Giving stuff away for fun and profit

Whether authors are publishing their own books or they're with a traditional house, a central concern is how to get more books sold and into the hands of readers. And that's exactly what I'm obsessing about lately. Since the spring when I released STONES OF ABRAXAS and its sequel HEROES OF ABRAXAS under my Kissing Frog Books imprint, I've been trying to figure out how to effectively promote them. And what I've discovered is that promoting a self-pubbed book is even more of an uphill battle than getting a traditionally published book out there.

I've had a few books traditionally published (including the original edition of STONES OF ABRAXAS in 2006), but I've never done the self-pub thing before. So I did some research and asked other authors who've been successful with publishing their own books. The authors all generously gave me advice that worked for them. I implemented their advice, everything from using social media (including this very blog here), to trying to get reviews, to setting the price for the first ebook in my Abraxas series at free so people will get hooked and want to buy the next book. Then I sat back and waited for the royalty checks to roll in. I'm still waiting.

I had especially high hopes for the tactic of setting the price of the STONES OF ABRAXAS ebook at free, since it's worked so well for many other authors. So I priced it as free at Smashwords, then found out I can't make it free at Amazon's Kindle store unless I join the Kindle Select program. On its surface, Kindle Select sounded great because among other things your book is part of a lending library program and you earn royalties every time it's downloaded through the library. But I learned that the problem with Kindle Select is that you have to promise to exclusively publish your ebook through them for at least 90 days. I didn't like the idea of shutting out other booksellers, so I published my books for Kindle, but didn't enroll in Kindle Select.

Did that mean I couldn't set the STONES ebook price at free? Not necessarily, according to fellow YA author, Megg Jensen. She told me that Amazon wants people to let them know if a book is available for less than their price at another website. So I let them know it was free at Smashwords. That was a month or two ago, but it hasn't changed yet at Amazon. Not to worry, says Megg. She said that I might have to make a nuisance of myself until the price eventually gets changed. So Nuisance Land, here I come.

That's where I'm at right now as far as trying to promote my three self-pubbed books. If anyone has any suggestions that might help further, please let me know. Obviously, I can use all the help I can get.

New Stones of Abraxas is here!

Finally! The new print edition of Stones of Abraxas is available through Createspace and by the end of the month, ebooks for Kindle and other formats will be out there, too. Even better, Book #2 of the Abraxas Pentagram series, Heroes of Abraxas, will also be for sale within the next month. I know it took forever. Believe me, it was frustrating to see my first Abraxas publisher leave the young adult market, which meant the book went out of print. Then I saw my second publisher go out of business entirely before either Stones or Heroes could be released. But now, thanks to the miracle of self-publishing, those books can be available again.

You can see the funky new cover for this edition of Stones as the profile picture for this blog. I have the Heroes of Abraxas cover, too, and while I love both of the covers, but I'm especially fond of the emerald green and gargoyle on the Heroes cover.  Thumbs up for my cover artist!

Right now, I'm busy working on Book #3 in the Abraxas series, called Rulers of Abraxas. I promise this one won't take nearly as long as it took me to get Book #2 out there! I'm also working on publishing a few other manuscripts that I've finished in recent years and will announce when those are available. It's so cool to have the ability to release books when and how I want. This modern technology thing is really beginning to grow on me.

If you get a chance, please head over to Createspace's e-store and check out the new print version of Stones of Abraxas. It's been a long wait, but don't they say good things are worth waiting for? https://www.createspace.com/3803104

Happy publishing, everyone!
Kim

New Stones of Abraxas edition almost here!

It's almost here! I've just placed an order for the first proof copy of Stones of Abraxas. Hopefully it will look as good on paper as it does on the computer page. It took a long time – way longer than I'd expected – to get it to this point, but now I'm really happy with the result. The print books should up and available for sale on Amazon by the end of April, and I hope to have the ebook versions available soon after. At about the same time, the Heroes of Abraxas sequel will be available, too.

I find myself looking back on the past months and wondering why it took me so long to get this done, but the fact is that self-publishing a book requires a lot of steps. Since this is my first attempt at self-publishing, there was a steep learning curve. Oh, and there was the work I was also doing to finish my latest nonfiction manuscript and find a publisher for it. The good news is I did find a publisher for that one, and the book will be out in January 2013. More about that in an upcoming post.

