If you’ve been following my other posts, you should have a pretty good idea of my process for writing and publishing a book. That’s all good to know, even if you have a process that differs from mine.

What you don’t know yet, is how the financial side of all this works out, because let’s face it, the world revolves around money, and when you create works of art for income, you have to look at the business of this, too.

Buckle up, because this is going to be full of numbers, and if you’re not comfortable with that, then it might take a few reads to get familiar with this. Keep in mind that these numbers can vary depending on you, who you hire, and other factors.

Hard and Soft Costs

First, let’s distinguish between hard and soft costs. What do I mean by a hard cost? Well, this is any cost that you actually have to shell out cash for. This is going to be for people you hire to edit your book, or costs to print copies of your book—things that actually require money in the bank to honor.

Soft costs are those incurred by you spending your time working on them. Let’s face it, time is money, and even though you aren’t paying yourself to write, your time spent on that book does come at a cost. After all, you could be spending that time working a part-time job, or doing something else. Your time is worth something.

There is one other cost that we should probably consider, though I don’t think I’ll be able to put a number on everyone’s situation perfectly, but it something you can factor in the back of your mind, and that is Overhead costs. This includes things that I’ll assume you already have, like a computer, and the software needed to write your books. It includes the electricity to run your office, even if it’s a home office.

The Breakdown

Overhead: If I write $0 here, it’s because I’m assuming you already own this and can use it, rather than buying new.

Computer- $0

Word processing software- $0

Adobe creative suite- $60/month or $720/yr

Electricity- $0 (judge whether or not you’d be using similar power when not writing)

Educational books- $50/yr (I recommend reading as much as you can about your craft)

Overhead subtotal = $720/yr

Hard costs of 1 book. (Assume it is a 100,000 word book. Adjust yours accordingly)

AI subscription- $0 (because you shouldn’t be using this to write your book!)

Copy edit- $4000 ($.03 to $.05 per word, depending on who you hire)

Proof edit- $2000 (this is about half the cost of a copy edit, if you hire someone)

Print proofreading manuscript- $40 (I like to do this for my proof editing)

Print proofreading manuscript again- $40 (because you missed stuff in your first proof edit)

Cover art- $500-$750

Hire Voiceover artist $1600 (optional but highly recommended)

ISBN numbers- $75 (buy in bulk and you get them for cheap)

Print review copy of book- $25 (includes shipping)

Print final copy of books- $100 (assuming you order a few copies for family/friends)

Subtotal Hard costs of making a book = $8425

Soft Costs of 1 book: (assuming you write 800 words/day or 2 hours/day, 5 days a week and your time is worth $25/hr)

1^st Draft- $1250 (aprox 1 month) rough draft

2^nd draft- $1250 (aprox 1 month) plot fixing draft

3^rd draft- $625 (a couple weeks) early polishing draft

4^th draft- $1250 (approx 1 month) after getting it back from copy edit)

5^th draft- $625 (a couple weeks) revising and polishing

6^th draft- $625 (a couple weeks) polishing draft

7^th draft- $625 (a couple weeks) proof editing (if done by you)

8^th draft- $625 (a couple weeks) proof editing again (because you will have missed stuff)

Other drafts – we’ll assume you’re good now, but I’ve done up to 12 drafts before.

Finding voiceover, Listening to, and noting edits for audiobook- $300

Organizing in Indesign- $200

Assembling cover art in photoshop- $200

Submitting manuscript to the Copyright office and the Library of Congress- $50

Filling out forms for ISBN numbers, Print on Demand, and Audiobook metadata- $100

Subtotal of soft costs = $7725

Assume that on this schedule you are writing two books per year. I assume this, because if you’re just starting out, you’re probably doing this all part time, and not full time, so this might be all the time you can afford to write your books.

Total costs (hard and soft + overhead) = $33020

Writing Books is Not Free From Costs

Thats a lot of money. Even if you only include the hard costs, that can add up pretty quickly.

If you’re like most of us, and just starting out, it’s easy to ignore the costs of our time, and focus on the hard costs. This is fine in the beginning, especially if you have a more steady income. But don’t shortchange your time spent writing either. Especially as you start doing more of it.

We haven’t even talked about the costs of marketing your book yet. Because making a profit on $33k worth of books in a given year won’t happen until you can start selling your books.

A lot of this work will also involve soft costs and hard costs. But I worry that I’ve overwhelmed you with the sheer cost of writing a book. So let’s save the marketing discussion for next time.

Check out the video I made for this topic. As I often do, I put a fun skit in there too: https://youtu.be/io0AgEhRxQQ

I used to read, a lot. Eventually, life started to get in the way of my pleasure reading. I’d still read to learn in the evenings, but reading for entertainment sake got harder as the years went on.

First there was work, then family, then more family and more work. Did I mention homeownership? Maintaining a house takes up a lot of time too. Good grief, how does anyone find time to read for pleasure anymore?

Then audiobooks came along. Granted, there were always books on tape or cd, but now they are digital. You can have them on your phone, wherever you go. It’s amazing.

These days, rather than listen to the radio, I listen to audiobooks while I’m commuting. I have to admit, that I find myself beginning to get too lazy to sit down and read a regular book.

In fact, I believe that audiobooks are cannibalizing the written book market to a large extent. So as a writer, what do you do about it?

Make audio books or get left behind

As a self-published author, you’ll find that getting your book turned into an audiobook is not all that difficult compared to getting your book published in print. However, it can still cost a little more time and money to get done.

If your publishing process is at all like mine, then you’ve likely already spent somewhere between $2000-$4000 getting your book made. That includes sending it out to editors and getting covers designed.

Hopefully when you got your cover designed, you also had them make you square version of your cover, since the standard rectangle for your book is not the same format used for your audiobook thumbnail, and let’s face it, stretching your image to fit a square format looks stupid.

To get your audiobook recorded, you should also plan on spending another couple thousand dollars for a professional voiceover artist. You could try AI, though last I checked, not all platforms that sell audiobooks will allow AI recorded books. Another thing I’ve noticed, when I’ve listened to AI recorded audiobooks, is that while the AI can get really close to sounding authentic, there’s always a few spots in every chapter where the inflections are slightly off, or words are pronounced weird, and it tends to throw me out of the story when I hear them.

That’s why I encourage hiring a voice actor. Now you can do this in two different ways. One is by offering them royalties on every download, and another way is to pay them a one-time fee to produce your novel.

For me, I prefer to do the one-time fee. That way, I don’t have to keep track of my sales and royalty payments. Authors with a larger customer base might warrant getting a voice actor to charge a royalty, but I’m going to assume that if you’re self-publishing that you don’t want to go this route. While sticking to a single platform like ACX might help with royalties (might being the key word, because I don’t know this for sure), the method I use and recommend is a little harder to automate royalty payments.

My Process

Generally, around the time that I start working on my cover art for my book, I start looking for a voiceover artist. If you don’t know my self-publishing method, check out my last article on publishing.

Anyhow, by starting this early, I’m able to give my voiceover artist time they need to record, and then my distribution provider time they need. Funny thing is, sometimes the distribution needs as much or more time than the voice actor.

My first two attempts at recording my book went poorly. First, I had a family member who offered to do this for me. He’d never done it before, but he had a dynamic voice and enthusiasm to accomplish the project.

He’d occasionally give me updates, until he didn’t. After a few months, I realized that he lost his drive to make it happen. The novelty had worn off, and I think he may have realized that my book at the time wasn’t all that worthy of his time, especially since I don’t think he planned on charging me for it. I think he just wanted to see if he could do it. I don’t fault him for giving up on it, especially after my second attempt to get it recorded.

For my second attempt, I tried recording it myself. Something you learn very quickly, is that no matter what time of day you decide to record, someone is going to start up a lawn mower near you, or drive a loud motorcycle past your street, or one of your kids is going to start making a racket. Then when you’re sure you have the time and quiet, your voice gives out. Unless you have a sound studio in your house, it can get really hard to record good audio. It takes planning and know-how.

So my first two attempts failed, and I gave up on that book. The third time I decided to do this the right way.

I hired a voice artist. I really like Voices.com for this. They have several voice actors, all with searchable characteristics and samples of their work. I used them to find a great voice actor for my book, One For The Money, Two For The Soul.

She was able to take my book and have it recorded and back to me in about a week. I listened to the files, added a file of my own “from the author” and had her fix a couple minor spots, then it was ready. Also, she recorded it in a format that would be acceptable on all platforms, and most importantly, Amazon’s Audible platform, which has some specific quality requirements.

Next I chose to use FindawayVoices.com for my distribution. I could have just used audible, but like my book publishing philosophy, I really like being available on as many platforms as possible, not just Amazon’s exclusive stuff.

