Vaughn C. Hardacker

I have recently taken a big step forward and dipped my toes into the waters of Self-Publishing. One of my publishers, whom I won’t mention, has released the rights to two of my books, and there is no way in hell I am going through the query process again! I have learned a few things about the release of rights. One, when the publisher releases the book rights back to the author, it might not include the cover rights. So, even though Amazon and other booksellers still list your book online, they may not have the updated cover.  The novels that were released had not been published as ebooks, so I decided to publish them myself. I have sent the three manuscripts to Draft2Digital.com and have had to design new covers. I decided to try D2D because they do not charge you up front. They take 10% of the price you decide to sell at, and you get the 90% (try and get that from a traditional publisher!). They will also offer print-on-demand paperback, and they do not require the writer to share in the production costs (they will pay for printing and shipping the book, and you will get a percentage of the price — again, if they sell no books, you don’t incur any cost). There is a hitch, though, you have to adhere to their eBook format requirements. They want the book to be single-spaced and recommend you include a linked table of contents. It took me a couple of days per manuscript to convert each book from manuscript to eBook.

When everything meets their requirements, they send the ebook (and POD if ordered) to a wide list of booksellers (B&N and a wide array of eBook publishers), and within a day or so. I got contacted by quite a few that the books were available through them. One of my books has already shown up on Amazon (B&N had it within an hour). There is one problem with POD, though. One of my book covers had the author’s name two spaces too wide, and they rejected it. If you are planning on POD, be careful with margins. On one of my covers, the author’s name was too close to the guide, and they were afraid the last letter would be cut off. Then I encountered AI.

I decided to use Microsoft Copilot to do a cover. What I thought would be a quick deal turned into a four-day marathon! By the time I was finished, any reservations I had about AI were diminished. I worked in the computer world for most of my adult life and knew one basic fact about them. There is no reason to fear a computer … they are nothing more than a fast idiot. If you ask a computer, “What is 2 times 2? It only performs a few functions: it adds, subtracts, and compares. Computers multiply using repeated addition and divide using repeated subtraction. The process is that the computer goes through every possibility before it answers. It asks: Is it 0 plus 0? No. Is it 1 plus 0? No. Is it 0 plus 1? Finally, it will come across the correct answer. It’s only advantage is that it does it at 600 million miles per hour (the speed of light). Have you ever played chess against a computer? Early on, the computer makes its move instantaneously. Before it moves, it tries every possible move against every possible countermove. As the game progresses, the computer slows down as it checks every possible move until it decides which one to make. Thus, it’s a fast idiot. Getting back to my experience with Copilot (AI), I followed the idiot’s instructions, and at the very end, it blew my mind. I was under the impression that after I completed the entire process, it would spit out a single file I could upload to the publisher. WRONG! When you are dealing with a computer always remember GIGO! If you put garbage in, you get garbage out. In this case, garbage in is what question you ask the fast idiot. It took multiple attempts before I finally asked THE right question. The program took all the inputs I gave it and returned a list of what I had told it. The purpose of the program is not to give you a single file. It gives you all the parameters you need to provide to either D2D’s support team, so they can create the cover, or to whoever is designing the cover! DUH?

I spent four days repeating the same questions and getting the same answers (what was it Einstein said about doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? I believe he said it was the definition of insanity.) For many years, I taught at technical schools and junior colleges, and I always told students to RTFQ when taking a test. Read The Full Question. I had a test. I gave them it consisted of ten absolutely ridiculous questions, such as: If you built a house and all four sides had a southern exposure. Where is the house? The instructions for the test said: Before answering any questions, READ THE ENTIRE TEST. At the very end of the test, it said: Now that you have read the entire test, put your name in the date line and the date in the name line and turn the test in.

The moral of the story? Read what the AI is asking. As human beings, we all have a tendency to let experience guide us. We ASSUME. We all know that there are three words in assume.

In closing. In 1989, I was battling major personal and professional issues. To be blunt, I was being a major asshole. I later learned it was something called PTSD. If you spent as much time with me as I do, you’d have it too! I wrote a book entitled: The War Within. It dealt with an angry, confused kid who was always in one sort of trouble or another. He dropped out of school and became involved with a South Boston gang. He learns that the mob is going to turn him in for doing a job they gave him to do, and runs. To hide, he joins the USMC and is sent to Vietnam, where he wins the Medal of Honor. He now believes his life will be better, only to learn that he still has little education, no skills, and still carries a lot of anger. Nothing happens as he hopes. I entered the novel in the International Literary Awards and won a $1300.00 second prize. Many people read it and said it was great. Unfortunately, none of them were agents, editors, or publishers. I knew it would be controversial as it dealt with an unpopular war, and an unlikable (but realistic) protagonist. I have just recently published it myself and am getting requests for it. I decided that if nobody else would take a chance on it, that I WOULD!