Philip J. Smith's Blog

Monday, November 6, 2017

Trip Planning Checklist for Day Hikes and Backpacking Trips

Hiking Trip Plan Checklist

Why do people get lost or need to be rescued when they take a hike or journey into a backcountry area? One of the chief reasons is a lack of preparation and planning.

One way to prepare yourself is to write up a trip plan to help you assess different route options and determine if you need to bring extra gear, food, or water on your trip. A trip plan helps ensure that the route you want to take is a good match for the time you have available and the people you plan to go with.

Leave a copy of your trip plan with a trusted friend or relative who can call search and rescue if you don't come home or contact them by a certain time. If they have your trip plan and know who to contact, they can call search and rescue to come find you're if lost or injured. If you've followed your trip plan, it reduces the area that search and rescue teams have to search to find you.

In 2013, the National Park Service published statistics for the search and rescue operations they conducted that year. Nearly 60% of the rescues they performed that year were for day hikers, while 20% were for backpackers. In 30% of the cases, victims had become to exhausted to complete their trip without assistance from rescuers, while 22% of those rescued had insufficient trip information or made judgement errors. It's apparent that those rescued didn't have a good grasp of the effort required to complete their trips under their own power, lacked maps or detailed information about their routes, or bit off more than they could chew and needed help extricating themselves. Better up front trip planning would have probably prevented many of these rescue call outs.

A topographic map is one of the primary sources of information that you'll use to create a trip plan. But there are other good sources of information that you might refer to including a guidebook, weather forecasts, and sunrise and sunset times. Seasonal information like river gauge levels or avalanche forecasts can also be important to assess the safety of stream crossings or backcountry ski routes.

Web-based planning tools like Caltopo.com make it easy to calculate total elevation gain by drawing an elevation profile.

Estimated Travel Time

When planning a trip, it's important to estimate how long it's going to take you to hike your chosen route. If it's a day hike, you'll want to finish it before the sun sets. It's much more difficult to follow trails at night and it's easy to get lost. If it's a backpacking trip, you'll want to make sure you have enough time each day to hike between your intended campsites and that you complete the trip within the time you've allotted. Planning travel times is also useful if you plan on hiking in a group, so you can screen out people who won't be able to keep the pace.

When planning, list the trails you plan to follow and the distance you need to travel on each one. If it's a multi-day trip, break out your distance estimate by day to see if it's reasonable or whether you need to redistribute the distance across more days.

Estimated travel time = Pace per hour on flat terrain + 30 minutes for every 1000 feet of elevation gain

The amount of time required to hike a trail is a combination of your pace when hiking on flat ground + the extra time it takes you to hike uphill.

If you're using a guidebook to plan your route, you can often find the cumulative amount of elevation gain along it. You can also derive the amount of elevation gain by adding up the contours on a topographic map, but don't subtract the corresponding descents. Be sure to do this for every hill or mountain along your route: subtracting the elevation at the beginning of your trip from the elevation at your final destination is insufficient.

If you're hiking or backpacking, there is a well-established formula that you can use to get a good estimate of how long it will take you to walk a given distance and elevation gain. When hiking off pavement, most people walk at a 2 mile per hour pace, plus 30 minutes for each 1000 feet of elevation gain.

Here are some examples of how to use that information to compute an estimated hike time.

For 6 miles with 500 feet of elevation gain, the estimate is 3 hours + 15 minutes
For 10 miles and 4000 feet of elevation gain, the estimate is 5 hours + 2 hours
For 16 miles and 9000 feet of elevation gain, the estimate is 8 hours + 4.5 hours

You can adjust the formula if you walk faster (on average) or slower on level ground, by substituting a different number for the mile per hour element of the equation. In winter, I've found that substituting 1 mile per hour for 2 miles per hour leads to good travel time estimates since surface conditions usually require the use of snowshoes or crampons.

