YES! The galley edit for A Division of Souls is finally DONE. Which means all I need to do is do one final reformat and cleanup, upload the new file, and the print version will be available at CreateSpace for all to ogle at and buy.
In the meantime, Things I’ve Learned Via Self-Publishing So Far:
–Preparing the e-book is a hell of a lot easier than the print version. E-book formatting entails fewer fiddly bits. Create and upload cover, create a hyperlinked table of contents, fix any typos and errors, basically do what the Smashwords site suggests. Boom, done.
–Formatting the print version, on the other hand, entails the following: create a wraparound cover, write the back cover summary, delete the table of contents, right justification of the main novel, order a proof copy for galley editing, fix the kerning errors that come from right justification, fix orphan paragraph screwiness, make informed decision about the font and line spacing (Garamond 12 with 1.15 line spacing works just dandy), etc etc etc.
–On the plus side, do the e-book first: that way you’ve already got most of the heavy work done, leaving you with just the reformatting, cover creation and galley editing.
–Selling yourself on various platforms really does boil down to trying to get on that impulse-buy table, and keeping yourself visible. Sales are currently dead for ADoS all around at the moment, but that’s mainly because I’ve been avoiding the sales part of things while working on the galley edit (and the TPoM e-book edit). But when I was briefly featured on NoiseTrade Books, I got a good couple hundred downloads, and that ain’t bad at all.
–I still really don’t like sales, but it’s a necessary evil. It’s gotta be done, so I’ll do it. Even if I hate it.
–The galley edit goes a lot quicker if, y’know, you actually work on it.
–Related, if you’ve got an extremely full plate already and it’s the December holiday season, it’s kind of understandable if it falls by the wayside. As long as you pick it up again.
–I really like the quick turnaround time between creation and release. I mean really like it. It makes the nonconformist rebel in me all giddy. Granted, I need to keep in mind that that’s no excuse for releasing a steaming bowl of crap. We will sell no wine before it’s time, in other words.
–I just seriously aged myself there with that last sentence. I’m turning 45 in a few weeks, so I suppose it can’t be helped.
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