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deer of the dawn
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Post by deer of the dawn »

aliantha wrote:Yeah, the environmental angle for e-books is kinda shaky, for precisely the reasons you name. And yet I do think that's where the publishing industry is headed. I think the publishing industry and the bookstores shot themselves in the foot by jacking up the prices on hardcovers while focusing solely on blockbuster books -- fiction by well-known authors and celebrity bios, that kind of thing. And it's obvious they were blindsided by the rise of self-publishing. It used to be that you had to sink tons of your own money into a contract with a vanity press in order to get your work before the public -- and even then, you probably only sold a few copies to your friends and family. Now, if you get a friend to help you with the cover art, you can publish your work on Amazon for free. It's a whole different ballgame. :)

And that's aside from the technology angle.

It'll be interesting to see where the industry is in 10 or 15 years. I think a lot of agents, in particular, will be looking for other work. Unless they can figure out how to make a living by inserting themselves between authors and publishers like Amazon.
Aliantha, I hope you're right about that-- the "star-system" (i.e., focusing the industry on a few safe money-makers) has maintained a death grip on music, film, books, and all for a lot of years, though. I know writers dearly hope that the POD and SP angle will help us get our books out there, but I know that breakouts are few.

And yes, I guess that paper books for the most part do not end up recycled. Shame on the big boxes for that!!
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Post by aliantha »

DotD, I hope I'm right too. ;) And thanks (belatedly) for the info on Smashwords/CreateSpace. I think I'm gonna go with CreateSpace for this book's dead-tree version too. I looked at Lulu briefly and their cover requirements started getting too technical for my poor Luddite brain.... Magickmaker and I spent some quality mother-daughter time Saturday night, mocking up the cover in PhotoShop (which she knows how to use and I don't -- this is why people have children! :lol:) to CreateSpace's specs. We'll see how it goes.
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Post by aliantha »

One more: the Kindle version is live. 8)
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Post by deer of the dawn »

Smashwords has a Kindle option, btw. :)

For my cover I used Paint.NET, a free program that is simpler than Photoshop (and free!), but WAY cooler than Microsoft Paint.
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Post by aliantha »

I knew that Smashwords converts to the Kindle format -- but when I mentioned that to my friends, they still wanted to know when it would be in the Kindle Store. :roll: A lot of folks seem to be locked into the ease of getting their books straight from Amazon.
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Post by aliantha »

Okay, one last bit of shameless self-promotion and I'm done: the dead-tree version of SwanSong is now available.

Thanks for your attention. We now return you to your regularly scheduled forum.
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Post by lorin »

That cover is fabulous!!!
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Post by aliantha »

Thanks! A friend who's a graphic artist found it on a stock photo site. It's unbelievable how well the image fit with the book. :)
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Post by aliantha »

And again with the self-promotion...

Seized, the first in the Pipe Woman Chronicles series, is available at Amazon for the Kindle. 8) I'll warn you upfront that it's an urban fantasy, but it's not as chick-lit-y as a lot of them (she said definitively).

Anyhow, if you're interested, it's here: www.amazon.com/Seized-Pipe-Woman-Chroni ... B007MGRCBU
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Post by MsMary »

I'm almost done reading Swansong. Very enjoyable story.

But I wish I'd gotten the Kindle version. The epub version is kind of wonky on my iPad.
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Post by aliantha »

Thanks! And sorry for the technical issues. :( That's probably the fault of the Smashwords conversion program.

Seized is transitioning out of KDP Select next weekend -- which means nothing to anybody here :lol: except that I'll be uploading it to Smashwords then. Which means it'll be available in epub format (and a ton of others) shortly thereafter. 8) It'll be a week or two after that before it filters down to iBooks and such. I intend to publish it separately on B&N, if I can figure out how to navigate PubIt. So many new skill sets to acquire... :?

I spent part of yesterday making a book trailer for Seized. It's not ready to go live yet -- I need to get a couple more photos from someone -- but I'm hoping it'll be done to coincide with the Smashwords release.
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Post by aliantha »

Crap! I have been remiss! I think those Watchers who care already know ;) , but anyway:

Fissured: Book Two of the Pipe Woman Chronicles has been out for the past several months.

And Tapped: Book Three of the Pipe Woman Chronicles went live at Amazon yesterday, and at Smashwords and B&N today.

There's also a two-chapter-long sneak preview of the fourth book, Gravid, available at Smashwords. But I recommend reading the previous books in the series first, especially if you hate spoilers. The full book will be out sometime this spring.

And there will be a fifth book out in late spring/early summer, if all goes well. :)
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Post by Linna Heartbooger »

I am have been intrigued ever since you started the "Greed" thread and said you were poking around the ideas about that subject because of a NanoWrimo project.

Whoa, FOUR... with such intriguing if slightly intimidating titles.
Congrats, ali!
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Post by Savor Dam »

...and a fifth one in the works? Oh my!

Why did I think there were only four (other than my understanding of the First Nations mythos cycle consisting of four parts)?
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Post by aliantha »

Probably because I dithered for quite awhile over whether I'd have enough plot for five. ;) But yeah, it'll be a...um...quintrilogy? I think I just made that word up.... ;)
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Post by Menolly »

aliantha wrote:Probably because I dithered for quite awhile over whether I'd have enough plot for five. ;) But yeah, it'll be a...um...quintrilogy? I think I just made that word up.... ;)
...and then some!
Land, Sea, Sky: Where Were you When? A Short Story wrote:At seventeen, Tess Showalter doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life – only that she wants to be far, far away from her family’s failed farm. Then Jesus speaks to the world from Denver, Colorado, and her path, courtesy of the Irish goddess of war, becomes clear.

This is the first of three prologue stories to the “Land, Sea, Sky” trilogy, set ten years after the end of the Pipe Woman Chronicles. Together, Jehovah and the pagan gods are taking charge, but They have recruited a few good humans to help with the cleanup.
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Post by Savor Dam »

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Post by rdhopeca »

aliantha wrote:Thanks! And sorry for the technical issues. :( That's probably the fault of the Smashwords conversion program.

Seized is transitioning out of KDP Select next weekend -- which means nothing to anybody here :lol: except that I'll be uploading it to Smashwords then. Which means it'll be available in epub format (and a ton of others) shortly thereafter. 8) It'll be a week or two after that before it filters down to iBooks and such. I intend to publish it separately on B&N, if I can figure out how to navigate PubIt. So many new skill sets to acquire... :?

I spent part of yesterday making a book trailer for Seized. It's not ready to go live yet -- I need to get a couple more photos from someone -- but I'm hoping it'll be done to coincide with the Smashwords release.
I need to put my reviews of the other books...I finished them so fast I thought if I put the reviews up no one would believe me.... :D
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