to make it better - they will restructure your content (move chapters, paragraphs etc around) or at least recommend that you do it, from what I understand, on some editing plans, and of course correct grammar, spelling errors, and remove some redundancy. You have to go through the manuscript and accept/reject the changes.
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Createspace books are automatically sold on Amazon, on createspace, and you can select other distribution channels too,
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And for a small fee (last time I checked it was $65 in most cases) they will turn your manuscript into a Kindle book in a couple of weeks and get it ready for submission to the Amazon Kindle platform. All you have to do is review what they set up, set a price, hit submit and off it goes to Amazon to ‘publish’ it on their Kindle platform and within a few days it is available on amazon.com.
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(You can make the Kindle yourself if you want to give it a try - Amazon provides free tools like Mobi creator, from what I recall reading.)
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As I understand it,
you can do all the work yourself,
and no human being at Amazon is aware you and your book exist. It’s all done by computer.

This interests me because I want full control of my greatest novel ever written, Empress Theresa.
I joined a “writers forum”, so called, and people criticized every word of the small excerpts I posted. Their suggestions were worthless. They did not understand the story.
These “writers” 🤷 , in the section of the forum in which I posted, wrote mostly vampire, zombie or witchcraft stories. I kid you not! Even the “global moderator’s” claim to fame was a vampire story, which was 4,000,000th on the Amazon Bestseller List.

And these people were volunteering their editorial assistance? :bigyikes:
 
georget said:
All of Michael D O’Brien’s books are fantastic, I especially liked - Islands of The World .
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I enjoyed his books, too!

IMO, shorter is better these days. Fr Elijah was about right. I don’t read a whole lot of fiction but if it is shorter I’m more likely to read it as once I get involved in a book, I want to finish it quickly.

I would like to get more books for our parish library, and there were some good suggestions here - thanks!

Blessed 2nd Sunday of Lent,
Mimi
 
Great comments re self-publishing
Also appreciate the book recommendations.
I just finished:

The Misadventures of Cardinal Fratelli–wonderfully entertaining cozy fiction with an endearing title character. Congrats Rachel Goglman aka marcopolo

The Last Fisherman by Randy England aka Reep
This was a Catholic “Left Behind” that was intriguing and full of suspense. I find it particularly apropos that Pope B XVI just altered the rules for the conclave which is a scenario that Randy imagined. Great story-telling in the line of John Grisham- fast-paced, edge of your seat, roller-coaster ride.

Still waiting for First Unseen to arrive in the mail.

To all, keep writing, keep reading, keep praying
God bless, Ron O’Gorman
 
Great comments re self-publishing
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This week I started working on getting my book Empress Theresa on KINDLE
  1. Finding an agent when you’re not a published author takes years. I’ve already been at it two years with not an encouraging word to be heard. Actually, I don’t think they even bother to read the query letter.
  2. I might drop dead suddenly and the book would be lost forever. Putting it on KINDLE at least gets it out there. My relatives can take over if I croak.
  3. In looking through KINDLE books, I find a lot of stories about vampires, zombies and witches. And there are the romances and mysteries which are all alike.
    Doesn’t look like much competition.
    Empress Theresa is one of a kind. :D:
 
OGormanRB said:
Great comments re self-publishing
Also appreciate the book recommendations.
I just finished:

The Misadventures of Cardinal Fratelli–wonderfully entertaining cozy fiction with an endearing title character. Congrats Rachel Goglman aka marcopolo