With Findaway, I was able to get mass distribution to everyone, including Audible, however you need to have everything uploaded, and finalized with a release date posted at least a month or two at the minimum in advance, because it does take some time for all the retailers of your book to get the listing from Findaway on their databases.

Once you’ve completed this step, congratulations, you’ve done it. You now have your book published in print, digital, and audio formats. What’s left?

Well, there’s two things. Marketing and doing it all over again. But those are topics for another discussion.

For more fun and helpful content, visit my YouTube channel. This topic, along with a short skit, can be found at: https://youtu.be/1k8kqJTkyOk

Way to go, you wrote your first book, published it, maybe. What next? There’s a couple of things. Marketing is one option, but it’s not the most important option.

What about sales? How do we get money for our book if we’re not marketing it?

Well, sales are nice, but they aren’t the main goal right this minute.

What is the main goal we should focus on after we’ve written our 1^st book?

Do It All Over Again

That’s right, you need to start writing your next book. It sounds so simple, and yet, it’s incredibly easy to get sidetracked by other seemingly more important tasks. Therein lies the reason though. All the “Tasks” associated with writing a book are just that. They aren’t the end goal.

Who ever wrote a book to say, “I want to be a marketer,” (aside from a marketer), but then if that’s the case, writing the book was part of their marketing task list.

Your goal is to become a writer. To do that, you must continue writing.

The hard part is, that you’re not making a living yet as a writer, and that can be very frustrating to know that you might not make back your money on that first book. Don’t fret, I’ll explain my reasoning.

Three Reasons Why You Should Focus More on Writing Than Marketing

First: Especially as you’re starting out, you aren’t good enough to ride the coattails of your first book. Even if you turn into a pro marketer, if you’re just starting out, you still have a lot to learn about crafting stories. This takes time and practice, something you still need more of.

Second: It helps with marketing. Say your book is really good, so you spend a lot of time pushing it. What happens from a reader’s perspective if they enjoyed it?

Usually, they are going to look up your next book. But wait, you don’t have a next book for them to buy and read. They might check back occasionally for the next month or two, but soon, they’re going to forget who you are.

The authors we remember, are the ones who consistently publish books. We become a fan of them through multiple books, and only then can we usually remember who they are down the road a year or two.

Third: Your personal creativity is like a muscle that needs exercise. The more you create, the more creative ideas you’ll get. Creativity feeds off itself. Once you start focusing only on the business side of things, your creativity starts to weaken. Also, if your book is struggling to gain an audience, this can drag your emotional state down.

Now, lets not assume that marketing and business are unimportant to a writer. They’re incredibly important. At the same time, making a business out of writing is more like a game of chess, rather than a game of corn-hole. You need to take a long view.

This might mean that you have to keep your day job a little longer than you were hoping for. When I decided to become a writer/independent film producer, I put together a ten-year plan. I’ll share that with you in another article.

For now, if you want to become a writer, keep writing. That is your number one job. Schedule time for the business end of things, but don’t lose sight of where you want to be as a writer.

We all deal with this. Don’t worry if it’s a little discouraging at first. Part of continuing to write, is that you get to do something you enjoy. Writing itself can be its own reward while you’re building yourself up to be a professional writer. Then hopefully, as your skills and collection of work increases, the profits will start to follow.

By the way, check out my video on this subject at: https://youtu.be/c6vL8zIxAdI

So you’ve received only form letters, telling you that either the agent is not accepting new clients, or that the publisher is not interested in your novel at this time. What a bummer.

Maybe you’ve simply gotten overwhelmed with the amount of work involved in sending out all those inquiries to the publishing gatekeepers, and wondered if you could do just as well on your own…

Chances are, no you can’t, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. There are plenty of authors who give the self-publishing route a try, and actually make a decent living. Here at LightMinded arts, I’ve made self-publishing my main goal. I even have my own imprint called Blue House Publishing, which I use for my books.

I’ve studied this out, and while there are many ways of going about self-publishing your novels, I’ll share with you the route that I currently am using for my book publishing.

How to Self-Publish Your Book

Like I said, there are multiple ways to self-publish your book, and I’m sure that many of them are just as good, if not better, but this is my process, and you can find your own way, or copy mine, it’s up to you.

My Process:

Start getting your book cover made. This will take some time, especially if you do it right. Can you trust it to AI or a friend? Sure, but I recommend using an artist who has done book covers in the past. Not only are they good at what they do, but they can also format it in a way that is more likely to sell your book.

You’ll want at least 2-3 different styles of art for your book. One will be the actual cover image, with decorative extensions to wrap around the spine and back of the cover. The front cover will also be the main image that you use for advertising. The second format, will be a perfectly square image. This is what you’ll use for your e-book thumbnail.

Once I’m done editing my book, I start organizing it from my word processing program into a book formatting program. For this, I use Adobe InDesign. If you’ve never used InDesign before, you’ll want to hop onto YouTube and learn a little about it, as it is not like any word processor you’ve ever worked with, and it would take me several articles to walk you through the steps of turning your manuscript into a book.

So I usually do 2 InDesign book formats. One for my physical book layout, and one for my e-book layout. All the while, you need to keep in mind that certain fonts are not free, and if you choose one that is copyright protected, you might need to pay for it, or find a free one.

While formatting the book, I find it helpful to read through the design formatting instructions for whichever platform is going to host your book printing and distribution. For me, I use IngramSpark.

IngramSpark does both printing on demand, bulk printing, distribution of print and e-books, and their reach is pretty much all book sellers globally. That means that Barnes and Noble, Kindle, some mom and pop shop in New Zealand, or anything in between should be able to find your book in their catalogue.

Once I have my book formatted, I get an ISBN number for it. If you’re publishing through Amazon Kindle, and likely some of the other platforms out there, they may provide this for you, but I don’t use them, so I got an account at Bowker, and in their “My Identifier” portion of their website, you can buy bulk ISBN numbers.

You’ll need more than one, since each format of your book requires a unique ISBN number. So a hardback, a paperback, an ebook, and an audiobook will all need separate ISBN’s. Also if you do a later addition in the future, that will require another ISBN number.

This number will go on your copyright page. Just look at any traditionally published book, and you can get a good idea of what a copyright page should look like. You’ll want to put one of these in your book.

Speaking of copyright pages, I save a pdf version of the book, and send it off to the U.S. Copyright Office. This isn’t necessary, but I like the added comfort of having that letter from them, stating that they have your book in their record as belonging to you.

Next, I apply for a Library of Congress Number. This one is pretty important, and it can take a few days to a few weeks, so give it some time. It’s mostly done online, by filling out some forms. After that, you’ll wait until they send you the number. This can then be put into your copyright page as well.

Do you need to do this step? No, but it is helpful, since it is one of the major ways that book sellers and libraries identify your book. So I would never skip it personally. Keep in mind, that if you want to stay on the Library of Congress’s good side, you’ll need to send them two copies of your completed book, once it’s actually in print.

Once you have all this done, and your copyright page is finally filled out completely, then you can use InDesign to finish formatting your Epub book and your Print book.

By this time, you hopefully also have your cover art back. Fill out the cover template generator on IngramSpark, now that you know the size and page count of your book. Take your cover art into photoshop and use the template they send you to size your cover art perfectly. Then you can write your description on the back, include any advertising quotes you may have collected from your marketing work, and then, hopefully, you have a professional looking cover.

Submit this all to IngramSpark. They will verify that your files meet their criteria. If there are any issues, they’ll either help you fix them if they can, or they’ll tell you to fix them. Once the book is accepted, then you can schedule release dates, pay for some catalog advertising if you choose, and you can print advance copies for yourself or for beta readers. Congrats, your book is published.

One other thing I would recommend in todays world, if your book is the type that could be turned into an audiobook, definitely do this. Audiobooks are growing so quickly, and even cannibalizing a lot of the print market, that you can’t afford to ignore this growing segment.

To get your book available as an audiobook, you’ll want to begin as quickly as possible. I’d start on that at the same time you try to get your cover art made.

To do this, you can look up freelance voiceover artists. They either charge by royalty or by fee. If you’re likely to be a big hit, they might want a royalty. If not, they’ll charge a simple fee. As a self-publisher, I recommend the simple fee anyway, since then, you don’t have to keep track of book sales and royalty payments. That’s just another layer of ongoing headache I’d rather not deal with.

Then once you have your audio files back from them, you can find a place to publish them. At the time of this writing, IngramSpark doesn’t do audiobook. So after doing my research, I’ve settled on Findaway Voices, by Spotify. They seem to have the best reach that I have found. They promise to get your book into all the major distributers, including Audible by Amazon.

Alternatives

There are other ways you can distribute your books. Some have advantages, so you need to weigh your options. The route I’ve taken gets me as close to having the best, most professional distribution that I can possibly find at this time, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the best for you.