Now that you have the total distance and elevation gain of your route, how do you decide if you're physically fit to complete it or if you've bitten off more that you can chew? Everyone is different, but use previous experience as your guide. If you've never done that much distance or elevation gain per day before, or carried as heavy a pack previously, be more conservative in what you plan to accomplish. Once you establish a baseline, you can build on it on subsequent trips.

Weather Forecast

While you'd think checking the weather forecast the day of your hike would be common sense, you'd be surprised by the number of hikers who don't do it. Proceeding with a trip in poor weather or without proper clothing, equipment, and experience can lead to serious problems if you plan on venturing into hazardous terrain. There's nothing wrong with postponing or cancelling a hike when the weather is crappy.

When checking the weather forecast, it's also important to differentiate between a valley forecast and a higher elevation forecast, since bad weather at higher elevations is almost always more severe than weather at lower elevations. The potential danger is the highest when hiking above treeline where you're not protected by tree or vegetation cover, because:

Higher wind speeds can blow you off your feet and make it difficult to walk.
Cold temperatures can heighten the risk of hypothermia or frostbite.
The change of surface from dirt to boulder fields increases the chance of lower leg injuries.
Heavy cloud cover increases the chance of becoming disoriented if you don't have navigation tools.
The risk of being struck by lightning is greatly increased when you leave tree cover.

NOAA has many good online tools for forecasting backcountry and mountain weather conditions on the Weather.gov website. Many people also like to refer to the Mountain Forecast website for a different presentation of the same information.

Sunrise and Sunset Information

I constantly see search and rescue reports about hikers who have been caught out after dark without headlamps. While carrying a headlamp on hikes is a must-have, I suspect the reason that hikers are "benighted" also has to do with underestimating travel times (covered above) and not knowing how many hours of sunlight there are in the day. This is important to check, especially in late autumn when the length of days gets incredibly short.

Sunset and Sunrise Calculator – http://ift.tt/IzVejL

Trails become much more difficult to follow after sunset, even if you have a headlamp, because you have far fewer visual cues to help you see where the trail is. If you're hiking on an un-blazed or poorly blazed trail, it can be very easy to lose the trail if the ground is covered with rocks or roots. It's even worse in autumn and early spring, when the ground is covered with dead leaves that hide any evidence of other hikers' tracks and footprints.

Parking and Vehicle Information

Including the location of your parking spot and vehicle information in your trip plan is useful if search and rescue has to come looking for you. If you've left a trip plan with a relative or trusted friend, they can email the entire trip plan to SAR, including this information.

The first thing SAR will do is to check your parking spot to see if your car is there. If it's not, they'll assume you hiked out already. If it is, then they can follow your route and try to locate you on foot or from the air. If you change your plans or don't park your car where you said it will be in your trip plan, it's important to communicate this fact to the person you've entrusted your trip plan with before you begin your trip.

Wrap Up

This has been a quick synopsis of the trip planning process and the type of information to include in a trip plan. I go through this same check list when I plan and document my day hikes and backpacking trips, leaving a copy of my trip plan with my wife. Going through the process of planning a hike in this much detail usually doesn't more than 30 minutes and can be useful for sharing trip details and assumptions if you hike and backpack with other people. It's also a good planning aid to make sure that you've packed the right clothing and gear for a trip, particularly for more challenging trips in remote locations.

Burrard and Nelson-Luxury Residential Tower by Bing Thom

Burrard and Nelson are built by the First Baptist Church partnered with Westbank Projects and Bing Thom Architects. This iconic project has 56-storey, offering 294 units of 1-3 bedroom market strata condos. This 550-foot luxury residential tower incorporates several innovative features, such as "sky gardens", waste collection elevator cabs, and smart thermostats. Living at Burrard and Nelson, you'll appreciate its prime location in the middle of the city. Explore Pacific Centre and Robson Street for your shopping needs. For groceries, Marketplace IGA is just a block away or get them direct from the farmer at the West End Farmer's Market every Saturday at Nelson Park.