Thank you for reading it. Granted it’;s not meant to be something epic and serious but I belief a quick comedy serves it’s own purpose, especially in these depressing days. I did write something more serious titled “The White Wolf of Rome” but most people say it isn’t that good. I think it;s good but that’s my opinion LOL.
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I, too, have written a Catholic romantic murder mystery totally faithful to the Magisterium. It’s doing fairly well. But I had an inkling as to why Catholic fiction isn’t that easy to sell. Christian fiction sells really well, but not Catholic fiction. I think it’s because non-Catholic Christian want to read novels about people who live God’s word faithfully; but they don’t want to read Catholic fiction b/c they might be anit-Catholic. I read a excellent novel about a rebellious teen who decides to become Catholic just to annoy her parents, but in the end, she truly believes and enter the Church happily and willingly. This book was on Amazon and one of the reviewers said, “Why is this under Christian fiction? Catholics are Christians.” Ahem, we’re only the first Christians (actually, Mary was the first Catholic Christian. So Catholic fiction maybe doesn’t get many “Christian” readers, and nominal Catholics probably don’t really care to read Catholic fiction.

Anyway, here’s my novel. It’s on Kindle:

amazon.com/MURDERED-Catholic-Romance-Mystery-ebook/dp/B009K6QC3O/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1363044574&sr=8-2&keywords=to+be+or+not+to+be…+murdered

🙂
 
I pressed the ‘SAVE AND PUBLISH’ button on KINDLE for my novel
**Empress Theresa ** seven hours ago. Kindle says it takes twelve hours for the “IN REVIEW” process, whatever that is.

Current Amazon status for the book: ‘PUBLISHING’. Must be some kind of nightly file update processing.

**Empress Theresa ** took nineteen years to write. I threw out a hundred ideas that just weren’t good enough.

This is the dream come true book for recommendation to the young. Not preachy, there’s no religious doctrine, Theresa teaches by good example. Any parent would love to have her as their daughter.
 
I work in the book publishing industry.
  1. Taking the negative approach and assuming things are both wrong. Get it through your heads, now.
  2. Do the research.
nypost.com/p/news/business/book_industry_death_is_greatly_exaggerated_NO3Kq4xuQ6TwZu0VXB99uN

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323874204578219563353697002.html
  1. E-book sales are flattening out. No, not everybody wants to spend their day in front of a screen only to go home and spend the rest of their day in front of a smaller one.
bostonglobe.com/business/2013/03/01/barnes-noble-posts-loss-nook-demand-slows/sdcQLd86NJTntYEYNfjx3I/story.html
  1. If you go with an established publisher, get a contract. Get a copyright attorney to look it over.
  2. You could offer your book on your own website, either in hard copy or as a PDF. I strongly suggest watermarking it. Online print on demand services like lulu will print a handful at first, and more to order later on.
For those who want to publish fiction that follows Catholic moral principles (yes, the bad guys can be bad but not the brutal, graphically bloody, as in blood flying everywhere type), I suggest the Catholic Writers Guild:

www.catholicwritersguild.com

And take a look at their Standards:

docs.google.com/a/catholicwritersguild.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEtGN0pjNlZjeGNwRFMxMEVYdnN2M0E6MQ#gid=0

Peace,
Ed
 
empther said:
REAP wrote:

That’s what I suspected. 😦 I’m not happy to see this. 😊

If you ignore the company that has had great success in capturing the market, in this case Amazon’s KINDLE and Barnes & Noble Nook, and try to go out on your own like Tate Publishing,
you’re out there on thin ice.

KINDLE is free! :bigyikes: Why not use it?
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Kindle is free? Have you seen their formatting requirements? Look them up. It’s complicated.

And one more thing. Whoever “captured the market” means your new book is swimming among thousands of other e-books. That’s right. Regardless of the title - who knows it’s there? Your friends and family and that’s it? How will anyone else find it? I mean, congratulations to all published authors. I know how much work it is, but a little promotion is in order.

I suggest starting a facebook page, at least. Talk not just about your book but your inspiration(s), how it came to be, etc.