For example, if you stay entirely in Amazon’s publishing world, you can get better deals and feature your books in multiple advantageous ways, that alleviate some of your marketing obligations. There are advantages to going with several of the other self-publishing platforms out there also, but you’ll want to weigh your options and choose which works best for you.

Going my route means that your book will be available almost everywhere, but you’ll probably need to know more about marketing to find it an audience. In a future article, we’ll need to discuss marketing, though that topic might be multiple articles, because marketing is a huge topic, and your book will need it in order to succeed.

If you’d like to see my YouTube video on today’s topic, you can watch it at: https://youtu.be/bXJXhF9fsB8

It’s time to publish your book. This is the moment you’ve been waiting for, all your life. Well, maybe not all your life, but surely over the last several months you’ve been looking forward to this day.

Only problem is, you don’t know how to publish it. Do you go the traditional route, of searching for an agent and/or publisher? Or do you self-publish? And how do you do either of those things?

Buckle up, we’re going to discuss traditional publishing today. Check out Part two of this, where we’ll discuss self-publishing.

For now, lets look into today’s landscape for getting an old fashion publishing deal.

Landing a Traditional Book Publishing Deal

Every writer’s dream is to have their book picked up by one of the big publishing companies. The reasons are obvious; you’ll get a lot better marketing and placement of your book if you can manage this.

Getting this sort of deal off your first novel is not likely to happen, unless you have a book that is Earth shatteringly amazing, or very relevant to current events. If you’re just writing a fiction novel, get in line.

The hard part is, that there is a lot less money in traditional publishing than there used to be. It’s still profitable, but like so many forms of media, the gatekeepers are getting sidestepped, and the competition for eyeballs has become overwhelming.

It used to be that if a publisher picked up your book, it was because they believed in it. The manuscripts that weren’t good enough to print, were simply denied. Now days, if your script is denied by a publisher, then you just go on Amazon and self-publish it anyway.

Because of this glut of books on the marketplace, a publisher is going to balance the risk of your book flopping, vs making a profit. So how would you navigate this world? I share with you how I went about it. FYI, my 1^st book did not land a publishing deal, but the steps are the same.

Making The Sale

First off, since the publishing landscape is so competitive, you should have already polished your book to near perfection. If you missed my article on editing your first book, go back to my website and read that.

But don’t the publishers have in-house editors?

Research

Yes, but they don’t work for you. They work for the publisher. And if you present your work to them and it isn’t practically perfect in every way, they’re not likely to give you the time of day. They might not even give you a form letter of rejection.

Assuming that your book is squeaky clean, then its time to shop agents and publishers. There are some publishers that will accept submissions without an agent, but not all.

If I were doing this again, I would start by creating a list of agents and publishers that I could submit to. This is a tedious process, involving hours on the internet, and going through books in your genre to find out who published or represented those authors.

Finding the agents and publishers that are willing to take new submissions, takes time, and once you have a good list of who to send your book off to… DON’T!

Quiere

Most agents and publishers aren’t going to want your cold book on their messy desk. Some will take a few sample pages and a synopsis, but many are going to 1^st want a query letter.

What is a query letter?

This is a nicely formatted, professional looking document, usually one or two pages long, where you ask the gatekeeper if they will be willing to accept a submission from you. You can give a brief description of who you are, your experience (or more likely inexperience), what your book is about, and don’t forget, how big of a following you already have. If you have a social media following that is sizable, and credible, you might find an easier in than if you don’t. Its almost like a resume.

Remember hearing about log lines? This document is going to be read through very quickly, and decided on very quickly. You need to make this compelling, without resorting to tricks, like perfuming your paper or silly things like that.

Remember, these recipients are busy people, and they want to know very quickly if you’re worth their attention. They won’t ready through a big document.

Synopsis/Sample

If the agents want to see a synopsis or sample of your book, make this concise. The synopsis should not be long, and it should contain spoilers. This is the outline of your story in a short page or two.

The sample could be your first 10 pages or your 1^st chapter, to give the agent an idea of how well you can actually write. Remember how I said, make sure your manuscript is polished? This is why. They need to know that you can write, and capture their attention from the very beginning.

Check on each agent or publisher’s preferences. Some might only want a query letter, some might only want that and a synopsis, and some might want all that plus the sample. You need to follow their format for submission, which is why this process can take a lot of time and be very frustrating. It means that each of your submissions must be personalized.

The Deal

Say they liked it, and they offer to represent or publish it for you. Great, you might have just hit the lottery.

If they’re an agent, then they will take it to the publishers they represent. This is not a guarantee that your book will actually find a publisher, but it has passed one gatekeeper, and it stands a much better chance than a non-represented manuscript.

What if the publisher decides to work with you? This is where you can start to dance a little. They’ve decided your book is worth a risk, and you shouldn’t be afraid to negotiate, though, don’t be a douche either. Be respectful, but if they offer you a contract, read through it, and make sure it works for you. It might even be a good idea to have a lawyer who deals with this sort of thing take a look at it, especially if you are unfamiliar with reading such documents.

What are some things I would look for?

I would look for an advance. These aren’t as big as they used to be, so the idea is to get just enough to motivate them to place your book in front of people so they can make their money back.

Check on how long they’ll have the right to publish your book. Say they try, but are unsuccessful at selling your book in the next two years, but you can’t get the rights back for ten. That means that you are stuck, unable to find another publisher or unable to self-publish it yourself till the time is up.

See what rights you’re giving up? International, movie, other.

If everything looks good to you, and that is purely personal, then maybe it’s a good enough deal.

Most Likely Scenario

If you do get a publisher, don’t assume that the game is over. They are going to expect you to do a lot of marketing for them. This will include book signings, readings, and other engagements. In fact, you might wonder if they are doing any marketing themselves, or if they’re just relying on you.

The next thing to know is that if your book doesn’t take off soon, it probably won’t take off at all, and the publisher is likely to cut their losses and move on to more lucrative projects, without releasing your rights back to you. So make sure you know what’s in your contract.

The most likely scenario though, is that your first book isn’t going to be the next best seller. You’re probably still learning the craft, and because of this, your first book is never going to be your best book.

If you feel its still worth publishing, but all you get are crickets, or rejection letters, then all is not lost. There is still the self-publishing route, which isn’t incredibly hard, but there are some things you can do to stack the odds in your favor. For more on that, check out Part Two of Publishing Your 1^st Novel.

If you’d like to see the YouTube video that accompanies this, click the link here: https://youtu.be/sB1KElLHbrE

Did you finally finish your first book? Congratulations.

There is something incredibly satisfying about finishing your novel. You might even think the hard part is over. If that is what you’re thinking, then I’m sorry, but its time to burst that thought bubble.

You have just stepped into the realm of editing. When I first ventured into this spot, I thought that it would be simple. Get some grammar and spelling cleaned up, then try not to let the mobs break down my door as they tried to all get my book at once.

Turns out, there’s more to it than that.

Who Should I Have Edit My Book?

There’s a few do’s and don’ts here. You could have your family help you with this. Maybe one of your relatives is an English teacher, and you think they’d do a swell job. However, you might want to reconsider that for a minute.

This is not yet the stage where you get somebody to cleanup your grammar and spelling. This is where you clean up your structure. For that, you really want somebody who does this for a living.

Now, you might be able to learn this on your own, but I suggest you hire somebody when you’re first starting out. I’ve had 3 or 4 different editors work on my books in the past. I learned a lot from each of them when it comes to structure.

Yes, they will charge you for their services, but think of it this way: If you were an accomplished writer, and had an agent and a publisher lined up to sell your book, they would run it through an in-house editor too. This editor would check things that you might have overlooked, things that might be essential to making your book actually sell.

Now if you don’t care that anyone reads your book, you just wrote it for yourself, fine. But most of us writers hope that all the love and attention, not to mention hard work will be enjoyed by others.

For that to happen, there’s a bit of craft that we have to work on.

Since your first book is not likely to find a big publisher right off, you need to find yourself a freelance editor. With recent inflation, I don’t know current pricing, but it is dependent on how many words your book is. In the past, I’ve spent up to and over $2000 for my books to get edited per round.

I typically just go one round with the editor, but there are times when its helpful to do more. However, as you get going there are a few different types of edits that you can hire out for.

Types of Edits

For most of us, when we think about editing, we think about proofreading. However, the one I think is most valuable when you start editing, is called copy editing.

Copy editing is where somebody goes through your book, looking at everything from continuity to structure to how you actually tell the story.

When I get a copy edit back, I find it has a lot of changes made to it, but also a lot of suggestions. They might say things like: In chapter 10 your character is wearing a backpack, but in chapter 3, when she left school, she grabbed her notebook instead. This is called a continuity error, and there’s likely a bunch of things like this.

They will also create a character sheet, and if your character does things that don’t match with their character, they can let you know. This is especially helpful if you’re doing a series.