The post Burrard and Nelson-Luxury Residential Tower by Bing Thom appeared first on Vancouver New Condos.

from Buildings – Vancouver New Condos http://ift.tt/2AeBYaY

Burrard and Nelson-Luxury Residential Tower by Bing Thom

Burrard and Nelson are built by the First Baptist Church partnered with Westbank Projects and Bing Thom Architects. This iconic project has 56-storey, offering 294 units of 1-3 bedroom market strata condos. This 550-foot luxury residential tower incorporates several innovative features, such as “sky gardens”, waste collection elevator cabs, and smart thermostats. Living at Burrard and Nelson, you’ll appreciate its prime location in the middle of the city. Explore Pacific Centre and Robson Street for your shopping needs. For groceries, Marketplace IGA is just a block away or get them direct from the farmer at the West End Farmer’s Market every Saturday at Nelson Park.

The post Burrard and Nelson-Luxury Residential Tower by Bing Thom appeared first on Vancouver New Condos.

from Buildings – Vancouver New Condos http://ift.tt/2AeBYaY

Cascade City in Richmond

Cascade is stylishly designed, 15 story mixed-use building located in the center area of Richmond. Two cascading residential towers over a shared podium create Richmond’s first architectural landmark, which will offer 271 units. Shops, restaurant, SkyTrain, and Oval Community Centre are within walking distance. Cascade Village offers the best of the west coast lifestyle!

The post Cascade City in Richmond appeared first on Vancouver New Condos.

from Buildings – Vancouver New Condos http://ift.tt/2j3q9RE

Cascade City in Richmond

Cascade is stylishly designed, 15 story mixed-use building located in the center area of Richmond. Two cascading residential towers over a shared podium create Richmond's first architectural landmark, which will offer 271 units. Shops, restaurant, SkyTrain, and Oval Community Centre are within walking distance. Cascade Village offers the best of the west coast lifestyle!

The post Cascade City in Richmond appeared first on Vancouver New Condos.

from Buildings – Vancouver New Condos http://ift.tt/2j3q9RE

IndieView with Jendi Reiter, author of Two Natures

Jendi Reiter – 6 November 2017

The Back Flap

This big, genre-bending, spiritual coming-of-age novel focuses on Julian Selkirk, a young gay fashion photographer in New York City in the early 1990s, at the height of the AIDS epidemic.z Vivid social realism, enriched by unforgettable characters, eroticism, and wit, make this a satisfying read of the highest sort.

About the book

What is the book about?

Two Natures is the coming-of-age story of Julian Selkirk, a fashion photographer in New York City in the early 1990s. His faith in Jesus helped him survive his childhood in the Atlanta suburbs with an abusive alcoholic father, but the church's condemnation of his sexual orientation has left him alienated and ashamed. Yearning for new ideals to anchor him after his loss of faith, Julian seeks his identity through love affairs with three very different men: tough but childish Phil Shanahan, a personal trainer who takes a dangerous shortcut to success; enigmatic, cosmopolitan Richard Molineux, the fashion magazine editor who gives him his first big break; and Peter Edelman, an earnest left-wing activist with a secret life. Amid the devastation of the AIDS epidemic and the racial tensions of New York politics, Julian learns to see beyond surface attractions and short-term desires, and to use his art to serve his community.

When did you start writing the book?

I started working with these characters in 2006, in a draft of a different book that I laid aside. I realized that Julian should be the main character and narrator in 2008, so I date the "beginning" of Two Natures from November 2008.

How long did it take you to write it?

Seven years, 2008-2015, but I'm always working on several projects at once. During that period, I also had some short stories, two poetry chapbooks, and a full-length poetry collection published: Bullies in Love (Little Red Tree, 2015). The side projects help me work out ideas and character sketches that sometimes find their way back into the novel I'm writing. For instance, both Bullies and Two Natures are concerned with LGBTQ life stories and the sometimes fraught relationship between sexuality and religion.

Where did you get the idea from?

The book's theme arose from the ongoing conflict in contemporary Christianity over equality for LGBT people. I was baptized in the Episcopal Church, which has been at the forefront of this debate since we ordained an openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, in 2004. The issue tore apart some of my Christian friendships and prayer circles, including the writing group where I was working on the earliest drafts of this novel.