Anyway, here's what I've been doing to get Stones of Abraxas ready for prime time:

-        Edited the manuscript once, twice, three times, then another time for good measure. I added a few things and deleted others from the original version that Medallion Press had published back in 2006.

-        Researched publishing options and decided on Amazon's Createspace.

-        I figured out how to use Createspace's online publishing tools, including formatting my manuscript to work in their system.

-        Found an artist for the book cover. She did a great job on a very cool looking cover. Now she's got me on the schedule to work on one for the Abraxas sequel.

-        Put the inside and outside of the book together and ordered a proof copy.

-        Used the book cover to order promotional postcards to pass out at book signings.

So far, that's it. Now I wait for the books to show up while I get the ebook version formatted. After that, I get to start the fun part: Book signings and other promotional events. I've got a couple lined up, but there should be more soon.

That's it for now. I'll be posting the new cover on my website soon. Thanks for checking on the progress of the new edition of Stones of Abraxas. It will be available again very soon. Thanks for your patience!

Kim

I'm not playing favorites

I feel horribly guilty. Over the summer my goal was to get my first two Abraxas books self-published. I failed. Miserably. Here it is mid-October and while the first one has been edited (about a dozen times) the second one is still on my clipboard. But it's been languishing there for weeks because I've been playing favorites. There's another manuscript that I've been working on - the nonfiction one that I've been writing with my aunt - and all my time is being spent on that. Of course, that one has an interested publisher so it makes sense to spend time on it. Still, I feel guilty about not devoting the time to Abraxas that it deserves.

The limited progress I've made lately on Abraxas consists mainly of deciding to form my own publishing company to publish the books myself rather than going through another company like Createspace or Smashwords. It will take a little more work, but the cool thing is that I'll be my own publisher and own my own ISBNs. So I've got to get on that by filling out the paperwork and paying the fees to create the company and get the ISBNs. Which I intend to do - just as soon as I finish my nonfiction manuscript.

So when those nagging feelings of guilt strike me every time I look at my Abraxas manuscripts, I tell myself, "It'll be just a little longer. Definitely by the end of the year. Or maybe spring. Summer's nice, too."

Formatting isn't for wimps

Stones of Abraxas is officially edited for the final time and ready for formatting in my self-publishing odyssey. I've been reading a lot about the formatting process at different self-publishers, and the consensus seems to be that it's a process for the anal retentive. Apparently if an author isn't prepared to be be obsessive-compulsive about it, then she should hire a professional to do the formatting.

After giving it some thought, I've decided that I should try my own formatting. While my house is messy and I'm far from a perfectionist when it comes to anything else I do, I'm actually very careful about following written rules with the things I write. Years ago when I was finishing my doctoral dissertation, most of the other students paid formatters to put their dissertations into the appropriate format demanded by my university. The university had a 100+ page handbook that we needed to follow to the letter when typing our dissertations. Any mistakes would delay approval of the research and possibly graduation.

Was I daunted by the school's obsessive requirements? No, it was a challenge, so I formatted my dissertation myself. Shortly after submitting it, I got a call from a lady in the dissertation office. She complained that I was supposed to have put the name of my formatter on my dissertation, but it wasn't there. I said I hadn't used one. She was stunned. She said that no one ever had such a clean copy after doing it themselves.

Because of this one success ten years ago, I've convinced myself that I can format my own self-published book. Am I deluded? Maybe. But I've got to give it a shot, and if I'm successful, then I'll save some cash and will never be intimidated by this again. And if I try and fail, then I'll have to admit that I'm not quite as obsessive-compulsive as I thought. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Next time you see me, my back will be sore from hunching over my keyboard. :)

Kim

Editing - Again!

Stones of Abraxas was first published in 2006, and before I even queried my publisher about it, I'd edited it a zillion times. Then there were the two rounds of edits with the professional editor. Then there was me hunched over the finished, published book scanning for typos. So when I decided to self-publish it now that it's out of print, I figured that just one quick, final go-through would be fine. But no. The obsessive writer/editor/red pen owner in me can't let it go.

After a week, I'm only half-way through with this round of edits. I've started to think of this upcoming version of Abraxas as the literary equivalent of a "Director's Cut." Nothing serious is being changed, but I can always think of better ways to phrase things. That's probably good. It probably means I'm a better writer now than I was six years ago when I completed this manuscript the first time.

