As I posted recently I’ve been awash in the wake of Pronoun coming down. For those of you who don’t know but want to understand the implications, they can be summerized thusly:
- The books ALL come offline until I find another way to self publish them
- I lose all my ISBNs
- I potentially lose all the reviews on those sites for my books
- I lose all my promos on various sites linked to those specific URL
- I lose the benefits of Pronoun (here are a few; Emails whenever I sell/get a review, excellent support, full 70% profit from sales, cost free uploading, 0% of sales taken… the list goes on.)
Sulking aside, its not been great.
To add to that there have been numerous problems with the hard copies of the books; because of the delay on when I received the funds, and the launch of the book not long after its been a bit difficult to get it all organised.
As I had to wait for several things to align (stars, planets… designers), but I’ve run into some serious problems on formatting both fronts; the Indesign stuff for the core text was tricky, and I wanted to do it myself because it is possible and I didn’t want to waste the ludicrous amount of money on paying someone to format it.
I told all the Kickstarters I’d be using Ingram, who don’t format. I then spent some time investigating, and then reporting my finding to the author’s alliance (hence why I ended up doing it myself), which got a little messy and complicated.
We should have been all ready to print this week, except from late October the designers of the book cover haven’t come back to me with the print cover indesign files and are not answering my emails. And I don’t know why. *sigh*
I paid them several hundred US for this service but it was done a long time ago and I can’t get it back. Its tempting at these times to just throw in the towel!
I will find someone else to do them because I want these books before Christmas! I am very determined to get the print order in by the end of the week, and am looking at some other fiverr artists who’ve done promo work with me before to get the cover for the hardcopy up to scratch.
I am also very unimpressed at the price hike over the last 18 months for book covers; a whopping US$99, they have now jumped to as much as US$300 which is more than I can afford. I am persuing other designers, have paid several, and overall been very disappointed with the results. I mean, I don’t require original artwork, if I want that I’ll go to my artists, (which right now is on the cards), but it would be nice to find someone who can give me what I need. I guess I’ll keep looking…
Kickstarters: The other problem is you! I have emailed a few of you a number of times asking for addresses to post the books! Please give them to me, or if you aren’t sure about it flick me a message through the website or Kickstarter page!
In regard to where my books will go next, I have decided on two platforms; with KDP (Amazon direct) and D2D (Draft to Digital, who cover everything else).
My reasoning is that I can advertise to a *much* larger audience with KDP, and if I join them it will make it easier to transfer across my reviews to the new URLs.
D2D list their books everywhere that Pronoun did except Google Play, but that hasn’t been a great platform with me, and D2D offer a host of other retailers I will be investigating.
The profit margins are far lower than Pronoun, and there is a 10% take on any earnings, but otherwise they are the best that are currently out there.
Its been a long couple of weeks, and I’m supposed to be on holidays writing!
Which brings me to Nanowrimo.
I have knocked this out, and the next novella in the Last Prophecy series (set for release in 2019) is done; The Tumbling Spire.
I will tell you more about it… late next year.
In the mean time I am progressing on the next book in the Queen of Spades Series – the Darkening. I know nobody really knows anything about these series yet, but I won’t be shutting up about them soon!
I am anticipating (hopefully) for the release of Queen of Spades – The Awakening towards the end of the year or maybe early next year, please keep your eye out for it, because it will be a .99 cent book for the first month and then go up to $2.99!
In other, fabulous news, I’ve been awarded a Gold Star Rating for the Well of Youth by the BGS team! It’s a combination of a computer system called Autocrit, and measures word repetition, mistakes, readability, development and a host of other stuff.
If any one has anything they want clarified in regards to the Kickstarter feel free to send me a message, I am more than happy to answer, and believe you me I need to do as I promised and give my father a copy of the book for Christmas, so they should be done before then!
E. J. Dawson 