I was raised by two mothers in New York City in the 1970s-80s. Because of work and personal problems, they had to remain closeted, so we were cut off from gay culture during a pivotal era of community-building, activism, and artistic expression. Writing about gay New York is a way for me to connect with that history now and imaginatively live the alternate life I wished for.

Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?

I went through many permutations of Julian's relationship to Christianity because my own faith was evolving rapidly during the time I was writing it. Organized religion didn't end up being as important to him as I thought it would. When I couldn't write plausibly about orthodoxy from his point of view, I was forced to admit that my ultimate authority was the Spirit as revealed through my creative process and personal experience—not the teachings of any church or scripture. This was scary but ultimately liberating. The book ended up being about how Julian learns to trust himself and his own experience of the sacred.

What came easily?

Julian's voice was strong in my head from the beginning. He's witty, self-deprecating, sentimental one moment and sarcastic the next, loves beauty, doesn't overthink things, but struggles with the fear that he's all alone in the universe—that God doesn't love him because of his sexuality.

Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?

None of the characters are based directly on real-life individuals, and none of them are entirely fictitious, either. I believe that, consciously or not, all novelists draw on characteristics of people they've met, other characters in film or fiction, and aspects of themselves. This last source was most interesting and surprising for me. I didn't realize I had a gay male alter ego until Julian showed up!

Julian started as my fantasy self, a liberating thought-experiment. What would I feel, what choices would I make, if certain external constraints were reversed? What if I'd had the freedom and safety of being an attractive, socially gifted, not risk-averse young man, in the same New York environment where I came of age? I discovered that beneath our different exteriors, Julian and I had similar longings for intimacy and security, which created inner conflict with his macho Southern upbringing that scorned male vulnerability. The writing went better when we overcame his shame about his feminine side. Meanwhile, I learned to incorporate some of his good masculine energy, his independence and libido, into my persona in this world.

We all know how important it is for writers to read. Are there any particular authors that have influenced how you write and, if so, how have they influenced you?

I love big novels of ideas that also have exciting plots, like Alexander Chee's The Queen of the Night and Donna Tartt's The Secret History. I also love male authors who can show men's sensitive side, like Pat Conroy.

Do you have a target reader?

Anyone who enjoys literary fiction, gay fiction, M/M romance, and novels about contemporary politics. Christian parents who would like to understand their LGBTQ children and family members. People interested in gay history and the AIDS epidemic.

About Writing

Do you have a writing process? If so can you please describe it?

My characters are constantly present with me, and sometimes I actually sit down and write about them.

Theoretically, I write for about 2 hours on MWF mornings. This time is always under siege from the demands of book marketing, my "real job" as editor and contest judge for our WinningWriters.com writing resource website, my child's school holidays, and that scourge known as email.

I often have some kind of ritual to mark the transition from regular life to the world of the novel. When I was writing Two Natures, I might start by listening to a song, saying a prayer, or doing a brief free-write or character interview to check in with my collaborators—I mean, characters—about our next steps. Since then, I've begun using Tarot readings to tune into my intuition and spiritual guidance, so I usually start a writing session by pulling a few cards as prompts. Tarot has turned out to be fantastic for my novel plotting.

Do you outline? If so, do you do so extensively or just chapter headings and a couple of sentences?

I don't outline. I have a general idea of the main plot points, but my process is character-driven. I put them in situations with conflict, and allow them to reveal more and more about their personalities and motives. Their reactions dictate the pace at which events unfold—and often suggest new plot directions instead of what I had planned.

Do you edit as you go or wait until you've finished?

I write my first drafts by hand, and edit lightly when I type them into the computer, which I try to do every 20 pages or so. I don't do any major editing till I have a draft of the whole book. No point laboring over a scene if an overall read for narrative structure reveals that the scene should be cut altogether!

Did you hire a professional editor?