I'm going back to my editing now. And when I eventually finish, I'll be doing the same thing with Heroes of Abraxas. Remember when I thought that this self-publishing thing would be easy and quick. I was so young and naive - about two weeks ago.

ISBNs and Cover Size

I've learned that size is important when it comes to book covers. Also ISBNs are vital and I need one for each version of each of my books (print, ebook, etc.). And they cost over $100 each. But I can get free ISBNs from some publishers, but they're only good for books I sell through those publishers. Yes, I'm learning a lot about the self-publishing world, but my head is also spinning. Fool that I am, I had mistakenly thought that this whole adventure would take a week or two. Now I'm staring down the barrel of a full summer project. But it's pretty cool that at the end of it my Abraxas books will be back out in the world.

So right now I'm going through both manuscripts with a fine-tooth comb for the last time to make sure they're in perfect shape. Stones of Abraxas has already been published once, but as with practically any book, there were some typos and things that I wanted to edit, and Heroes of Abraxas has never been published or edited by a professional editor. Then it's onto the formatting phase where I've got to format both manuscripts for print and ebook versions. Depending on who you listen to, this process can be quick or it can be a hellish nightmare.

So progress is being made. If anyone has any suggestions to make this process easier, please let me know. As you can tell, I can use all the help I can get.

Next time: Which is easier? Formatting a manuscript or removing your own appendix?

Cover Art

During the years that I've been messing around trying to get Abraxas back in print, I've toyed with the idea of self-publishing it more than once. There were a couple things that stopped me, though. First was cover art. I'm not a visual artist. I can barely draw a smiley face. I teach political science for a living and sometimes have to draw a picture of the state of Illinois where I live. Too often it looks like a penis. So, no, I'm not drawing cover art, and I don't own the rights to the cover art that was published on the first print edition of Stones of Abraxas. What to do?

Well, it turns out there are artists out there who are willing to produce cover art for you for a reasonable price. (Define reasonable as something even I can afford.) I found an artist who's also an author in her own right who's been through this self-publishing dance a few times herself. She has generously offered to produce covers for the first 2 Abraxas books. At that point I foolishly thought that all I had to do was offer suggestions for what would look cool on the cover. BTW: After a conversation with my teenage son, we decided a dragon on SOA was just right. He said that a dragon always attracts his attention.

I told Marianne, cover artist extraordinaire, about our love for dragons, and she asked me how big the cover should be. Apparently that's something I'm supposed to know and it's based on the publisher I'm using and the thickness of the book and other complicated formulas. I didn't know there was going to be math. So now my job is to figure out which publisher I'm going to use for the print version. From what I can tell, the ebook version is easier in terms of cover dimensions because you don't need room for a spine or back cover.

In the next couple of days I'll be back with details about my print publisher selection and cover dimensions. Wish me luck!

Kim

Let me explain...

In 2006, my first book was published. It's a YA fantasy called STONES OF ABRAXAS. I ran around like crazy setting up book signings at stores, libraries, conferences, and anywhere else they'd have me. I hosted a book release party at my house. Never mind that it was 100 degrees in the shade with 300% humidity, it was a great party. Sadly, 3 days before the book was released, my publisher announced the end of its YA line. In other words, my book was an orphan even before it was formally born.

Since the book was already printed, it was released, and I promoted the heck out of it. In the meantime I searched for a new publisher that would publish the rest of the Abraxas books. (It's a series of 5 called The Abraxas Pentagram.) I did find a new publisher after about a year and a half, but they ended up going out of business in 2008 before they released any of the books. This is sad for me, but it's also sad for the people who read STONES OF ABRAXAS and want to see what happens in Book #2 HEROES OF ABRAXAS. What to do?

Fortunately, technology has been catching up with what I need. I keep hearing about other authors who decided to self-publish their books in both e-book format and print format. Some are first-time authors who couldn't find publishers. Others are well-known authors who wanted more control over their work. And some are like me whose books have gone out of print and they want them back where readers can find them.

So I'm taking the plunge. And that's what this blog is all about. I'm keeping a record of how I'm publishing and promoting my Abraxas series all by myself. No, I don't know what I'm doing. No, I have no technical skill. And, no, obviously I'm not particularly bright. But I'm going go get Abraxas back out there. I hope you come along for the ride!

Kim