Since my time travel books are my first experiment in self-publishing, I decided to use this blog as a diary of the process, sharing with you the ups and downs of the entire experience.
Let's see ... to start:
I found someone to do the formatting of my books for me. Lori Devoti has agreed to format my books for Kindle, Sony, and Nook for a very reasonable price. The books need to be converted from Word format to various e-formats (.epub, .prc, etc.) And it's not a real straightforward process. The book has to be run through a filter then it has to be cleaned up. Lori has agreed to give the books a try for a low price. If it turns out to be too time-consuming, we'll re-negotiate a price.
I can't have the books formatted until I get a cover for the books. I can't use the covers I originally had. Those are owned by the publisher. So I had to find a cover artist. Luckily, I love the covers from my Wild Rose cover artist. A few Google-searches later, and I found her. I sent her a file of my ideas, and she's drafting a cover for me.
Once I get the cover, I can send everything to Lori for creation of e-book formats. Once I get the formats, I can upload the books to Smashwords and Kindle -- I hope. Stay tuned for that process.
I also want the books available for print. To do that, I'll need a different cover artist to create the book jacket, spine, and back cover. She'll take the original art work and do that. I have the name of someone. Haven't contacted them.Yet.
Costs? I'll let you know. I don't have the bills yet. I'm anticipating about $300-$500 per book. I plan to price the first book quite low (.99 or thereabouts).With the 70% royalty rate, I need to sell about 700 copies of the book to break even.
We'll see. I'm not skeptical, but I'm wary. That's one thing I've learned in publishing: be wary.
I'll report back as The Event unfolds.