Award-winning poet Ellen LaFleche, a friend who is a professional editor, read multiple drafts during the writing process, in exchange for similar feedback on her poetry manuscripts. I paid her for a line-edit of the finished book. [Find her at http://ift.tt/2h97DmO] I also paid a gay male artist friend in NYC, who is of the same generation as Julian, to give the manuscript a close read for sensitivity and accuracy. Saddle Road Press publisher Don Mitchell worked closely with me to make the final book typo-free (we hope!).

Do you listen to music while you write? If yes, what gets the fingers tapping?

I need complete silence when I actually sit down to write (earplugs and all) to hear the voices in my head! However, music plays a huge role in my fiction-writing process. When I'm driving, doing chores, or working out, I play certain songs or styles of music to get into the mindset of different characters, and daydream about possible scenes that would portray the emotions in those songs. Julian is partial to 1980s New Wave, electronica, bluegrass gospel, and French cabaret music. (Check out his playlist on Pinterest.) Peter, one of his boyfriends who is the protagonist of my new novel-in-progress, is revealing a fondness for Nine Inch Nails and 1970s folk songs. Should be an interesting battle over the remote control when those two shack up!

About Publishing

Did you submit your work to Agents?

Not this time around, but I will consider it for the next book. I was eager to get Two Natures out in the world after its long gestation process.

What made you decide to go Indie, whether self-publishing or with an indie publisher? Was it a particular event or a gradual process?

I first submitted the book to contests because I know that market best, and was then planning to seek an agent, if the contest route didn't work out. Meanwhile, I was emailing with Ruth Thompson, the editor of Saddle Road Press, about a poetry book of hers that I had greatly enjoyed, and she happened to mention that the press was seeking literary fiction manuscripts. I had a high opinion of their literary taste and book design skills. I sent them Two Natures and received an offer a few months later.

Did you get your book cover professionally done or did you do it yourself?

Don at Saddle Road Press did a beautiful job creating a photo collage with his original images and stock photos of the cover models. He is an accomplished photographer as well as writer and editor. Check out his work at http://ift.tt/2h807Ze.

Do you have a marketing plan for the book or are you just winging it?

I've been working with the excellent and dedicated Carolyn Howard-Johnson to implement some of the ideas in her guide The Frugal Book Promoter. Right now I'm focusing on social media, online reviews and marketing sites like this one, and word of mouth in my community. I submitted to every eligible award I could find for indie published books, and picked up a couple of honors, but the fees were very steep and I might be more selective next time around.

Any advice that you would like to give to other newbies considering becoming Indie authors?

Make sure your finished book looks as professional as a book from a major publisher. Have a writer friend or a freelance editor give you a critique for pacing and loose plot threads. When you've completed the structural edits, hire an experienced proofreader/copyeditor and a cover designer. Pick a cover that will be easy to understand in the thumbnail size on a bookseller's website or e-newsletter. Let successful contemporary books in your genre be your guide to typefaces, color schemes, and mood, without copying their look so much that yours doesn't stand out.

If you self-publish, you have more choice about pricing. (Price inflexibility was the one big downside of small press publishing for me.) Research comparable titles and look at sales survey data from sites like BookBaby and BookBub.

About You

Where did you grow up?

I grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Where do you live now?

Since 2003 our family has lived in Northampton, a college town in Western Massachusetts with a vibrant literary and arts scene and a large LGBTQ community.

What would you like readers to know about you?

My poetry and fiction are guided by the belief that people take precedence over ideologies. In exploring themes of queer family life, spiritual integration, and healing from adverse childhood experiences, my goal is to create understanding that leads to social change.

End of Interview:

For more from Jendi visit her website or like the book's Facebook page.

Get your copy of Two Natures from Amazon US or Amazon UK.

from The IndieView http://ift.tt/2j4OJld

IndieView with Jendi Reiter, author of Two Natures

Jendi Reiter – 6 November 2017

The Back Flap

About the book

What is the book about?

