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Nothing Lasts Forever & Nocturnal Surrender in Print

That’s right, the first two books in The Nocturnal Surrender Series are available in trade paperback. For now, you can buy your copies at the Createspace store, but they will soon be available on Amazon, too. Remember, these are a novelette and novella so they are slim books, but it will be so nice to have the books in your hands. Click on the covers for the Createspace buy links.

TNSS: Book 1

TNSS: Book 1

TNSS: Book 2

TNSS: Book 2

 

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Should You Self-Publish

Although it was probably clear from my post about publishing my first book, I’ll put it out there just to make sure there’s no confusion. I am self-publishing. Going indie, if you will. 

I chose to take this route a while back and never even considered submitting to publishers. It wasn’t because I thought my writing wouldn’t be good enough, but rather I didn’t want to bang my head against a wall for years waiting for someone to deem me worthy so they could take the majority of my profits. 

Granted, many will argue that my books would sell better with the backing of a publisher since they would be able to reach a greater audience. I’m not disputing that. But I’m happy with the path I chose—maybe partly because I’m a bit of a control freak and couldn’t stomach the thought of someone else being in charge of my cover, approving my title, and possibly wanting to change things in the stories that I don’t want to change. 

That said, my editor is wonderful and will tell me when something doesn’t work or make sense, or just plain sucks. And I will listen—usually. Why wouldn’t I when she’s only trying make my books better? Kind of a no-brainer. And let me tell you, I found an amazing editor, Holly D. Atkinson, but I’ll talk about her—and editors in general—in another post. 

(Hey, speak of the devil. As I was writing this, she emailed me with a link to this awesome post about editors. You have to check it out.) Now back to what I was trying to say before I was interrupted. Love you, Holly. 😉 

Sure, it may take longer to build a readership going it alone, but I really believe it will be worth it in the end. And in truth, I’m not in this alone. I have a great network of support from my editor, other authors, readers, online friends, and the people in my life. 

Self-publishing is definitely not for everyone. If you only want to write and not be bothered with all the other things—or don’t feel you have or want to learn the necessary skills to do those things—then traditional publishing is probably best for you. But make no mistake, you will still have to network and do much—if not all—of your own promotion. Sucks, I know. 

What other things am I talking about? Either hiring people or doing the following yourself: 

  •       EDITING, EDITING, EDITING—can you tell this is extremely important and better left to the professionals if you can afford it?
  •       Cover design—remember, people do judge a book by its cover.
  •       Book formatting—oh, and they also judge it by its formatting.
  •       Website design—yes, this is a necessity nowadays, especially if you self-publish since most of your sales will be from eBooks so therefore everything is internet based. Although, you’d have this one even if you published traditionally. 

I’m sure I probably forgot something, but if I did, feel free to point it out and I’ll add it.

If you don’t feel up to the task of being your own little business, this isn’t the path for you. But if you’re like me and enjoy doing it all, then you may prefer self-publishing. 

The biggest thing to remember is that doing it yourself is a slow process. You need a backlist of books to garner more sales. Obviously, this takes time. This is the biggest reason I decided to start my series with a trilogy of novelettes before I break out the novels. That and the fact those stories lent themselves to that length. 

In traditional publishing there is a big push when your book is first released, then sales tend to drop off until finally your book is no longer on the shelves—unless you’re a big name author. But with self-publishing the greater sales come farther into your career, and hopefully, instead of dropping off significantly, they will have a resurgence with each new release. Because guess what, that virtual shelf on Amazon or whatever site you sell through will always have your eBook in stock. 

So which approach sounds right for you? Is anyone out there toying with the idea of self-publishing? If yes, why? If no, why do you prefer traditional? Anyone else want to share their publishing journey—whether self or traditional?

Let’s have a friendly discussion. Neither way is right or wrong.

 
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Posted by on November 26, 2012 in My Writing, Publishing, Self-Publishing

 

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The Not-So-Simple Process of Publishing my First Book

TNSS: Book 1

After my little motorcycle fiasco, it was time to buckle down and get my first novelette, Nothing Lasts Forever, out there. I’d written it rather slowly, working on it and the other two opening novelettes of The Nocturnal Surrender Series at the same time—something I probably won’t do again. Problem was, each story built on the previous one, so if something new happened in an earlier one that I hadn’t counted on, I then had to go back and change the follow ups. What a mess.

I tend to need to work on several projects at once—even when it’s my art or crocheting. Don’t ask me why. The only thing I can come up with is a short attention span. I think I’ll accomplish this from now on by working on books from different series at the same time rather than more than one in the same series.

