September 2024 Newsletter
Ok! First things first. The ebook version of book 1 is finally out here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DFKSX89F.
This has been a really turbulent August for a lot of folks on the team, but, we now have a formatted version for paperback publishing. I am really hoping to get that out this month. At first, it’ll be available through Amazon (published through Kindle Direct Publishing) and then, hopefully, will get onto book store shelves by publishing through IngramSpark. I’m hoping September or October for the book store shelf thing. Then (when the paperback comes out on Amazon), there shall be a great effort of advertising and marketing: trying to get onto podcasts, get book 1 reviewed, etc. BY THE WAY - if you’ve gotten into book 1, I would greatly appreciate a review, a post to your socials, or telling your friends.
So! Like I said. This August has been really, really turbulent. Times of great change in life. Before August, I had used music to get into the zone, particularly for writing and productivity, or for visualization, which was the spirit in which I shared the song(s) of the month previously. So, it was a surprise to learn from a friend that sharing music with another person can be a deeper way of sharing an emotion instead of simply saying how you’re feeling. So, pursuant to that, I would like to share some songs that express this past month:
Mr. Kill Myself by Sewerslvt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgFaK6ZQifE&list=RDEMWUbu7UjvrEYUSE4m8ATOcw&start_radio=1)
Change by the Deftones, the acoustic version (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KomCgH5D-2o)
Let it Happen by Tame Impala (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFptt7Cargc)
Not So Pretty Now by Nine Inch Nails (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGg4TTbl9sI)
and
Demon Seed (Ghost 38 Extended Mix) by Nine Inch Nails (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8vWsSd3CYo).
But, in the spirit of music to be productive, I offer the hypnotic Paris by M|O|O|N (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlEkr-wxLUA) with a very good mashup by Spewcup with this and Future Club by Perturbator (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KBTTn58iXg).
Before I bore you further with anything else, I’ll give you a peek at this month’s progress. First, we have the finished piece for the dwarves and the gnome. I showed you the work in progress form last month.
This is supposed to depict an approximation of a scene in book 2 where Hrene (female dwarf in the center) and Marchag (far right) are introducing a gnome (tiny person in the hand of unnamed male dwarf on the left). The human is Harl Oleandran and the elf is Irduin. So... for folks that have gotten a bit into book 1, you've met Irduin. If you're about halfway through book 1, you've met Sir Harl. The dwarves will make their appearance in book 2 (hence, this is a book 2 appendix illustration). And speaking of dwarves, we've got our first iteration with our cartographer, Luke Bauer, for the cross-section side-view of the dwarven city of Adyrnaarn.
So, three more things to show you before I give you a peek behind the curtain about the machinations of publishing and book sales. Since we’re on the topic of book 2, here are some more iterations for concepts on the cover art for book 2 with Dale Cordes (https://www.instagram.com/cordesillustration/ and https://www.instagram.com/dale.cordes/).
This is a scene in book 2 where the Blue-Eyed Man is meting out a punishment upon a failed subordinate.
The bureaucracy of the Reformed Church of Orneth comes more into the fore in Book 2, so they get an appendix that explains some of that dynamic. Below is a work in progress for one of the non-militant clergy members (the church knights are technically militant clergy).
Yes, I know it looks like he only has four fingers on his right hand. It's a perspective thing. The pinky finger is hidden behind the other fingers.
And then the last drawing is one from my mother, Sandra Spring. I know the label says Mersik, but after a discussion, we decided that the uncertainty in the facial expression is more like the youthful anxiety of Ys (you meet Ys in book 2).
The ears in particular are very, very nice.
So (I say ‘so’ a lot), as I mentioned above, I’d like to give you a peek behind the whole process.
To publish an ebook on kindle direct publishing, you need your manuscript in a MS word file. That’s. It. You upload it. Boom. I provided my own file for the cover art, thanks to Dale Cordes, but they have a cover art generator, too. You can give it an ISBN, but you don’t have to. IF you do, you are best off buying an ISBN from Bowker. Bowker is sole registrar for ISBNs in the U.S. (ISBN = International Standard Book Number). KDP and other printing/publishing services will offer a free ISBN. It has been strongly recommended to me to provide your own as taking the freely offered one locks you in to their platform exclusively - they own the ISBN, not you - and the ISBN would then be tagged to your content. A 10-pack of ISBNs is $300 on Bowker, so ~$30 per ISBN, and about $25 per barcode. You don’t need the barcode for an ebook.
The paperback is a little more involved. You can use your MS Word manuscript, but I chose to go with formatting with Adobe InDesign. I took a class from Mandi Lynn. It was a paid course, but she has a lot of really helpful content on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/@MandiLynnWrites). The class (3 hours) still left me with some questions but it answered the most important one: can I do this myself (yes). After formatting the MS word file into a PDF through InDesign (which can do some pretty cool stuff), it’s uploaded as a draft in KDP. Once we get the cover art fitted to the template, it’ll go into KDP and we can move forward with getting proof copies and getting the actual, physical books for sale, hopefully by the end of this month.
Now. The price. This was kind of a hard thing. First, I’ll show you the logic/math of the ebook pricing.
You might ask ‘why would anyone pick 35% for the royalty rate?’ that’s for very large content books where the author sets the price over $9.99, up to a maximum of $200. I poked around the KDP author community and rested on an article that advised fantasy novels and debut authors should price their books around $2.99, $3.99, or $4.99. Pricing it too low can lead people to think that you don’t think much about your work, so it’s probably not very good and they’ll skip it. $3.99 is a happy medium. As you can see, I would hypothetically make just under two and a half bucks per ebook sale and we’ve made five sales so far, all on the publishing date of August 29th.
This is a screenshot from the hard copy print costs and royalty calculator (https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/royalty-calculator). The dollar does not do what it used to do. A book like this used to be under $10 when I was reading these in high school. Even in 2014-2018 timeframe, it would’ve been $14.99, maybe. Inflation is what it is, and that brings our 537-page debut to $16.99, where I’ll be making $2.75 per sale with a 60% royalty rate. Everything else covers printing costs. You note the difference between the printing cost and the minimum list price. The printing cost is if I am going to buy books and sell/distribute them myself. Then I would get to keep everything over that, minus taxes… but I’m not a bookstore and don’t want to be a bookstore. The minimum list price covers Amazon’s costs for warehousing and marketing the book in any capacity on its website. There are options for ‘expanded distribution’ on KDP to get into brick-and-mortar bookstores, but IngramSpark (I’m told) has a better set up for that, so we’re going to try it with them.
So, I wanted to give you guys this peek behind the curtain. Self-publishing gives authors better rates per sale, but it’s on you do to your own advertising, marketing, coordinating for cover art, illustrations, maps, editing, formatting, buying the ISBN and barcode, all that.
Times of great change, my friends. Cherish your peace while it is there. See you next month, hopefully with physical copies. Take care.
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