Under the covers

One of the most exciting aspects of indie publishing is having control of the appearance of your books.  I once spoke to a “professional” author (i.e. one whose books are published the traditional way, via a contract with a publishing house) and he said how much he loathed the covers of his books – and I thought that was very sad (a bit like having to admit that your children are ugly).  As regular readers of this blog will know, I have no visual artistic talent at all, but I know a man who does – and he is “my” marvellous cover designer Andrew, at Design for Writers.

I am about to publish a short business book called “The Solo Squid: How to Run a Happy One-Person Business”.  Andrew has done the covers for the Sam Plank books and for all the money laundering piggy books, but “the Squid” is a new venture.  His first requirement was for me to look at other business books aimed at the small business and tell him the covers I liked and disliked; among my dislikes were anything too shiny and corporate and American or anything too cute-sy and homemade.  And – of course – I wanted a squid on the cover.  (Inevitably, with my love of research, I spent a happy half-day reading about the differences between squids and octopuses, and the use of squids in legend, literature and medicine, and discovered that those who study squids are nicknamed cephalopodiatrists.)  Poor Andrew – imagine trying to make artistic sense of that lot.  But he worked his usual magic (which, like all magic, requires enormous amounts of work behind the scenes) and came up with two options:

   

I adored them both, of course, but in the end plumped for the blue/sea-green cover for a few reasons:

• The red cover looks more mysterious – perhaps better suited to fiction than to a business book
• The subtitle – and particularly the word “happy” – is much more obvious on the blue cover
• The shape of the squid on the blue cover coincidentally quite closely matches the squid-like bullet points I have used in the text of the book
• Some people said that they found the red squid scary!

Andrew is now completing the back cover and spine of the book and then it’s on to the next stages: ordering a paper proof (which I always do with a new title – I don’t bother if it’s just a revised version), final checking and editing – and then publication.

With many thanks to Andrew at Design for Writers for permission to reproduce his cover designs in this blog post.

A trio of triumphs

One of the delights (and downsides) of indie publishing (I’m trying to school myself to call it indie publishing rather than self-publishing) is being responsible for your own marketing.  I find that it’s very mood-based: if I’m feeling optimistic and imaginative, promotion and marketing are great fun, but if I’m feeling a bit low, it’s very hard work.  And no matter the mood, it’s important to remember that marketing is a long game: you can put out feelers and tasters and temptations and hear nothing for weeks – months – and then suddenly something happens.  Today I can report three somethings.

First up, we have the marvellous Richard Tearle.  Richard is a great supporter and promoter of indie writers and publishers, and has a special fondness for historical fiction: some time ago he wrote some terrific reviews of the Sam Plank books, and then he asked me to take part in an interview for his new blog, Slipstream.  The questions were thought-provoking, and the interview has appeared today on Richard’s blog.

Secondly, ages ago – in June – I contacted the webmaster of a site called “Order of Books” and asked for the Sam books to be added.  In essence, people can consult this website to find out about series of books and to get the definitive word about the order of the books in the series.  And today – most unexpectedly – my entry has appeared (although I was born in Brussels, not Germany).  Do go and have a look – it’s a really handy website for those of us who love series (and who wouldn’t want to revisit a beloved character?).

And thirdly, I have solved the mystery of the spike in sales of “Portraits of Pretence” (the fourth – green-covered – Sam book).  For several years now I have been in email contact with a lady in California who teaches an occasional college course on historical fiction.  And in a recent email she mentioned that this month her book club, on her recommendation, is reading “Portraits”.  So thank you, Claire and friends in California: that’s eleven copies on the tally!

