Saturday, July 6, 2013

The trials and tribulations of self-publishing


I'm hard at work preparing Book 2 of the Maxwell Saga for publication later this month.  I'd hoped to have it ready for July 15th, but I'm afraid it may slip by a few days to the 20th or even the 25th, thanks to formatting issues with hardcopy product at CreateSpace.  As I've mentioned before, I had all sorts of difficulties getting the manuscript for Book 1 into an acceptable format for them to print it;  in particular, when I complied with their online template, their review still claimed that my book was out of spec.  Turned out I had to leave margins almost double what they nominally required before I could get any further.  Oh, well, that's part of the learning curve, I guess . . .

A proof copy of the print edition of 'Take The Star Road' is on its way to me as I write these words.  As soon as it gets here, I'll check it carefully, make any changes necessary, then prepare the print edition of Book 2, 'Ride The Rising Tide', in the same way.  I want to bring out the print editions of Books 1 and 2 at the same time as the e-book version of Book 2.  Hopefully future volumes will be quicker to prepare, having learned (the hard way) about the problems involved!

Thanks for your patience in waiting for Book 2.  I'll do my best to minimize further delays.

Peter

5 comments:

  1. Having been down "the star road", I find that the print edition is almost more work than it's worth. Other than ego, I sell 5:1 or more on Kindle.

    I'm gratified to see you doing as well as you are -- but it's a lot of work.

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  2. Thanks for the update Peter, and thanks for your hard work and patience!

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  3. Indeed, thank you, Peter.

    The first book was a great read - I thoroughly enjoyed it.

    Looking forward to the second.

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  4. I'm finishing my monsterpiece, er, I mean, "masterpiece," now. Doing final tweaking and editing. Space-western sort of thing. Planning on going Kindle. It's big - over 170k words, and in an unusual format (sort of screen-playish) Any particular words of advice (or links to best of your blog posts)?

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  5. @Anonymous at 11:25 PM: I suggest you e-mail me (my address is in my blog profile), and we can exchange ideas and information that way. It's hard to do it in blog comments.

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