They will also tell you if chapter 4 needs to be removed entirely, or moved for better flow. The worst is when they tell you that one of your darling characters is distracting from the meat of the story and needs to be erased from the novel.

Sometimes they just remind you to show, not tell about your surroundings. For instance, you could say that young Jack and Jenny were walking down the busy street, when a more descriptive explanation would have painted the picture better. Something like:

Jenny paused a moment over one of the many rank smelling sewer manholes, not an ideal spot to stop along this crowded sidewalk, but the sound of tires and engines put her mamma-radar on full caution mode. Quick as a flash, she looped a finger in Jack’s denim backpack to hold him back as a yellow taxi sped through the red light, causing men and women to shout, annoyed at the careless disregard for pedestrian traffic. “What’d I tell you about looking both ways, Jack,” she warned.

See how that might bring a scene to life? You don’t need to get purple with your prose, but you do need to transport your reader into the world you’re creating.

Process of Editing

Here’s how I go about editing. After I’ve written my book, I go back through and do my very best at a copy edit. I might do this more than one time, up until I can’t find any better ways to fix my book.

Then I’ll send it off to a copy editor, and have their fresh eyes work on the book. When they get it back to me, I’ll go through it and make a judgement call on all of their comments and fixes.

After that, I’ll go through it a couple more times, honing and shaving, until the story is as sharp as it can possibly be. If I like it, then it’s on to proof editing. If I don’t like it still, I’ll send it back for another copy edit, with instructions on where I’m stuck. Sometimes I even put the book on a shelf for a couple months, so I can review it with fresh eyes.

For the proof edit, this is where you could have your English teacher friend or family go through it. However, you can also hire this out, or do it yourself. Keep in mind, that if you do it yourself, it’s more than just running it through spell checker.

It’s hard, because you may not realize this, but when you read, you don’t always see every word and letter. Your mind glazes over things and fills in the blanks. I’ve heard of some people who will read their book backwards, so they don’t get caught up in the story while they’re proof reading.

At the same time, you don’t need to maintain perfect grammar. You can have a voice, but try to be deliberate about it. Don’t accept bad writing, just because you don’t know any better.

Most readers will notice when your writing is in a particular voice, versus when you just sound stupid, as if you didn’t know what you were doing.

By the time you’re done, you may have gone through your book over a dozen times. Congratulations, you just might be done. Now what?

Stay tuned, as I discuss the next steps in writing your first book. If you’d like to see my YouTube commentary on this subject, please visit:

If you’d like to read any of my “Trunk” novels, check out my books that I did under the pen name of B.C. Crow. Keep in mind though, these are called trunk novels for a reason, and that’s because I should have left them buried in a trunk, rather than risk you reading my earlier works. The books I publish now, under my own name, Brent Lindstrom, are much better, and as you get more experience, your future books will continue to get better also.

Till next time, keep writing.

By the way, check out my short video I did to go along with this clip at: https://youtu.be/hy9jZHKy5i8

So, you’ve decided to write your first novel? Congrats. I don’t know what your motivations are, but it doesn’t matter.

Everyone seems to have that one story in the back of their heads that they would like to write someday. I can’t tell you how many times someone has told me something like this. But you know what separates them from us?

They’ll never write actually write it.

I’ve been in your shoes. I’ve got several books under my belt by now, but that first one is always daunting because you’ve never done it before, and it seems like such a big thing.

Well, lets talk about it. I’ll share my experiences with you, and see if you can get anything helpful from it.

Making The Commitment to Write

Back in college, I knew a guy who wrote a couple of science fiction novels. When I asked him how he found the time, he said, “Easy, I just write one or two pages a day, then before I know it, I’m done.”

That sounded really simple, and I always kept it in the back of my mind. Some years later, I was married and my first child had just been born. I was making $45,000 a year. I get that in some parts of the world, that would make me feel very well off. But if we adjust for location, I was living in Utah at the time, and that was barely enough to scrape by on.

My wife had just quit her job of working in a drug testing facility, where she basically had to watch people pee. We lived in a 700 square foot condo, which again, is really nice for some parts of the world, but our condo was in a shadier part of town.

The cops knew our complex very well, as they were there most days breaking up civil disputes, or doing drug busts. We’d often be woken in the night by a cussing and fighting couple in one of the other condos or in the parking lot, and our condo always smelled of whatever the people below us were smoking.

It wasn’t where I wanted to raise my family.

I started looking for side work. The problem I had, was that my wife and I didn’t want me to be away from the family all day and all night. So for my second job, I decided to take that college buddy’s advice and become a writer.

A writer after all, can stay at home, kick out a book every few months, and bring in some extra cash… or so I assumed.

Some of my expectations were right, and some weren’t. I spent a few days dissecting all the things about all the popular books I liked. I came up with my story idea and created a plot structure that felt good, and marketable. I was ready.

When To Write

At first, I started writing in the evening, after my full time job had ended. There was a problem with this though. Normally, I’m a cheerful, happy go lucky sort of guy. But I’d be getting right into the flow of creativity, when my wife or kid would inevitably interrupt me.

Now keep in mind that I love my family. That’s why I chose to write, so I could be around them. However, this had the unintended consequence of frustrating me to anger. I couldn’t stay impartial to my obligations as a parent, husband, and writer at the same time.

For the sake of my family, I stopped writing in the evenings, and started writing in the mornings. I learned that if I woke up an hour earlier each day, while everyone else was still asleep, I could have a full hour of un-interrupted writing time.

I loved it.

I would go to work early, then sit down at my computer an hour before anyone expected anything from me, and I would type out all the things that had been going through my head the day before, and I would find my flow almost every time.

I even found that I liked taking my lunches by myself in my office so that I could eat and write for another ½ hour on my break. That had the side effect of also being cheaper.

Like my one buddy said, writing a couple of pages each day allowed me to kick out that first novel in under two months. It felt like no time at all, and most of all, I had become addicted to writing. I could actually see myself as a full-time writer in the future, and loving it.

Plotting Your First Novel

I won’t discuss this too much. But there are plotter and pantsers. I am a plotter. I plot out every chapter before I write it. I think about my story structure, my A story, my B story, and so on. I think of how I want the book to finish, or if I want it to be a series, I design each story, and weave in a series arch.

People who are pantsers, write by the seat of their pants. They have an innate gift for knowing how a story should flow and feel, and they let the characters and events unfold to their own surprise.

I’ve tried this method before, and it didn’t turn out well for me. The ending was far too forced.

But then again, if I’m honest with myself, part of the fun of writing is getting into that flow, and learning things about your story that you never knew before. So while I prefer to plot my books in advance, I often go back and edit my plots when my characters drag me in a much more interesting direction.

So keep your creative mind open, regardless of which direction you lean. If you’re getting stuck somewhere, look to plot to fix it. If you have a plot figured out, but your character wants to take you somewhere else, don’t be afraid to follow them for a little while and see if they show you something amazing you never could have thought of without them.

Your characters really can take on a sort of soul. You’ll fall in love with them, and sometimes you’ll have to kill them. But that is the magic of being a storyteller.

There’s So Much More

I wish I could keep writing about this, however, I’m going to have a whole series of articles on writing your first book. So check out my following posts, and learn with me. For now, and this is the most important part for any new writer, just keep at it.

Find at least one hour during the day when you will not be interrupted, and use that time to put your thoughts onto paper.

You can use the rest of your day to imagine what happens next, and it will help you the next time you sit down to write, but dedicate that time, free of distractions, and yes that also means free of technology. Don’t get caught up in the latest AI trends.

Sure AI can help you write, if you want it to, however I don’t do that. I tried it a couple of times, and it sucks the wonder and magic out of storytelling. Because even if you’re giving it the prompts you want to tell your story, you’re letting it do the heavy lifting.

AI is not your muse, just as alcohol wasn’t really Hemmingway’s muse. Your own creative mind is your muse, and it wants to play. So let it. Discover the true magic and high of having your story come to life as it passes through your own fingertips.

Once you have actually written your 1^st book, pat yourself on the back, and get ready to work. It’s editing time. We’ll talk about that in the next time.

By the way, check out my YouTube Channel, where I talk more about these things. And if you find these articles helpful, support me by buying my books and leaving reviews.

See you next time.

By the way, if you want to learn more, check me out on YouTube. My video on this subject can be found here: https://youtu.be/OdZ86OTIKV4

It seems like everyone has a story to tell. I did, though I didn’t know it at the time. Maybe you do, and you’re trying to figure out how to get started.

Maybe you don’t, but you’ve read some books and thought, “Gee, I could do as good or better.”

But where do you start? Can you overcome the mountain of a task that is writing hundreds of pages of captivating story? I believe you can. I did, and if I can do it, so can you.

After all, who is holding you back?

What if You’re Starting Fresh As a Writer?

You mean to tell me, that you’ve never written an essay in school? Never filled out a book report? Never had to find a creative way to fill up a page in answer a teacher’s question?