(And – too exciting – as I write this, I have an eared cocked for the doorbell: the proof paper copy of “Heir Apparent” is being delivered this afternoon.  If all is well, I might even be pressing that big red Publish button a few days early…)

All over bar the selling

Aye, as Sam would say.  It’s done.  Over the weekend I completed the final editing of “Heir Apparent” and cut and pasted it into the template that I use for the interior formatting.  It’s a bit of a beast, at 377 pages, but everyone who has read it tells me that it needs the extra space because it is more “twisty-turny” than the previous novels.  That would explain the headaches I had during my writing retreat…

I have now ordered my paper proof copy – I’ve checked it online, but it’s important to check it in the flesh, to make sure that the paper quality is good and that the cover looks as spiffy in real life as it does on the screen.  Plus, I can dance around the house waving the proof copy in the air – I just look daft if I do that with my laptop.

I have also emailed all the lovely bricks-and-mortar bookshops which stock the Sam books to ask how many copies they would like of his chunky new adventure – it’s one of my great pleasures to cycle to my two local bookshops on publication day and drop off their orders.  That said, “publication day” is a rather elastic concept: it’s all very well me pressing – with great fanfare – the giant “Publish!” button on KDP, but then it’s up to Amazon.  One of the Sam books took four (fevered) days to appear; another was listed within the hour.  I’ve learned to chill about it – but for general celebratory purposes, I’m aiming for the long-promised Friday 18 October.

So all that is left to do now is, erm, format the five e-versions that I need (Kindle, Draft2Digital, Gumroad, Kobo and Smashwords) – I’ll certainly be cross-eyed after that lot.  And then I’ll need to sell some books.  Easy-peasy.

Going goggle-eyed with editing

I know you think I’ve been lounging around in a silk kimono, watching Hollywood movies and eating bonbons, but in reality I have been editing like a demon.  And I can finally report that the finish line is in sight.

I have done my last edits – so if you don’t like the story the way it is now, that’s just tough.  I have uploaded the interior file to CreateSpace, so that it can calculate the number of pages it will need to publish the paperback (328, as you’re asking).  It has now told me how wide the book’s spine needs to be, and I’ve sent this vital statistic to the cover designer, who can then finalise the cover.  Once I upload that to CreateSpace, I can order my proof copy, which takes about a week to get to me.  And if I’m happy with that copy when I see it, I will press the big, red, flashing, honking Publish button – oh, how I wish it was that exciting a button, but it isn’t – and you will be able to rush to Amazon in your thousands to buy your own copies.

In the week’s gap while I wait for my proof paperback, I will return to the hell that is formatting, in order to create the various e-versions of the book – which means taking out all of the beautiful formatting that I have just put in.  Such is life.

But in short: we’re nearly there!

A sort-of launch event

You have all been very patient as I vanished on holiday and trundled around eastern Europe on trains of varying degrees of decrepitude – at one point we were overtaken by a horse and cart, so that says it all really.  But now I am back, and we’re very much in the final straight heading for the publication of “Worm in the Blossom”.  So just what am I doing in this last month?

Well, I suppose I should be honest and say that I have here, in my sweaty little paw, my very own first copy of “Worm”.  I always order a proof copy to check for paper quality, cover colour and so on, and I am very pleased.  The reason for ordering so far ahead is that, as with much of self-publishing, you have to count backwards.  I am publishing officially on 16 October, which means that on that day I want to deliver copies to the bookshops that so kindly take Plank onto their shelves.  In order to have those copies in time, I need to order them from CreateSpace (the publishing people), which means having them delivered from America.  Postage is killingly expensive, so I try to avoid the top-rate speedy delivery and go instead for a slower – cheaper – service, which means ordering further ahead of time.  So although “Worm” is to all intents and purposes now finished, it’s not yet “published”.  In order to buy my own copies, I have to publish – but then I sneakily do not make it available through any sales channels, so no-one else can find it.  And in this final month, I also get cracking on the e-book versions – basically a rather painstaking formatting exercise – so that they too can be launched as close as possible to that 16 October date.

And the sort-of launch party?  Well, Toppings – a wonderful independent bookshop in Ely, with a fabulous programme of events – is giving me a whirl on 26 October, which is pretty close and I think counts as a launch event.  Click here to see details – but be warned that my face is VERY large!