the new one

I am fast approaching the release of my fourth book--Gypsy's Quest.  I can hardly believe it. This one is very different from the trilogy and will appeal to a wider audience, I think. Time-travel, Norse myth, post-apocolyptic romance with the inclusion of a magical boat, might best describe it--a mouthful!

I've gone back and forth between Createspace and Lightning Source for publishing platforms and have finally settled on Createspace. The reason? Several. First, I used their service for my first three. Second, their interface is easy as pie. Thirdly, their customer service is stellar.

The only advantage that I can see with going with LS is the ability for customers to return books. I do have my books in several bookstores but so far they are on consignment. And although this is a bit of a hassle it skirts the issue of returns. I may have mentioned in a previous post my communications with Ingram and one of my consignees. He tried to order my books directly from them but could not get the proper discount accorded regularly published books--I told him to order directly from CS but haven't heard whether he did so.

In any case, customer service, professional-looking product and link with Amazon is enough for me.

This time I'm having the book and the kindle version formatted by Rik Hall who does exemplary and fast work for a good price. I also had my cover done by Viola Estrella and I love what she came up with! In the past I had CS do all the formatting and with the first tow they also designed my covers. The process was costly, drawn out, and frustrating and took way too much time! We'll see what happens this time around! I'm hoping to get the book into the marketplace in early February evenb though Mercury will be in retrograde.

I purchased a marketing book by David Gaughran called Let's Get Visible. He talks about three different approaches to launching a book but recommends a slow launch that he refers to as 'spreading the love'. The main gist of this is to not hit markets all at once, to forego announcing the book when it first goes up on Amazon. That way you can download a copy and make sure everything is looking good. Then you hit markets one by one...

I will let you know how all of this goes...fingers crossed!