January 2025 Newsletter
Happy New Year, folks!
So, a few big announcements. First, we’ve got the final draft of the concept art for the cover of Book 2: Unseen Wrath, along with the preview of book 2 now being posted to the site!
The preview is located here:
https://www.morganspringglace.com/book-2-unseen-wrath
Going along with this, here’s the first in a series of maps of the city of Versingit, which has a prominent role in the early chapters of book 2.
A criticism that I got about these maps (on a writers’ group on Facebook), especially as they pertain to battles is showing the progress of maneuver throughout the battle. Versingit will be one of those battles where I attempt to show the progress of maneuver and I am blessed to have Luke Bauer on this project!
Something else that I have aspired to is to be able to illustrate scenes, including the battle scenes (big task, though). I showed a couple iterations of one of those illustrations, and here it is again in it’s current state. From book 1, you can probably tell which illustrations were done by myself and which were done by people that actually know how to draw. So, in very many ways, this has been, is, and will be the most challenging piece I’ve attempted.
If you cross-reference with the map above, this is along Avart Avenue in Versingit, just inside the East Gate. Struggling with detail consistency, how to show the cobbled street transitioning to dirt alleys, and how to draw thatch. Once the building are done, I will add the figures, then the shadow.
So what keeps me company in this? I have some good friends online, but when I’m otherwise all alone, we have the track of the month: Sewer Society, Layer 014, Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bna96rbyGEg
I find the first track to be particularly enchanting and energetic. Also, right at the 30-minute mark, I find a special energy there. If I haven’t said it before or said it enough, all of these are best enjoyed in full headphones at maximum volume.
Also this month, we have two more episodes of our gaming podcast posted:
Episode 2: Only Elves… or is it Only Orcs… In this episode, The players Arrive in Soorin and receive a task from Velthuria, Viceroy of Soorin and sister of the Prince of Yvel. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uBboiV5FoY&list=PLNfIEverSFHasQWrSLgsWedwCEBK5CY2A&index=3)
Episode 3: Two dice and a dream. In this episode, The party has the brilliant idea to split up for the best conceivable reasons! Later, Aerith pleads for goblinkind. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raJXGuP1Y48&list=PLNfIEverSFHasQWrSLgsWedwCEBK5CY2A)
You could also say, “hey, dude, you’ve been working on that drawing for, like, 2 months now. What gives? Why aren’t you done with that yet?” And you’re right. I could have worked a lot faster. This is a marathon though. I’ve mentioned that this is a time of great turmoil and change. One of those changes is a remodeling project that I started this (past) month. Here’s the before and after.
So far, from the left to the right, I’ve scrapped the popcorn off of the ceiling, painted the ceiling and walls, tore out the old carpet, painted and replaced the trim, painted the mantle, built and painted the first set of shelves. Two more shelves to go. I’ll also be putting a trim frame around the window. I’ll get someone to do the carpet, though. I’ll screw it up unignorably if I do it myself.
Other things that kept me busy this month: I donated copies of book 1 to two of my local libraries.
Also had a couple of book signings earlier in December, one of them at my local Barnes & Noble. My previous ones have been at my local art co-op from some very supportive friends, but the one at B&N was the first one in an actual bookstore. Lemme tell you, it was a bit different. At the art co-op, people want to talk to you and understand your creative journey. At a bookstore, people see the poster, come over, pick up a book to look at the cover, turn it over to read the back, and walk off. You have to call out to them to see if they want you to sign it.
I had the fortune of sitting with three other authors at this signing and we had a chat about the woes of self-publicity. You can see them here:
I got to meet…
Sieglinde Othmer with her self-help book, Joyous Longevity (https://www.amazon.com/Joyous-Longevity-Z-Field-Guide/dp/1737602806)
D. H. Morris with her historical fiction, The Girl of Many Crowns (https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Many-Crowns-runaway-powerful/dp/B0DDB7CV86)
and Alexis Beck with her children’s book, EbeSNEEZEr Scrooge: The Untold Story (https://www.amazon.com/EbeSNEEZEr-Scrooge-Untold-Alexis-Beck/dp/1960157205)
And now, to the business portion. I’m going to talk about these topics:
The math of the book signing
Math, in general, and decision re-evaluation
Year in Review
Outlook for 2025, to include-
-Status of book 2
-Status of book 3
-The podcast
-And other projects
The Book Signing
Between two book signings that day (December 7th), I sold a total of seven books, four at the B&N and three at my local art co-op. The art co-op gives me a very economical deal. She takes $2 and I keep the rest (the remaining $14.99). My cost for printing is $7.30 per copy at this page count. When I ordered these copies (200 of them), I paid $221 for shipping for those two hundred, so that brings it to about $1.11 to ship each book in that bulk. So, from selling at the art co-op, I am clearing $6.58.