For a good chunk of the population, we’ve done some writing. If you’re also like me, you might not understand grammar all that well. Guess what—that’s okay.

I tend to struggle with Mad Libs, because I have to keep looking up what all the grammar requests are that they ask me for. No, I write what sounds right to me. For a lot of us, that is our voice. It’s what we hear and speak. You don’t have to be an English major to be a writer.

I guess there’s technical writing, which, to me is a totally separate subject, the likes of which I know very little about. But even then, have you ever read some of the technical writings on stuff that came out of China? I’m pretty sure a lot of that grammar is wrong, and they still got a career writing copy for their merchandise.

Anyhow, Lets start by saying, yes, you can be writer. The real trick is devoting some time to actually write.

What to Write About

Well, what do you like to read? What entertains you? What do you already know about? To be

honest, do I know anything about cloning and 3d printing a human body?

No, but I wrote a book about it. But I thought you were supposed to write what you know?

Ok, what do I know? I like science fiction books. I’m entertained by authors such as James Rollins, who takes scientific concepts and turns them into international action/thriller novels. I also like reading books by authors such as Terry Pratchett, who’s characters live on a flat world, that is balanced on the back of giant elephants, who are standing on the shell of a turtle that swims through space.

No way can any author know about some of this stuff, because it doesn’t exist, or so we think. But we know or at least have a feel for how these books should read. We know these types of books, and that knowledge can give our stories a sort of structure. We can get a feel for how to tell a story of our own.

That is what I mean by writing what you know. I’m not much of a historian, so if I was to write a non-fiction about George Washington, I might struggle. Then again, I’ve read a lot of biographies, and I know how they should sound, so I could actually devote a lot of time into researching the subject, then I’d be qualified to write something on the person.

That’s another way of writing what you know.

What you won’t likely find me writing though, are romance novels. I don’t tend to read them, and I have very little desire to try. Even though they can be quite profitable, I don’t know them, I don’t have a desire to research them. I will never know them.

When Can You Call Yourself A Writer?

Do you have to be published to call yourself a writer? No. Do you have to write, to call yourself a writer? Duh!

Does a carpenter have to sell his/her works to call themselves a carpenter? No. They can have a hobby shop in their garage, and turn out beautiful, or ugly works of wood for their own pleasure, and still call themselves a carpenter.

Just because you’re an amateur writer, doesn’t mean that you aren’t a writer. If you need to get published to justify your title, then, fine, I don’t care. You can define yourself as you wish. But if I know that you’ve written something, or are in the process of writing something, I’m going to call you a writer.

I’ve read plenty of books by published writers who really did a terrible job. I don’t know how they got published in the first place. Your book might be better than theirs, and will never see the light of day. It doesn’t matter.

Why Write?

Why does it even matter? I can only answer this for me. You’ll have to decide for yourself, but when I started writing, I wanted to make an extra income. My first several books never made back the costs of writing them. I’m not surprised either.

So why keep at it? Why do I still insist on being a writer? It’s not because it’s easy, or a path to wealth. I sure haven’t seen anything like that in my experience so far.

No, I write, because I love it. It’s an addiction. It’s a hard challenge. It never gets easier. When you think you’ve got it all figured out, you start your next book, and realize that you have to still stretch to figure it out.

I love that stretching. I get so bored with easy repetitive tasks. Writing may seem repetitive, and some aspects of it are, but the creative process to fleshing out a story, and making it compelling are so incredibly satisfying, that I can’t stop writing. Even if I never got published, I think I’d still find myself writing and telling stories, even if it was only to share with my own family. I can only consume so much that was made by others before I have to make something of my own.

The act of creation is its own reward. Having said that though, what is art if that art is not shared? I think you can make art for arts sake. But for it to be truly rewarding, is to have it enjoyed by others.

Why do YOU really want to write? And is it enough for YOU to do it?

Do You Need Help?

There are so many resources out there to help you on your creative journey. If you find yourself stuck, because you’re afraid of failure, or afraid of what those closest to you will think about your venture, then read THE ARTISTS WAY by Julia Cameron.

In her book, she’ll help you realized the spiritual depth of your own creativity. Whether you believe in God or not, she asks you to believe in a higher power, a divine power, one that is a creator, and who made you after His image. If the ultimate creator of everything in existence made you, then aren’t you entitled to be creative as well…

Along your journey, getting the courage and motivation to start is all you need to find yourself on the addictive path of telling stories. It can be written, oral, visual, or other, but I warn you, once you start, you’ll discover a path of continual education, exploration, and adventure.

Good luck. If you have any questions, comment on my YouTube channel, where I’ve made a companion piece to this article. If I can, I’ll do my best to answer you, or maybe we can build a community together that will help answer you.

Check out the YouTube content for this article at: https://youtu.be/gUs5u3fDP6Q

Making any short film can be daunting. In my first two articles on this topic, I talked about my Matrix spoof, and the short story that was inspired by my book: One For The Money, Two For The Soul.

Each of those had a respectable budget for a student filmmaker. The 1^st had about a $1500 spend, and the latter had a whopping $15,000 spend. However, today I want to go over my very 1^st short film, which had a budget closer to $150.

Buckly up, as we dissect my very first project ever, a 1 minute short film.

Never Talk To Pears, While Walking Down Stairs

I got the idea for this story while I was at the Timpanogos Storytelling festival. They had one day that was devoted to learning the art of verbal storytelling, which by the way, is fascinating to me. If you ever get the chance to attend something like this, do it.

One of the workshops had us brainstorming ideas. At the end of it, a few people shared their brainstorms, and then I shared mine. Mine got a lot of grumbles from the audience, mostly older folks, who apparently liked the idea of non-fiction better.

Didn’t matter. I was off to the races. Coincidentally there was also a 1-minute short film contest on a YouTube channel that I follow, called Film Riot. These two things coincided into the perfect motivation for me to do my first quazi-student film ever.

Lets start with some goals I had:

Actually shoot a short film
Do it cheaply
Make it cinematic

Simple goals right? My goals tend to get more specific as I progress, but just filming something was a big leap forward after all my studying to this point.

Planning and Pre-Production

So I wrote down my script. It was about 3 pages long. That should’ve been a red flag from the get go, but I didn’t think too much on it at the time.

Next, I needed gear. I had no gear. I had a little Sony Cybershot RX100. It allowed for some video with manual settings. It would have to do. I had no lights, but my uncle had a couple of small lights with umbrellas from when he used to do HR interviews, and was more than happy to lend those to me for a day.

For audio, I rented a Zoom recorder with a boom mic for a day.

Next I needed a couple actors. What do you do when you don’t have friends, film school classmates, or money? You ask family. So I recruited my mom, dad, and sister.

I needed a location, and luckily I had a model home from my construction job that looked great. Check.

Funny thing is, my mom had done some acting in a previous life, though she’d pretty well sworn it off. Thing is, she’s one of the best actors I’ve ever worked with to date, she could have probably had a good career of it if that had been something she’d wanted. She ended up being my main character.

My dad was to be the lips and voice of my talking pear.

My sister, who spent some time in theater during school, became my makeup artist, which I needed to make my mom look older than she was.

Since the model home was pre-furnished, all I needed was a few smaller props. Some I had already. I bought a larger canning jar to add to my collection of normal sized canning jars, then I printed a fake newspaper on my office printer. I got a picture of my parents and framed it on the wall, and last of all, I bought a can of aerosol mist. I was ready to shoot.

The Production

There was only one day needed for this shoot. While my sister got my mom’s makeup done, I filmed the clips that didn’t require any people. Since I didn’t have any professional sliders, I stuck a plank of wood between two ladders, and placed some books on top of the plank where my camera rested to make the camera motion a bit smoother, then I dragged the camera across the plank and got my opening and closing shots.

For a tripod, I was using my sister’s photography tripod, a clunky thing that had no fluid head, just locking pivot joints. To add in some cinematic camera movement, I grabbed one of my construction dolly’s and placed the tripod on top of that. Luckily the floor was made of hard laminate, and not tile or carpet, so after several tries, I was able to get some reasonably shake-free footage.

And what would a production be, even a simple one like this, without some kind of snag?

My little camera only had a 30 battery life. It was rechargeable battery, and I didn’t have a spare. I’m not sure, but it might have even been an internal battery, I can’t remember. I’m sure someone out there would know. It’s since gone to the grave, so I can’t check and I’m too lazy to do a google search on it right now. Never-the-less, I had a camera with no power, and no spare battery.

To deal with this, I found the charging chord, only to realize that you couldn’t charge the camera at the same time as you were shooting with it. Great. What now? Well, it turns out, that we tried charging the camera in-between takes. We’d set up, practice, then hope there was enough charge to make that take before turning the camera off again and plugging it in.

