Look at Me on My Knees
Being an independent author and small publisher is a daunting prospect in this day and age. The internet has made it ridiculously easy for every frustrated writer to self-publish, either digitally or by using print on demand services. There are thousands of us. Maybe hundreds of thousands, with new names popping up every day. Each and every one of us faces the same difficulties in finding an audience/building a readership that will justify all of this time we spend writing to our families, friends and selves. I’m pretty open about what goes on

Goals, Pricing & Expenses in Self-Publishing
New to self-publishing? Here’s something to look forward to! This is part of the process I go through when I have a title that’s got a hefty enough word count to justify offering it as a print version in addition to the ebook. For my ebooks, I have a set pricing schedule based on word count, and I only count the words that actually tell the story itself, not chapter headings, copyright info, etc. stuff. Arcane Solutions is my example here, since I know the final word count after finishing it and the editing process will fall within the 50-70k range. Knowing that, I know the ebook price will be $5.75. The print version is a bit more difficult to det

It’s Time to Wake Up
More knowledgeable minds than my own may have already thought about this, but I’ve yet to see it mentioned as I’m about to do. I personally think this is what’s happening, but recent dissatisfaction may be coloring my perception of matters. The normal split between distributor/publisher or distributor/independent author appears to be 50/50. Any small press or independent is aware the standard split at Amazon is 35/65, with them receiving the lion’s share from each sale. We also know that Amazon determines when our titles are placed on sale and for what percentage off, and that it doesn’t affect our 35% because Amazon eats the loss. Exampl

NaNoWriMo Done & Other Stuff
I did hit over the 50k mark around 5pm yesterday. So, goal reached! Arcane Solutions isn’t finished, but there was some timeline problems going on that were preventing getting parts of it written, so I began working on edits last night. It’s actually okay up to Chapter 10. Now that I’ve taken care of some organizational stuff, I’ll be spending the rest of the day editing, writing missing scenes and chapters for it. I’m thinking another 10-20k before it’s actually finished. Feral Intensity is just 23 sales away from hitting the 100 copies sold goal. Yay! Another 149 sales is needed to reach my 500 copies sol

Getting Slapped with a Realization
In the course of writing Arcane Solutions this month, I found myself facing a dilemma: the book’s characters have series potential. The story arc for a series was so subtle that I didn’t realize just what it was that kept setting off the ’series potential’ klaxons in my brain. Fortunately, two of the characters took pity on me, revealing it during a phone conversation they were having during yesterday’s writing on ‘fill in the blank’ scenes. Oh, I thought. That’s it! My next thoughts were ‘Nooooo! Not another frickin’ series!‘ Th