But, this is an art co-op. Selling at a bookstore is different. If you ask them to carry your book, they will see if they can order it. The Barnes & Noble ordering system is BookMaster. How do you get your book into BookMaster? By having it published through distributors like Ingram Spark, Small Press United (who have still not replied to my questions), Amazon Expanded Distribution, etc. The staff at Barnes & Noble were kind enough to give me a list of distributors and contact information.
But this comes back to the problem I mentioned in a previous newsletter, my book is not sized and priced for mass distribution.
And so, I thought, maybe I can sell on consignment. It would be up to me to market my book to local bookstores, and warehouse some books here. B&N has a standard setup (or at least this branch does) for selling on consignment. 40% of the total cover price. I sold 4 books there for a total of $67.96. I walk away with $27.18 of that. Sounds good right? But, remember, it’s $7.30 to print each copy and ordering this bulk was another $1.11 per copy for $8.41 per copy. That’s $33.64. So, I actually had a net loss of $6.46 from that signing of those four books (not counting gas to get there and back). Although, I will also point out that the B&N management very kindly opened their coffee bar to us and I enjoyed a cappuccino on their dime.
So, this brings back the discussion of do I have my book at the right price? Let’s compare my situation to the other authors at the signing. Alexis Beck’s children’s book is $11.99 for 38 very well-illustrated pages, but also (because it’s a children’s book) very light on text. That’s about $0.32 per page.
Sieglinde Othmer’s book is 13.99 for 146 pages. That’s just a little over $0.09 per page. I will also add that her ebook is $9.99.
D. H. Morris’ book is $21.99 for 320 pages. That’s just under $0.07 per page. (Her ebook is $2.99)
The Math, in general, and re-evaluating a decision
My current price (and this will be a surprise to me, because I am doing the math as I write this) at $16.99 for 525 pages. That’s a little over $0.03 per page. Ain’t that something. Color me surprised. This is a real-time reaction here, folks, on January 1st, 2025, at 2:01pm, central standard time.
So, there are things I can do: raise the price or reformat for a lower page count. I ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT CUT CONTENT. THERE IS NO FILLER!!
If I just raise the price to be $0.06 per page, that’s going to make it a $34 book. That’s a non-starter. Also, several people have commented to me, including the other authors at the signing, ‘hey, that’s a really solid book! Looks good.’ I have to admit my own vanity in this that I wanted to have a thick book. One of my other friends commented that she’s having trouble reading the text (size 11). So, I can squeeze the text a bit more together (size 15 spacing between the lines) and/or I can choose a 6”x9” dimension instead of the current 5”x8”. And… I can just raise the price a little. I am going to choose the option of least impact for now: raising the price.
Using the Kindle Direct Publishing general guideline of $18.25 minimum asking price, if I want to have a buffer of making ~$2.50 per copy and their 60% rate drops to 40% for expanded distribution, we are looking at a $24.50 book… better than $34.
I will also be looking back into IngramSpark, but here’s the thing. KDP expanded distro does make things easier, but I am losing on that royalty. Will I get a bit more through Ingram? Yes. BUT… to make my book more marketable to retailers (again, IngramSpark is a distributor that offers printing services), I have to be prepared to offer them on wholesale AND I have to be prepared to accept returns. Those returns come out of my previous royalties. So, if a bookstore returns 3 copies, I eat that. I can mitigate that somewhat by choosing whether or not the books are returned and destroyed or returned to me (basically, I can either pay an additional $3 per book for shipping to me and I have another copy to sell locally or not).
(This doesn’t include a couple other small costs, such as the ~$30 for the ISBN (yes, you have to buy those unless you want to be trapped only in the Amazon marketplace), the $25 for the barcode, $700 for the cover art, and $114.90 of beer (to pay Luke (that’s the only form of payment he will accept))).
There are a few other costs. I don’t have the figures on hand, but there is a cost with editing services. The camera and the boundary mic definitely have a cost. Starting with episode 4 of the podcast, I’m going to be incurring cost for video editing services. There’s a subscription fee for Adobe InDesign for formatting the books. These things add up. I would say, without the cost of the podcast, I’m about $3500 in the hole on this endeavor.