I ended up pulling out an extension cord to facilitate quicker plug-ins without having to pull the camera off the tripod.

This was a 2-location shoot. Once we finished at the model home, I took my family to my office, where we had stairs to an unfinished basement, perfect for the scene where she falls to her doom.

For this, since I didn’t really want to throw my mom down the stairs, I compiled a bunch on montage shots to make you think she was falling. Then at the bottom, rather than having her hit her head on the concrete for real, I had her jerk her head up from the floor, then I reversed the footage in post. I looked great.

Afterwords, she got pictures with my sister in her old lady makeup, which could have probably passed for zombie makeup also, and it was off to the edit for me.

The Edit

Remember how I said that I had about 3 pages of screenplay? Well, that proved to be a challenge, since I couldn’t exceed 1 minute, as per the Film Riot rules. I think though, that if I could have had one and a half minutes, the short would have played much better. But I got it cut down ok.

The 3 hardest things I encountered while editing this were, first, I couldn’t get the pictures of my mom’s body parts in those mason jars without them moving all over the place. Since my camera was moving, and I didn’t have a good way of tracking that movement, I had a super hard time of it.

Second, I was surprised to find myself in the reflection of the glass cabinet door when my mom opened and shut it. It had never crossed my mind that I might be in the reflections.

Last, I couldn’t do a whole lot to color correcting to anything. The camera I used only shot 8 bit color, and when you push the color correction to any degree, you start getting a lot of noise and artifacts showing up.

But this was a much simpler project than the two that followed it, and for a complete newbie, I learned a lot about what to expect next time. It also inspired me to get a better camera, and I fell in love with the microphone and Zoom recorder I rented.

I do remember the edit taking a lot of time still. I started this project with a month to edit it before the submission deadline, and even though it was only one minute long, I spend nights and weekends working like crazy just to meet that deadline. But meet it I did, and it did not win.

I was a little bummed that it didn’t even get an honorable mention, but I was still proud of it, because it was my first completed project, and I learned so much from it.

The Learning

How did I do on my goals:

On making an actual short film
1. Well, I made it. Goal met. You can study all you want, but at some point, even if you don’t have the gear you want, you can use the gear you have access to, and just make something. If you’re ever going to call yourself a filmmaker, you got to start somewhere.
On doing it cheaply
1. I didn’t have a choice. I was dirt poor at the time. I was pinching pennies till they warped, and I had to make due with what I could. I look back on that project though, and parts of it still hold up better today than some of the things I’ve shot with the better camera I now have.
On making it cinematic
1. The aerosol mist didn’t really do much for me during the shoot. I tried using a cookie flag that I’d made, then shining a flashlight through it. It was kind of pointless. The movement of my camera did add some good production value to the project though. I would have liked to play with the colors more, but like I said, 8-bit color space is very limiting.
Other things I learned
1. I learned to be mindful of reflections in glass and other shiny objects
2. I learned that having the right tools for the job isn’t necessary, but it sure would be nice. For example, a fluid head tripod, with wheels would have saved time and headaches. A camera that had more than 30 minutes of battery life, and that could be hooked to external batteries would be nice. A camera that shot in at least 10-bit color space would be amazing. Even my cheap umbrella lights could do a lot.
3. I learned that 3 pages of screenplay, really do translate into 3 minutes of footage.
4. I learned that shooting day can be stressful. It’s not just a party with cameras and makeup.
5. I learned that I shouldn’t ask for other people’s criticism, unless I’m prepared to get it. I had a guy I knew who did some film work, and I asked him to criticize it for me. I was expecting a critique of the filming work, and I got a critique on the story end instead. I thought the story was solid, but he pointed out good things that I didn’t like hearing at the time.
6. I learned that I wanted to do this again soon!

In the end, this film kicked off my desire to build up an arsenal of better filming equipment. I started prepping for my next short film, which I planned to do in about a year or so from the time I finished this one, you know it now as my Matrix Spoof.

This one does however prove that you don’t have to spend a ton of money on a film project. Mine still turned out pretty decent, and at a tenth of the price of my next cheapest film. But just because you can make something cheap, doesn’t mean you always should either.

As a general contractor, I’ve learned that the tools you buy and use can make a world of difference in your work as a craftsman. It’s the same with filmmaking. Yes, I could build a house with a hand saw, but if I have an electric circular saw, I can build that house much faster and more efficiently.

That wraps it up for now. I hope you’ve enjoyed this breakdown of Never Talk To Pears, While Walking Down Stairs.

If you’d like to see my breakdown on Youtube, you can check it out here: https://youtu.be/QtKrU-8sq7I

Also, if you just want to see the 1 minute short film, Check it out here: https://www.lightmindedarts.com/

Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and comment.

As you may already know, I didn’t go to film school, I went to the Utah State University to major in Finance. I later went on to get my MBA.

So what does any of that have to do with making movies? Well, not much, especially since at that time, I was studying to become the next Wall Street big wig. Obviously, that didn’t happen either.

My goals evolved over time and for the last 10 years or more, I’ve been devouring everything I can find on the art of filmmaking and storytelling. One of the things every film school will have you do though, is make a student film.

So I made a few. Each time I made a short film, I picked a few key things that I wanted to learn, and I focused very heavily on those things, while perhaps ignoring some other important things. So lets dive into this short film breakdown.

One For The Money, Two For The Soul – Prologue

This short was inspired by the book release I just had this Spring, titled—wait for it: One For The Money, Two For The Soul. Yeah, big surprise, right.

Okay, so in that book, I had a prologue that I had to delete. I thought it was a great little story to introduce the technology of the main meat of the book, however it was not in the same genre, and thus it didn’t mesh very well.

So out it went, but when I needed to find a good new story to practice my filming knowledge, I thought it would be the perfect stand-alone story. By the way, if you’re at all interested, please buy my book and leave a review where every you bought it from. Preferably a good review. All proceeds go to supporting me as I change careers from being a general contractor to a full-time storyteller, and trust me, that’s a scary leap when you haven’t been proven yet.

Like in my last article, I want to share with you the goals I had, how I feel they were accomplished, and other great lessons I learned while making this movie.

Goals:

Learn how to better composite multiple elements
Combine 3d animation with live action
Do a location scout’s job (not just what I find for free)
Work with professional crew and actors
Be intentional on camera movement
Create a color theme
Get better audio

This will be another long article, so buckle up and get ready to learn with me.

Let’s Start with Pre-Production

To start, let’s talk money. After my last project, I knew what I needed to do, to lock in a budget a little better. I put together a spreadsheet, because I love spreadsheets. In my screenplay, it called for two main actors and a few side actors.

Now, I wanted to try working with some actors that had some training and were working actors. For this, I reached out to a local talent agency. I got to pick through a handful of actors on their roster and had them do an emailed audition.

The two that stood out most to me were the ones who actually memorized their lines for the audition. They were so polished and prepared, I thought, great, I’ve found my main characters.

For the side actors, I went through my Facebook group and had a couple of people send in their reels. I wanted this short to have a serious but not too serious vibe, and so I hired one guy who had some of the best facial expressions that I thought I could play with. I don’t remember why I hired my nurse actress, but I do remember having several options to choose from, and she was the one I ended up casting.

Let’s not forget my child actor. His mom joined him on set every day, and they were very ambitious about turning him into a professional actor. I should look him up someday and see where he ended up.

There were a couple extra roles that I needed to fill, but they were very minor, and I thought I could do them and challenge myself to be in front of the camera for a change. This would be the guard, and the camera operator at the end. Plus, I was a lot cheaper, and I was very conscious about my budget.

In the end, I had 3 actors for the 1^st day of shooting, 4 actors for the 2^nd day, 2 actors for the 3^rd day, and 1 actor for the 4^th day. That totaled: 11 actor days of filming, not including the extra day I used to film myself. I believe the dollar amount came in at roughly $3250.

Already I could see that this was going to be expensive. For my crew, had to make some compromises to my goal. I couldn’t afford a pro sound guy, so I decided to be my own, and just work harder at getting it good. I did hire a professional gaffer though. For the rest of my crew, I was able to get some BYU film students, and they were awesome. They knew just how to work on a film set, more so than me, and they all came eager to practice the things they’d been learning as well. If I had my actual film studio up and running and needed help, I would have hired them in a heartbeat.

On this shoot, I hired a hair and makeup artist, who was super. She was there on set with us, touching up makeup before the takes, and just making sure our actors looked amazing.

For my total crew budget, I was looking at spending another, oh about $3800.

I did save a little money by not bringing in my gaffer on the 1^st day of shooting, nor did I bring in my agency actors that 1^st day, rather I chose to lump their scenes together with the 2^nd day’s shoot, since I figured I’d have enough time to get that done then.

For my locations, I needed an indoor commercial pool. I called multiple hotels, and nobody wanted to work with me. At this time, Covid was just starting to sweep the nation, and hotels were shutting down, so I thought it would be easy to convince them to let me in, since it would give them at least some revenue for a day.