Anyway, after I had Nothing Lasts Forever hammered out pretty well, I sent it off to a critique partner and a couple of beta readers. Edits upon edits, fixing things that were unclear or just didn’t work, etc. and it was finally ready for the editor. After three rounds back and forth…still not ready for release.

Why? Because after all the edits, there’s bound to be mistakes, typos, and words left out from the editing process. So, back to one of my betas for a proofread, as well as a printout for me to proofread. Then, once I fixed the errors we found, I converted my file to kindle. Two more read-throughs and I found a few more corrections to make. Finally, I was done and ready to release my baby to the world.

Time it took for the entire editing process: way longer than it took to write it. Honestly, I could write a novelette in a week or two if I only worked on the one project, but that same story would take a minimum of four to six weeks to edit—and even then there will still be problems. We’re only human, and after you’ve read over something so many times, you miss simple little things. But how many people can you really have look over a book? That was five people, and I bet even if there were ten there would still be mistakes.

For anyone new to writing, I don’t want you to think this was the beginning of my writing career. It’s not that simple. You don’t just write a story, edit, and release. This was the culmination of years of work, practice, learning the craft, and working with critique partners. But all that is for another post.

Now, when it came time to release Nothing Lasts Forever, I was excited. I had my converted file and my beautiful cover—which I designed. I headed straight over to Amazon—I’d already set up my account weeks before so I wouldn’t have to worry about it when I was ready to release the book—and I uploaded my files. Then…I sat there, frozen.

Holy hell, was I really about to do this? All of the sudden I was terrified. My hands shook, my pulse raced. I think I might have even held my breath for a few seconds. It probably took at least five minutes before I hit the button to publish, but I finally did it. The fear subsided quickly enough, thank goodness, but then I knew I wasn’t going to do any major promo for a while so not too many people would be reading it yet.

I published that first book of The Nocturnal Surrender Series back in September and I’m just now venturing into the promo arena—again, another post. The second novelette, Nocturnal Surrender, is almost ready for release. The third, Midnight Confessions, is in the editing process now. The first novel of the series, Night Therapy, is about a quarter of the way written.

Pretty easy, write, edit, design, release. Rinse and repeat. Yeah, if only it was that simple. And don’t get me started on how many versions of the covers I went through learning that process—yet another future post. I sometimes wonder how authors put out so many books—even shorter ones—in a year. I think that even if I was a full-time writer I’d never be able to do more than three or four a year. Although, it would be nice to find out some day.

For more information on the book and the series, and for the Amazon link, please visit The Nocturnal Surrender Series website.

Anyone else care to share their experience with their first book release? Any readers or writers have questions about the process I went through?

 

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Trying Something New

I’ve decided to–as the title of this post suggests–try something new. I’ve done the whole blog thing before, but I never truly enjoyed it so I stopped. It was mostly because I had no idea what to blog about. I streamlined everything, got rid of my regular blog, and–until today–only blogged on my official website, and then only about updates on my books. I still intend to do that for people who want those updates, but I think I’m ready to expand into more personal blogging, too. And now I feel like I have something to say since I’ve been at this whole writing thing for a while–and have started publishing my books.

This has been a year of firsts for me, from buying my first motorcylce to publishing my first book. Problem was, the whole motorcycle thing didn’t work out as good as the book thing.

I had no idea how to ride, and was determined to learn, but I really don’t think I’m coordinated enough. I ended up losing my balance, dropping my beautiful bike, and breaking my foot. Needless to say, I’m content being a passenger–for now.

Here’s a picture of my baby. My husband has named her Bitch, but I’m okay with that. He says she’s a rough ride and beats him up so that’s why she got the name.

Bitch: 2006 Yamaha V Star Classic: AKA, My Baby

Bitch: 2006 Yamaha V Star Classic: AKA, My Baby

Even though I missed out on the latter half of the summer due to my broken foot, I’m glad I tried. Yes, trying something new is sometimes scary–and possibly dangerous–but I’d rather not wonder what if when I look back years from now. Instead, I’ll be laughing at myself for lying there on the pavement in pain, asking my husband, “Is the bike okay?”

As for publishing my first book. Like I said, that went much smoother than the whole bike thing, but I think I’ll save that for my next post.

So has anyone else had any firsts this year to share? Anyone else do something crazy like I did with my motorcycle?

And does anyone know if motorcycles are like cars and referred to as female? Or is that just because it’s usually guys saying it? I thought my bike was a male, but maybe not. I mean, it was between my… Never mind.

 
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Posted by on November 15, 2012 in General, Motorcycles

 

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