MY PUBLISHING JOURNEY – PROOF IN THE PUDDING

It’s been a very productive week with releasing the new novellas and you can check out what I’ve been up to below.

Capital Action RELEASE

After completing the formatting of the ebook edition of CAPITAL ACTION I decided there was no need for any delay on release, so it’s now out there. Here’s list of the tasks I completed in case they are of help as a checklist to you.

  • Ebook formatting in Word, converting to ePub and Mobi formats using Calibre.
  • Setup a mailing campaign to give away the book to my mailing list and sent this out. I also gave them one last chance to download OPERATION DAWN WOLF for free before I changed the price. This included changes the graphics.
  • Updated the automated email to users when they sign up to the mailing list to give new subscribers the book.
  • Updated the sign up pages to reflect the new offering.
  • Updated the website front page to show the giveaway of the novella.
  • Published CAPITAL ACTION on KDP @ £0.99/$0.99.
  • Created BookLinker universal link for Amazon. mybook.to/CapitalAction
  • Published CAPITAL ACTION to kobo and Google Play.
  • Created Goodreads entry for CAPITAL ACTION.
  • Created a simple Facebook ad and boosted the post to the people who like my author page.
  • Removed OPERATION DAWN WOLF from wide (and free) distribution.
  • Updated OPERATION DAWN WOLF pricing to £2.99 and requested Amazon remove the price matching, which they did within a couple of hours.
  • Created new business cards, one side promoting CAPITAL ACTION and the other side BEGINNING OF THE END. These are for giving to people at in person events and with mail-outs.
  • Sent the CAPITAL ACTION manuscript to the Carrie Harris series narrator and I’m waiting to hear back about a date for production.

I’ve now also received my proof copies in booklet and paperback format. I have to say I’m over the moon with how the booklets have come out. Despite going for the lowest cost options, they’re such good quality and thick paper too. I actually prefer them to the KDP paperback and they’re about an 1/8th of the price. With the full print run they’re going to cost around 60p per copy, and even cheaper than that because I had a special offer code too. It’s going to cost me around £2.10 to sell on my website including postage so that’s a lot of flexibility for pricing, even more on in person events.

After another read through and picking up a few proofing issues, I’ve now ordered the full print run of 250 units. Let’s hope I get to do events or I’m going to have to find a lot of storage space!

Here are photos of the booklet and the design of the cards.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Apart from CAPITAL ACTION I’ve been working on the following.

BEGINNING OF THE END – Over the weekend I’ve completed the suggestions made by the copy editor and then it went out for proofread. It came back yesterday and with very few issues picked up. I formatted it for the booklet yesterday, creating the back cover and then sent it off to the printers for a run of 5. I’ll then repeat the process I carried out for CAPITAL ACTION.

AFTER THE END AUDIOBOOK – This is progressing well with Logan’s chapters now coming in thick and fast. I’m reviewing at a steady pace.

FROM THE DEAD – There has barely been any work on this, and the same will probably be true for next week as well.

NEW PA BOOK – Some progress here. The MS now stands at just under 25,000 words (27% to target) and I’ve continued to clarify the story in my head and in the plan.

I’ve not been able to do any promo for LESSON LEARNED on audio yet, but I’ll hopefully get to it soon.

FINDAWAY VOICES

Following research into Findaway Voices I found out they if you use one of their narrators and they use the production services, they charge an additional 30% on top of the narrator’s fee. This is one significant difference to ACX. After speaking with my narrator for CAPITAL ACTION, she has said she doesn’t need to use the service. Instead she will provide the finished files to me and then I upload them to FV.

I need to look in more detail for BEGINNING OF THE END as I don’t won’t to be paying over the odds for the narration.

MARKETING FOR NOVELLAS

As I mentioned last week I’ve put together some adverts ready for the new campaign. As with any new campaign I will be starting with a series of tests. This will test the image ad, the text and the audience. Here’s the imagery I’ve come up with so far.

Beginning of the End

Capital Action

That’s about it for me today. Comments and suggestions welcomed as always.

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