In the end, I had to reach out to the Utah Film Commission, a group I’d only ever heard of, but never actually worked with. They were amazing. They found me a hotel that was willing to let me shoot for a day. It was crazy, they had a front desk guy there the whole day, and we were the only other people in the hotel, right in downtown Salt Lake. I paid $500 for that location.

For the outdoor scenes, I found a city park, and filled out the required permits. I don’t remember if they even charged me for it. If they did, it was probably something small, like $25.

Then I found a school and over several emails and site visits, I was able to work with the principle and get permission to shoot there for a day for another $500.

My last location was free, because I did it in my office. All in all, my locations cost pretty close to $1000.

Next was props. I’m pretty scrappy when it comes to props and costumes, however I couldn’t find everything I needed at the second-hand thrift store for this shoot. Most of what I ended up with was sourced through eBay and other online retailers. A couple of the expenses were things I’d wanted anyway, like a wheelchair. What indie filmmaker doesn’t have a wheelchair?

I also needed a hospital gurney. That was a bit trickier, and more expensive, but I found one that wasn’t too bad, and the coloring was close to what I wanted for my overall look.

Some of the outfits were second hand, some weren’t, but when you’re going for a specific color scheme, it gets tougher to find cheap. Other props were kit bashed together and cost practically nothing.

I think after all my props and costuming was purchased, I had spent about $1600.

I now had everything I needed. I had my actors, locations, dates, props and costumes, and I was committed to spending a grand total of: $9650. Assuming I’d estimated wrong, I added in a little fluff and rounded it to $10k.

This would be the most expensive project I’d ever done, and I knew immediately that I’d never make that money back, so I better make the best of this.

Production Day(s)

Day 1:

Since this wasn’t my first rodeo, you’d think I’d be a little calmer, but no, that first day of shooting was as nerve racking as ever. Again, I got little to no sleep the night before, and felt completely nauseous the whole morning, up until it was time to shoot.

All my crew and cast showed up like clockwork. We got set up and got ready to shoot. This was the one location I didn’t scout beforehand, because of Covid, I couldn’t get in to see the place, but also, it was the only place willing to let me shoot their indoor pool, so I didn’t have a choice. It was here, or nowhere.

So I came without a storyboard, and planned to composite my main actors in later. We measured everything, took notes on angles, lenses, and tried our best to imagine where our main characters would be and we did our best.

This turned out to be complete chaos, and everyone I’m sure was wondering if I knew what I was doing, including me. Oh, and I forgot to bring a memory card for my camera, so we were delayed from starting an hour while we waited for that to show up. Thanks to my brother, I didn’t have to drive 45 minutes back to my office to grab it, he just brought it up to me. Whew, one crisis averted.

The rest of the day went very well. We got plenty of coverage, and by the end of the day, I was feeling pretty good. The pool did have one wall that was covered in glass and created a little problem for my scene, but I felt like it was something I could manage in post. So all in all, the set wasn’t perfect, but it was close enough to my vision that I felt it would work.

Day 2

This was the big day, the marathon day. I told everyone to plan for about 12 hours. Even then, the talent agency I used called and complained to me about the hours. I thought I’d made the conditions clear to them, but they wanted more money. In the end, I didn’t have to pay out anything additional.

Anyhow, we started off really good. This was filmed in a local school, which had the perfect look and while the coloring was a little off, it was close enough. Then came the 1^st major snag of the shoot. My child actor’s mom told me that she had double booked her son, and that they had to catch a flight to Hawaii soon and that they couldn’t stay much past noon.

I don’t blame them for taking that other job. It was better pay than I could give, plus a trip to Hawaii, I think had I been in their position, I would have wanted to take it also. Plus, she did give me ample warning that day, so I could at least try and make things work.

That meant that while everyone was taking lunch, I was combing through the shotlist, scrambling to figure out how to finish shooting everything I needed with that boy in the next hour.

The next two hours became a tornado of improvising and cutting shots out and run and gun filming to get his footage in the can. During this time, we also had a location change, which was really just the park behind the school, however, half of my actors got lost on the way there and we lost another ½ hour of shooting trying to track everyone down.

When finally I felt I had everything I needed from him, they raced off to the airport, and I worked with my remaining actors to get the remaining footage we needed from them.

One of the problems I also faced, was that I had some steady cam shots. I’d bought a cheap steady cam rig online, but it was made for a much fatter man than me, and I couldn’t size it down. So I had to wear a thick winter coat to make the thing fit on me, and that was during 90-degree weather.

By the end of the day, after we called it good, everyone was exhausted. We sat on the curb, trying to cool down in between packing trucks up.

I had actually brought 2 trailers with me. One for my gear, and another small camper for actors to get dressed in. I took the 1^st one home, then worshiped my porcelain god as I vomited from heat exhaustion for the next 3 hours. Then I went back and picked up the other trailer. Got that home, and dreaded tomorrows shoot.

Day 3

By morning, I was feeling a lot better. I don’t know that I slept any better than the night before, but my heat exhaustion had mostly passed, and I was as ready as I could be for the day.

I drove to my office where I had the basement set up with a large green screen, and I had turned my actual office into one of the sets.

Everything here went very well, though I think my star actors were a little frustrated with me, because they kept asking for help on their acting, wanting to know what I needed from them. My answer was the same. I didn’t care. I wanted them to play their parts as best they saw fit, and for my female lead, I only tried to direct her as far as letting her know where she was and what she was doing during her greenscreen moments.

If you’ll notice, in my goals, I only mentioned that I wanted to work with trained actors on this film, but knowing how to direct them was not one of my goals. I had read books on it, but at the time, I hadn’t taken any acting classes, and I hadn’t acted myself, so I didn’t know what I didn’t know as far as how to direct them.

All in all, this day went much smoother than the previous day. However it wasn’t without its problems too. First major problem, was that we lost power to our building for a couple of hours. Luckily, a lot of our equipment could run off batteries, however the office building was equipped with battery backups for some of the computers, and when they activate, they start chirping, which was impossible to film around because we couldn’t get clean audio.

Eventually we got through that, though it added a couple hours to our shooting day. And then came the next setback.

My last actor, who was supposed to be there by now, still wasn’t. When I finally got ahold of her on the phone, she told me that she’d decided to back out, and would not be joining our film.

As soon as my crew found out, one of my PA’s, a BYU student said that she’d been studying acting and would love to give it a shot. So I said great. I gave her the lines, she went home to find some clothing that matched the scene, and we agreed to meet up the next morning to film her character.

I paid everyone else, and said good luck, give me a year to edit this.

Day 4

That

That PA, now turned actor, showed up the next morning with my makeup artist, which I now needed to pay a little extra for the extra day’s work. We got her part all filmed just us three, and I paid them both, then we were done.

I still had a few shots to film myself in, which I did after everyone was gone. They were all greenscreen and static shots, so I was able to handle it without much trouble, though I realized that I was a bad actor, and should probably invest in some acting classes at some point.

Finally, everything was in the can. I was ready to start editing.

The Neverending (Post Production) Story

When I did my Matrix spoof, I learned that it took me about 4 hours to edit every 1 second of finished footage. Then again, I was learning Adobe After Effects and Blender, and I had a terrible computer for the job.

This time around, I had a beast of a computer that I had made. It had two high end graphics cards, the best processor I could get, and I had already learned so much more within those two programs that I felt confident that I could cut that time in half.

I was wrong.

While I had learned a lot more about greenscreens, and I had a pro gaffer helping me light them, the footage proved to still be a major headache to get keyed out to my satisfaction. Even now when you watch the short, you’ll probably find some bad coloring where I had to push things a bit too far to get my keys to work out. Even then, I had a lot of masking still to do. Green screens I’ve learned, aren’t the end all be all of visual effects. They take a lot of time and craftsmanship to get right.

On top of that, my ambitions to build a world that was both 3d animation and live action, meant that my Blender models and rendering had to be top notch. Most of this worked out ok, though render times in Blender for the quality I was going for still took a long time.

In the end, I found myself still having to make a few compromises on the 3d animation. For example, when she’s driving in the car, you’ll notice that the light and shadows that play against her are in straight lines. This is because she is a 2d image inside a 3d animation. The shadows don’t actually wrap around her like they would in real life.

I did love working on this new computer though. I could actually composite in a non-destructive work flow. Which was nice, because I think every single frame of this movie has between 2-6 different layers of compositing meshed together. The entire movie is a big vfx project.

So even though my skills in this department were improving, the degree of complexity I threw at this project still made it take about 4 hours of editing for every 1 second of finished video.

