Tuesday 12 November 2019 (list alert!)

I had a busy week last week removing most of my self-published books – ebooks and paperbacks – from Amazon KDP. I’m setting up a proper publishing schedule and re-releasing them all on Draft2Digital, initially just as ebooks for now. 

I’ve heard so many horror stories about Amazon and how they display their authors’ books (or not) and about them removing reviews. They also want exclusivity, and I don’t like that either.

If I decide to publish hardback books again, I’ll do those through Lulu. I can publish paperbacks via D2D, or I may decide to go back to Amazon KDP and keep the paperbacks with them.

But I’d sooner not use Amazon if I can and will be researching and looking out for additional alternatives over the coming weeks.

D2D have an audio book facility, but again, I’ll research others too before making my decision. I’m sure they’re great, but I do try not to keep all my eggs in the same basket.

If successful, the idea is as follows:

  • try to find traditional publishers for the novels and writers’ guides before continuing on the self-publishing route
  • self-publish all of the short story anthologies as ebooks first (and any novels or writers’ guides not picked up by a traditional publisher)
  • release paperbacks of all of the short story anthologies (**ditto**)
  • release audio books of all of the short story anthologies (**ditto**)
  • release a hardback omnibus of all of the short story anthologies (and a single hardback for any individual novel or writers’ guide)

I currently have two full collections of short stories: Twee Tales and Twee Tales Too. I’m collating content for Twee Tales Twee, and the fourth book in the series will be Twee Tales More. All four books will be published as an omnibus with maybe four bonus short stories too.

Obviously, I need to start writing more short stories and, with some semi-good news in the short story market this week, it seems there may be a new market to which I can send them.

I’ll still send the stories out in the hope of hitting the right spot with the remaining markets, but I also value any feedback the fiction editors have time to send and will consider rewriting the stories to suit.

But I’ll hold on to the right to publish them myself again in the future. I won’t sell all rights, unless they pay a very high price for them to make it worth my while. 

At the moment, I’m redesigning the covers using Canva, but the poet is working out similar designs in Adobe’s InDesign. 

The first book out, then, is Twee Tales. You can find the link to the ebook here, and choose your own ebook reader or bookseller. The booksellers list is still being populated, but the page will automatically update.

It means I have more work to do on here. I have to go to my book page, remove the old links and add the new links as they become available.

Yesterday, Monday, the morning was spent doing admin work, including the latest review for NetGalley. I did a quick job search, but nothing took my fancy.

The afternoon was spent on the Richard Cadbury book. I also started to read the next book for NetGalley.

All I have to do now is remember to schedule this post for Tuesday morning rather than post it immediately, as I did last week by accident.

 

EDIT: Oh my goodness, I just had a right old ding-dong trying to get all of that text the same colour … Why does everything have to be so difficult these days?

2 thoughts on “Tuesday 12 November 2019 (list alert!)

  1. Hi Diane looks like you’re still pretty busy! Hope you haven’t been too affected by the floods. I don’t know when/if you are thinking of returning to the writers group but just want to let you know in advance that I have my second cataract done next Monday (18th) so won’t be able to drive for 2 weeks although if you are going to be there I might venture on the bus the second week. Ongratulations on having the short story accepted on my weekly by the way. paulinexx

    1. It’s unlikely I’ll be there before December now, and that also depends on the weather. The road I usually take has been closed since Friday and Fishlake is literally up the road from us. I’ll let you know when I’ll be back there. Good luck with the second cataract operation! xx

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