Hope this helps,
Ed
 
edwest2 said:
I work in the book publishing industry.
  1. Taking the negative approach and assuming things are both wrong. Get it through your heads, now.
  2. Do the research.
  3. E-book sales are flattening out. No, not everybody wants to spend their day in front of a screen only to go home and spend the rest of their day in front of a smaller one.
  4. If you go with an established publisher, get a contract. Get a copyright attorney to look it over.
  5. You could offer your book on your own website, either in hard copy or as a PDF. I strongly suggest watermarking it. Online print on demand services like lulu will print a handful at first, and more to order later on.
For those who want to publish fiction that follows Catholic moral principles (yes, the bad guys can be bad but not the brutal, graphically bloody, as in blood flying everywhere type), I suggest the Catholic Writers Guild:

Peace,
Ed
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Oh, thank you for this! I cannot tell you how many people have regretted not doing the research, doing e-books, getting a contract without a lawyer, et al. I warned one author not to do this again, she did, she regrets it again. I think she has ruined her chances, quite frankly.
Thank you for this much needed post!!
 
cheezey said:
Oh, thank you for this! I cannot tell you how many people have regretted not doing the research, doing e-books, getting a contract without a lawyer, et al. I warned one author not to do this again, she did, she regrets it again. I think she has ruined her chances, quite frankly.
Thank you for this much needed post!!
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You’re welcome. Without knowing all the details, are you sure her chances are ruined?

I mean unless she signed a contract that states “all books you write will be mine forever for as long as you live,” she can always call a copyright attorney before she does another book. The first call is free and she can call around. Get a quote. I know a lot of people assume it will be “too much money” without knowing how much it will actually be.

Contracts are complicated, and most beginning writers will not understand their options, or that they may be able to negotiate. Just because you get a contract promising X dollars as an advance, you don’t just stare at the zeros without reading the fine print and understanding it all.

Example: If a contract assigns all rights to the work to the publisher, that means you might get paid a flat payment for the book only, and that’s it. If the book gets turned into a movie, you get nothing from that.

Note: I am not a lawyer.

Peace,
Ed
 
edwest2 said:
You’re welcome. Without knowing all the details, are you sure her chances are ruined?

I mean unless she signed a contract that states “all books you write will be mine forever for as long as you live,” she can always call a copyright attorney before she does another book. The first call is free and she can call around. Get a quote. I know a lot of people assume it will be “too much money” without knowing how much it will actually be.

Contracts are complicated, and most beginning writers will not understand their options, or that they may be able to negotiate. Just because you get a contract promising X dollars as an advance, you don’t just stare at the zeros without reading the fine print and understanding it all.

Example: If a contract assigns all rights to the work to the publisher, that means you might get paid a flat payment for the book only, and that’s it. If the book gets turned into a movie, you get nothing from that.

Note: I am not a lawyer.

Peace,
Ed
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No, I don’t know for sure that her chances are ruined, I just feel strongly that the more she shops and uses these vanity and e publishers, flitting from one to another, her credibility diminshes. In her case, she seriously needs an proofreader. I read one just for this purpose, and :eek:.
 
Kindle is free? Have you seen their formatting requirements? Look them up. It’s complicated.
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Hunh? 😊 🤷

Just upload a Microsoft WORD file. Nothing could be simpler. Costs nothing.
And one more thing. Whoever “captured the market” means your new book is swimming among thousands of other e-books. That’s right. Regardless of the title - who knows it’s there? Your friends and family and that’s it? How will anyone else find it? I mean, congratulations to all published authors. I know how much work it is, but a little promotion is in order.
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***Empress Theresa ***is a priest’s dream come true book to recommend to his parish youth group.

All parish churches can be found here: thecatholicdirectory.com/
There are 22,000 listings.
I’ll be sending snail mail letters to the pastors notifying them of my book.
  1. E-book sales are flattening out. No, not everybody wants to spend their day in front of a screen only to go home and spend the rest of their day in front of a smaller one.
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I suspect since you are in the book printing business you naturally despise the ebook business.

I’ve been talking to young people at work. It seems like everybody has KINDLE. One girl told me it’s more practical than a printed book.
Amazon keeps the sales numbers of its KINDLE reader secret, but people who know say it’s in the millions. Also, Amazon provided a means to download a book to a PC.

Have you seen a young person in a bookstore lately? I haven’t. They don’t buy books.
 
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