Things that were difficult in the edit included: the opening sequence. Parts of my Blender animation worked out good, parts didn’t. So that’s why it’s so choppy at first. Also, I struggled figuring out a good way to show the text conversation between our scientist and his sister. Text conversations can be so tricky, at least for me. Keying out the greenscreens was still perhaps my biggest bane, though I did have a problem with some reflections that I had to deal with on the glass doors.

For audio, I used a subscription that I’ve had for some time called Filmstro. They’re app is super clunky, but they have a bunch of great music that can be customized.

When it was all done, I felt the same way I did upon finishing my Matrix spoof. I felt there was more I could probably do to improve it, but it was to the point where I had to give up and move on. It still turned out ok, but I wasn’t surprised when it failed to get accepted to any film festivals.

Afterthoughts

This was a super ambitious project. Not only because we had a 15-minute movie, most of which was shot in 2 days, but because it had so much vfx included. I am proud of how it turned out, though the problems always stand out to me like a sore thumb. I wonder if anyone else notices them as badly as I do.

So let’s review how I did on my learning goals.

On learning compositing:
1. I did a fair amount of this in my matrix spoof, but really elevated the complexity and expectations here. There’s a few issues here and there, but for the most part, I think I did a good job, and I learned a lot that can help me in future shoots.
2. One of the things I did here, to aid in pulling my chroma keys and in masking that I knew was going to be a thing, was I filmed this whole video with a 90 degree shutter angle. Basically twice the shutter speed as normal, so that I could get crisper images, which hurt motion blur, but aided in masking. I don’t regret that decision, though it wouldn’t be right for every project.
On combining 3d animation with live action:
1. This part was fun. Most of it wasn’t a big deal, aside from render times, which at one point, I had my awesome computer chugging away for over a month on renders, only to realize I needed to redo some spots and start the render all over again.
2. As I mentioned earlier, I discovered that 3d shadows on a 2d image don’t work right. When my character is driving her 3d animated car through a 3d animated scene, the light coming in from the windows does not fall naturally on her. Next time, I would turn off the light interactions with her, and film those practically on her during the actual shooting day—which we did to some degree, but not nearly as much as we were expecting to need.
3. Sometimes matching a 3d animated object to a real object can be tricky. I ran into this with the car, when she steps out of it. I had to use a real car, then color change it to match the 3d version I’d created in my computer, and they don’t match perfectly,
On doing a location scout’s job:
1. I was a bit nervous at first. Tracking down locations, then getting permissions was a slightly tedious project. I didn’t know if the people and institutions I talked to would be accommodating, and some weren’t. I also didn’t know how much I’d have to spend to get some of them. In the end though, it turned out very well, and I was pleasantly surprised with how smooth everything went, minus the near miss on finding an indoor hotel pool.
On working with professional cast and crew:
1. I learned a lot from my gaffer. He was such a pro. I wish I had the budget at the time to hire a pro sound guy and a pro DP, but my budget was already getting unreasonably high. Mostly I loved how he had the tools to not only rig a set fast, but he had spare parts that came in real hand for my camera rig that made things so much easier. He was hard working and knew how to shape light better than I could have. I loved seeing how he set lighting up and I feel that even though we had a very neutral lighting setup, in order to match some of what we filmed in the pool, that it turned out great, and informative.
2. Working with professional cast was a delight also. They were less concerned about how they appeared to everyone else, and more focused on playing their parts to the best of their abilities. I wish at the time that I had taken acting classes so that I would have better known how to direct and work with them. That is one thing I would suggest to any wanna-be director. Take acting classes. Put yourself in their shoes for a little while. It will help you be a much better director in the long run.
On being intentional with camera movement:
1. For a lot of our composite scenes, having a locked off camera was essential. However, there was some camera movement that I planned in there, and I felt like it gave the picture a sense of motivation that I didn’t have in my last short.
2. The one caution I can give though, is if you are going to do some vfx on a moving camera, be very intentional about how you plan to edit it together. It adds a lot more difficulty to the edit.
On creating a color theme
1. I feel like I did a really good job on this. I wanted this to be a futuristic looking world, but one where the styles and trends had circled back around to the era of avocados and yellows, with fun curvy cars. Not only did I want the color to give a nostalgic future vibe, but I also wanted it to give you permission to laugh. So I wanted a little vibrance to the world.
2. There were a few things that threatened my color scheme. One was the School where I shot the standard interiors and doorway scenes. The brick was perfect, but the tile left a little to be desired. In the end, I added a few elements to mask the school mascots, and did a minor color correction on the tiles, and though it wasn’t perfect, I felt like it looked ok.
On getting better audio:
1. This time around, I had extra microphones. I still used my boom pole microphone, but I also used lavalier microphones on my main actors, so that I could have a backup audio track, and have something that just caught their voices rather than everything around them. Plus, a boom pole wasn’t always able to get in close enough for my liking.
2. All of this audio was recorded on separate tracks, and in one instance, where a key mic should have caught the dialog, it turns out we forgot to turn that microphone on, and we got saved by our backup, even if the quality of that backup wasn’t as good, we still got it.
3. For my locations where I knew echoes would be an issue, I invested in sound blankets and reduced the reverb considerably. In fact, I think I added some reverb back in during post, because I felt that and indoor pool area would sound wrong without a little.
Other things I learned aside from those focused around my goals
1. I learned that compressing several pages of script into a single day might save money, but it might ruin your project. You never know when one of those little setbacks is going to occur, or how it might happen, but issues happen, and when you’ve already planned out every second of every shooting day, a minor problem can turn into a huge issue. So give yourself the time to get things right, even if something unexpected happens.
2. Fifteen minutes of something like this was so close to being a half hour high budget sitcom. For Hollywood to produce the same thing, They would have spent over a million dollars. I guess there’s two key take aways in that thought. One is that as an independent, we can make a dollar stretch a lot further. On the other hand, consider how many hours I spent editing this. I probably put about 3000 hours of free labor into the edit alone. It took close to 2 years to finish this when all I could do were nights and weekends.
3. Be consistent with your payroll practices. This was a goof on my part. I had a little extra cash, and I worked my crew to the bones, so when it came time to pay them, I felt like tipping them above what I had agreed to pay them. However, since one of my crew also did some acting for me the next day, I held off paying her with her crew. Then when it came time to pay her, I gave her the money plus the generous tip I’d given the others. The only problem was, she had come in for an extra few hours that next day, and my mind was so stretched from the stress of the last few days, that it didn’t even cross my mind to pay her for the acting job she did. She never mentioned it, and we all parted on good terms. But some time later, as I was reflecting on everything, I realized my blunder. I ended up reaching out to her and sending her some extra money, though it was embarrassingly late in coming. I felt pretty bad about that. You should always take good care of those who help bring your vision to life.
4. Be careful about catering. I thought I had my bases covered. When I hired everyone, I asked about any food allergies or preferences. All told me they were good with anything. I didn’t want to do just a cheap greasy pizza, so I ordered in some nice food for lunches, however the food still got one of my crew members sick, not because it was bad, but because they had an intolerance to the food choice I picked. I’m not sure what to do differently next time, but I’m sure that if I hired a crafts service crew member, I’d learn better how to feed my cast and crew.
5. I learned a little about pacing and dialog too. Some of the dialog I wrote came across as cheesy, and some was just too much, the pacing was off. I ended cutting a lot of it in the edit. I’ve often heard that American movies have too much talking, and I’ve tried to limit that in my writing, but I’ve realized that I still do far too much telling and not enough showing. The only problem was, to show what I needed, I would’ve doubled the length of my film. So learning how to write more concise and make every word and image count is something that I need to consider going forward. Every frame should be a masterpiece of composition and storytelling when finished.

Well folks, I told you this would be a long article. Sheesh, it’s almost a novella. But I hope you learned something from my experience. I do hesitate in calling this a student film though, only because of the budget I ended up with. When you consider that I had to add a little to my gear to make this happen, my $10k budget probably grew to $15k.

There’s a reason I haven’t been able to produce a short film like this every month, it’s because it takes a year to save enough money to afford something like this. But that also is one of the reasons I didn’t mind learning how to do so much with the 3d animation and compositing. It gave me plenty of time to save up between projects so that when I finally finish this, I’d be in a position to start another.

So what will that next project be? Well, I think I’m going to do a lot of very short shorts next, stuff that I can quickly turn around and post on Youtube, along with some helpful info on my journey from being a homebuilder to being a writer producer.

If you’d like to see my YouTube breakdown of this short, check it out here on YouTube: https://youtu.be/gvqREZSWt5k

Don’t forget to also check out the actual short film here: https://youtu.be/mj4XN0OvtYc

Then like, comment, subscribe, and all that fun stuff so you can see what new stuff I end up posting.

Also if you’d like to support me in this journey, don’t forget to buy the book that this short was inspired by. It would really help me out especially if you could leave a positive review from whatever online book retailer you buy it from.

Thanks, and until next time, keep learning and following your dreams.