Nearly there . . .

Pressing The Go Button

I've never been so eager yet scared to press that 'go' button.

I did it today, a Sunday here in Australia. The formatting company I'm using, Bookbaby.com. says I should be getting my PDF proofs 'within approximately 10 business days' .

Here's my immediate problem. I've been telling the world the book will be on sale June 21. That's exactly 10 business days from now.

Ooops.

Obviously, I don't want to be a liar. BUT, I do need to read the proof first, just to make sure the ebook works the way an ebook should. This one (and the three to follow) have footnotes. I need them to work.

I'm sorry the book release could be delayed. This is completely my fault. This is my first venture into independent publishing and I'm making mistakes as I go along. But these are all mistakes I'm making at home, BEFORE the book gets out there.

I would much rather the book be late but gorgeous, instead of having it out there on an arbitrarily selected date but it then doesn't satisfy the readers.

Releasing the first two titles are a little like trial runs, to see how it all works. After bookbaby delivers the book, it takes 2 - 4 days for Amazon to load the book onto their sales pages. That's fine by me. BUT it can take  3 - 6 WEEKS to go on sale at the ibookstore.

If I want to get things all ready to be on sale at the same time across all formats, I have to work back 6 weeks from going 'live' and an extra 10 business days (another 2 weeks) for formatting. Which means I need to have things ready at least 2 months, preferably 10 weeks, ahead of time.

Looks like the rest of my year will be something of a blur.

The Same But Different

Why am I going "Indie"?
Good question. I know it's good because I asked it.

Here's why I'm going Indie.
Because publishing is changing and my Ondine books don't fit the traditional mould.

It doesn't mean they're rubbish, it just means they don't fit the way publishers do business these days.

Way back when I signed a deal for Ondine with Egmont UK, it was for UK and Commonwealth rights only. Which meant my agent and I still held the rights to sell into the USA.

Later, when the books came out in the UK to rave reviews, my agents tried to get USA interest. However, the times were already changing and the USA publishers weren't interested.

In rave reviews!
In a ferret hero!
In a diabolically funny romance!

They weren't crazy, they were being ultra cautious. Because publishing was changing. And also, ebooks were storming on in and everyone was NERVOUS. And that global financial crisis thing. Upshot being, if a US publisher was going to pay out for a book, they wanted as many rights as possible so they could get back their investment. And we'd already sold most of those rights.

But, I have the rights to the USA, which is why I'm releasing the first two Ondine titles, as ebooks, into that territory. The clever thing is, I can geographically restrict the sale of these titles to the territories I still have rights to, without infringing on the deal I've previously made with Egmont UK.

So, I'll be releasing the first two Ondines into the USA-only in June and September, and then . . .

The NEXT TWO ONDINES will be released as ebooks WORLD-WIDE in December and then March.

Are you still with me? Excellent.

Here's where things get tricky. That global financial crisis? It kicked in.

I wrote the Ondine trequel, and in 2012, Egmont UK passed. Not because it was crap, but because the first two books hadn't sold enough to warrant further investment. Traditional publishing is a business and they are in it to make money.

But I still had a story to tell, and for me, it was worth the investment of my time and money to write the next two books and deliver them for the fans. I hired a freelance editor (who, as luck would have it, used to work with Egmont). All up, it will cost me a few thousand dollars to release these four books, and I'm confident I'll get that investment back.

The downside is, the covers won't all match. If you're in the USA, and you're buying all the ebook versions, they will match. But if you've been a loyal fan who bought the paperbacks in the UK, books 3 and 4 will only be on your ereading device, rather than your bookshelf. I can only apologise for this, and for the different covers. I've tried to make the most gorgeous covers in the world, so that you'll be happy. Ultimately, it's what's between the covers that will count, and I've written the best books I can as my way of thanking my existing audience, while appealing to new readers.

Speaking of counting, I'm counting down the days. It's May now, and that means THE SUMMER OF SHAMBLES will be available in the USA next month. NEXT MONTH!

I have work to do.

Budgeting

As I prepare to launch all four Ondine books out into the USA and somewhere called The Rest of The World, starting in June, I need to keep an eye on where the money is going.

Two of the books were released in paperback (and later ebook) into the UK and Commonwealth by Egmont UK. These are the ones I'm releasing into the USA as ebooks. They are 'done' so to speak, so I spent hours and hours and HOURS reformatting them from the proofreading files back to word. But at no 'extra' cost, aside from months of my life.

Money, money, money, money .... money!

Months where I could be working at ALDI instead.

Back to the books. The next two novels are more expensive. These are new novels, not contracted to a publisher, so I can release them worldwide. I want them to be even better than the first two. That means I've put heaps of pressure on myself to write something AMAZING, and then I've hired REALLY SMART EDITORS to do a structural edit and then a line edit/proofread.

I've paid them for their high skills and knowledge. Because if you want good people, you need to pay them good money. This translates into about $1,000 per book.

Each of the four books will cost me around $200 for formatting and cover creation #. So that's $800 for formatting and $2,000 for editing. Whoa, that's $2,800 for the set of four before I even begin promotions.

I'm looking at an advertising budget of around $750. So .... wow, $3,500 out of pocket before I start selling.

I better hope these books sell!

Being $3,500 in the red means I need to sell about 2,000 copies at somewhere around the $3 mark to break even. (or 500 of each title). Obviously, I want to do better than this. Much, MUCH better than this. But in a basic look at the numbers, this is what I need.

It's why I need to budget. I simply can't sell the titles at 99c each or give them away indefinitely, if I want any chance of paying off those debts.

Some might say an outlay of $3,500 is exorbitant, and that I should be doing this on the cheap.

But if I 'go cheap' the results would be less than stellar.

These titles will be competing for people's attention - people who don't have a lot of time and will despise me if I waste theirs. People who read 'properly' published novels and want the same quality and attention to detail in an indie published novel. I want my Ondine novels to be up there competing with fans who love The Princess Bride (The 'good parts' version abridged by William Goldman) and Maureen Johnson's legion of fans and readers who love Paranormalcy.

I can't ask them to lower their expectations and give me extra consideration. I want them to be so caught up in the story they don't care where it came from, only that they want the next one.

My novels are about entertaining the reader, respecting the reader and delivering a high quality product.
If I skimp, or do it 'on the cheap', the results will be reflected in the end product.

I don't want that, and I'm darn sure readers don't want that.

So now I have a budget and a rough idea of how many books I need to sell. I'm mildly terrified.
I've already spent the money, too. So there's no backing out now.

#. I am getting the covers for hella-cheap prices because I'm fortunate to have an awesome relative who is the shizzle with graphic design. No, it won't be my 9-y-o son, he's busy doing the covers for my Skylanders fan fiction.