2024, Year in review
So. Big year. First year, so it’s the biggest year. We published our ebook in late August and our paperback in late September. We were 2-3 months behind our timeline, having grossly underestimated a variety of tasks that surround the publishing process.
Selling through Amazon, we have sold 45 copies of the ebook and 20 copies of the paperback for a total of 65 copies and $90.85 in royalties. I have donated three copies to local libraries. I have sold an undetermined number of books out of the back of my trunk or to friends around the community. I have also given some to people who were very close to the project.
We started our website in March, along with our Youtube and Tiktok channels, and Facebook page. The Tiktok has 19 videos, 931 followers, and 231 likes.
The Youtube channel has undergone some changes. It started out with the intent of ‘hey, let’s talk about gaming and writing,’ but at the time, I was mainly only writing, so that’s what I talked about. There’s a right way to grow a following on Youtube and I assure you that I was not following it. You’d be surprised about the cost in energy and anxiety for generating content. So, now it is a spot to put our gaming podcast for those that want to watch a bunch of nerds sit around a table and play games for 3-4 hours. Currently, the Youtube channel has 27 subscribers and 21 videos. We aim to have new podcast content every other week, ideally posted on Friday evenings.
The Facebook page isn’t particularly noteworthy, as it’s simply a platform to post the link to this newsletter, which I share on my personal Facebook anyways. Same with LinkedIn but less followers.
We started this website in March and have posted monthly updates at the turn of each month. I just figured out how to do the drop down menu to post book 2.
Outlook for 2025
Status of book 2 (again, preview posted to the site)
Book 2 is on schedule to be published in late February. Content is written. Appendices are written, minus the character index which needs updating. Text editing is underway. Cover art is past the concept draft, but still needs drafting and iteration before we have the final product. For maps, we have maps of the dwarven city of Adyrnaarn, the Sorcerers’ proving grounds near Yvel, the first map of the city of Versingit. We also have one illustration done for the appendix on clergy.
I will need a modified map of the Gershan region. The one in book 1 focuses on the Principality of Yvel, but in order to understand where some of the scenes in book 2 are, we’ll need to zoom out a little bit to see the other princely cities in Gersh, namely, Heath, Clovis, Kotara, and Boaz. We’re also going to need more maps of Versingit, probably three of them for the reader to understand the flow and maneuver of forces throughout the battle.
We have two illustrations in the works right now. One of Kolus’ family gathering for dinner. The other one is the draft that I showed you above, the scene along Avart Avenue in Versingit. Need one other drawing of Ratfolk and Gnolls. Also have to sift through any possible copyright issues about gnolls. Also need to format it.
Status of book 3
Running title is Winter Fever (winter fever is the antiquated name for pneumonia; this has implication for books 3 and 4).
Book 3 is 85-90% of the content written (reference earlier newsletters where I said that I, basically, wrote books 1-4 before realizing that I couldn’t publish like that). I have a bit more content to write for books 3 and 4. Again, THERE IS NO FILLER. There are parts of the story that are untold. Some are left to implication, but I do my best to deliver a product of about 115000 words (+appendices) of actual content.
The cover art is not started, nor are any of the illustrations. Some maps from previous books will be reused (like the continental map or one of our many scenes in Yvel or Serna (though Serna changes the quite a bit)). Some maps are actually already done, but I haven’t surveyed the content to see which maps are needed versus which ones are on hand.
The Podcast
We started as a group of not very serious tabletop gamers six years ago. We’re still the same people, but we decided that we wanted to share some of our antics with the interwebs. We started recording in July (I think) and recorded every game session for our current main game: The Ashes of War, using a modified version of the Burning Wheel game system, set in this same setting as the Witches of Serna, but in the timeframe of around book 5.
Other Projects
For the time being, this is mainly referring to home renovation. In the next week or two, I will begin remodeling and refurnishing another room of this house, along with finishing the downstairs room. This is a time of great change.
In the longer run, once I get done with book 4, I really need to work on drawing more. Some of it will improve through doing the illustrations for books 2-4, but my skills really are rudimentary and it takes me a long time to produce. There are a few other creative projects on my mind. This series will take a long time to finish, but I do have another one on my mind, mainly set on Mars. Mars has always had a romantic kind of feel to me. Perhaps dating back to the first time that I saw (the original) total recall… or probably before then, going back to a very obscure cartoon, Exosquad, if anyone remembers that from the early 90s.
That and I’d like to learn an instrument someday. Time and energy, you know?
It’s been a long newsletter this month. Take care folks.