Two Natures is the coming-of-age story of Julian Selkirk, a fashion photographer in New York City in the early 1990s. His faith in Jesus helped him survive his childhood in the Atlanta suburbs with an abusive alcoholic father, but the church’s condemnation of his sexual orientation has left him alienated and ashamed. Yearning for new ideals to anchor him after his loss of faith, Julian seeks his identity through love affairs with three very different men: tough but childish Phil Shanahan, a personal trainer who takes a dangerous shortcut to success; enigmatic, cosmopolitan Richard Molineux, the fashion magazine editor who gives him his first big break; and Peter Edelman, an earnest left-wing activist with a secret life. Amid the devastation of the AIDS epidemic and the racial tensions of New York politics, Julian learns to see beyond surface attractions and short-term desires, and to use his art to serve his community.

When did you start writing the book?

How long did it take you to write it?

Seven years, 2008-2015, but I’m always working on several projects at once. During that period, I also had some short stories, two poetry chapbooks, and a full-length poetry collection published: Bullies in Love (Little Red Tree, 2015). The side projects help me work out ideas and character sketches that sometimes find their way back into the novel I’m writing. For instance, both Bullies and Two Natures are concerned with LGBTQ life stories and the sometimes fraught relationship between sexuality and religion.

Where did you get the idea from?

The book’s theme arose from the ongoing conflict in contemporary Christianity over equality for LGBT people. I was baptized in the Episcopal Church, which has been at the forefront of this debate since we ordained an openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, in 2004. The issue tore apart some of my Christian friendships and prayer circles, including the writing group where I was working on the earliest drafts of this novel.

Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?

I went through many permutations of Julian’s relationship to Christianity because my own faith was evolving rapidly during the time I was writing it. Organized religion didn’t end up being as important to him as I thought it would. When I couldn’t write plausibly about orthodoxy from his point of view, I was forced to admit that my ultimate authority was the Spirit as revealed through my creative process and personal experience—not the teachings of any church or scripture. This was scary but ultimately liberating. The book ended up being about how Julian learns to trust himself and his own experience of the sacred.

What came easily?

Julian’s voice was strong in my head from the beginning. He’s witty, self-deprecating, sentimental one moment and sarcastic the next, loves beauty, doesn’t overthink things, but struggles with the fear that he’s all alone in the universe—that God doesn’t love him because of his sexuality.

Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?

None of the characters are based directly on real-life individuals, and none of them are entirely fictitious, either. I believe that, consciously or not, all novelists draw on characteristics of people they’ve met, other characters in film or fiction, and aspects of themselves. This last source was most interesting and surprising for me. I didn’t realize I had a gay male alter ego until Julian showed up!

Julian started as my fantasy self, a liberating thought-experiment. What would I feel, what choices would I make, if certain external constraints were reversed? What if I’d had the freedom and safety of being an attractive, socially gifted, not risk-averse young man, in the same New York environment where I came of age? I discovered that beneath our different exteriors, Julian and I had similar longings for intimacy and security, which created inner conflict with his macho Southern upbringing that scorned male vulnerability. The writing went better when we overcame his shame about his feminine side. Meanwhile, I learned to incorporate some of his good masculine energy, his independence and libido, into my persona in this world.

We all know how important it is for writers to read. Are there any particular authors that have influenced how you write and, if so, how have they influenced you?

I love big novels of ideas that also have exciting plots, like Alexander Chee’s The Queen of the Night and Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. I also love male authors who can show men’s sensitive side, like Pat Conroy.

Do you have a target reader?

About Writing

Do you have a writing process? If so can you please describe it?

My characters are constantly present with me, and sometimes I actually sit down and write about them.

Theoretically, I write for about 2 hours on MWF mornings. This time is always under siege from the demands of book marketing, my “real job” as editor and contest judge for our WinningWriters.com writing resource website, my child’s school holidays, and that scourge known as email.

I often have some kind of ritual to mark the transition from regular life to the world of the novel. When I was writing Two Natures, I might start by listening to a song, saying a prayer, or doing a brief free-write or character interview to check in with my collaborators—I mean, characters—about our next steps. Since then, I’ve begun using Tarot readings to tune into my intuition and spiritual guidance, so I usually start a writing session by pulling a few cards as prompts. Tarot has turned out to be fantastic for my novel plotting.

Do you outline? If so, do you do so extensively or just chapter headings and a couple of sentences?

I don’t outline. I have a general idea of the main plot points, but my process is character-driven. I put them in situations with conflict, and allow them to reveal more and more about their personalities and motives. Their reactions dictate the pace at which events unfold—and often suggest new plot directions instead of what I had planned.

Do you edit as you go or wait until you’ve finished?

I write my first drafts by hand, and edit lightly when I type them into the computer, which I try to do every 20 pages or so. I don’t do any major editing till I have a draft of the whole book. No point laboring over a scene if an overall read for narrative structure reveals that the scene should be cut altogether!

Did you hire a professional editor?

Do you listen to music while you write? If yes, what gets the fingers tapping?

I need complete silence when I actually sit down to write (earplugs and all) to hear the voices in my head! However, music plays a huge role in my fiction-writing process. When I’m driving, doing chores, or working out, I play certain songs or styles of music to get into the mindset of different characters, and daydream about possible scenes that would portray the emotions in those songs. Julian is partial to 1980s New Wave, electronica, bluegrass gospel, and French cabaret music. (Check out his playlist on Pinterest.) Peter, one of his boyfriends who is the protagonist of my new novel-in-progress, is revealing a fondness for Nine Inch Nails and 1970s folk songs. Should be an interesting battle over the remote control when those two shack up!

About Publishing

Did you submit your work to Agents?

Not this time around, but I will consider it for the next book. I was eager to get Two Natures out in the world after its long gestation process.

What made you decide to go Indie, whether self-publishing or with an indie publisher? Was it a particular event or a gradual process?

I first submitted the book to contests because I know that market best, and was then planning to seek an agent, if the contest route didn’t work out. Meanwhile, I was emailing with Ruth Thompson, the editor of Saddle Road Press, about a poetry book of hers that I had greatly enjoyed, and she happened to mention that the press was seeking literary fiction manuscripts. I had a high opinion of their literary taste and book design skills. I sent them Two Natures and received an offer a few months later.

Did you get your book cover professionally done or did you do it yourself?

Do you have a marketing plan for the book or are you just winging it?

I’ve been working with the excellent and dedicated Carolyn Howard-Johnson to implement some of the ideas in her guide The Frugal Book Promoter. Right now I’m focusing on social media, online reviews and marketing sites like this one, and word of mouth in my community. I submitted to every eligible award I could find for indie published books, and picked up a couple of honors, but the fees were very steep and I might be more selective next time around.

Any advice that you would like to give to other newbies considering becoming Indie authors?

Make sure your finished book looks as professional as a book from a major publisher. Have a writer friend or a freelance editor give you a critique for pacing and loose plot threads. When you’ve completed the structural edits, hire an experienced proofreader/copyeditor and a cover designer. Pick a cover that will be easy to understand in the thumbnail size on a bookseller’s website or e-newsletter. Let successful contemporary books in your genre be your guide to typefaces, color schemes, and mood, without copying their look so much that yours doesn’t stand out.

About You

Where did you grow up?

I grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Where do you live now?

Since 2003 our family has lived in Northampton, a college town in Western Massachusetts with a vibrant literary and arts scene and a large LGBTQ community.

What would you like readers to know about you?

End of Interview:

For more from Jendi visit her website or like the book’s Facebook page.

Get your copy of Two Natures from Amazon US or Amazon UK.

from The IndieView http://ift.tt/2j4OJld

Monday, November 6, 2017

Estimated Travel Time

Weather Forecast

Sunrise and Sunset Information

Parking and Vehicle Information

Wrap Up

See Also:

The Back Flap

About the book

About Writing

About Publishing

About You

The Back Flap

About the book

About Writing

About Publishing

About You