And the rest of this week’s updates :-)

All the news that fits, we print! The rest has to go in another post!

This week’s Publishing News:

On August 3, I posted that Google had requested .epub files for books enrolled in Google Editions by August 6.

I made it. ๐Ÿ™‚ All five titles, all converted to .epub and uploaded! It took some finesse, too. I went back to the original InDesign files, made new files just for .epub and adjusted all the formatting for optimum results. They’re not fancy but they look very neat and tidy. Now, if Google would only be as specific about the date when they plan to roll out Google Editions! Enough with the Net Neutrality talks, Google, let’s sell some books!!

In addition to .epub, this week I’ve been doing another conversion that’s been on the back burner for a while. Some time ago, I set up my first novel, Mortal Touch, on CreateSpace for paperback editions sold on Amazon. Publishers can use different printers for the same ISBN and edition, and often do, for various reasons. In this case, I had the Lightning Source edition available to wholesalers and stores, but I made almost three times as much profit on Amazon sales printing those books with CreateSpace.

However, when I first did this, CreateSpace’s sales reports were rudimentary, at best. I wasn’t sure I could get a clear report by individual title, and without that, I couldn’t calculate author royalties. So I held off on setting up the rest of BLUM’s titles with CreateSpace.

Then, Amazon merged CreateSpace with the former Booksurge and changed their approach, much as Smashwords did, to be friendlier to multi-author publishers rather than geared entirely toward individual “self publishing” authors. The reporting system was vastly improved and made far more comprehensive and detailed. But I just hadn’t gotten around to setting up all the rest of the titles. There’s a one-time fee called a “Pro Plan” fee, which is a lot less than Lightning Source’s setup costs, and after that, CreateSpace is so competitively priced, I’m going to crunch numbers and see if it makes sense to print ARCs and even short run orders with them instead of Lulu and Lightning Source, respectively. Also, Amazon pays by direct deposit in 60 days like clockwork. Lightning Source takes 90 days and sends a check.

Anyway, this week I got all the rest of BLUM’s titles set up on CreateSpace, meaning that I and my authors will earn about 2-1/2 times as much royalty on each paperback Amazon sale, and I may be able to improve our profit margin in other sales, too. I’ve just run into one snag…

…remember all the problems I had getting my own second book, The Longer the Fall, into print? How the covers fucked up and I had to redo them and there were all those delays? Well, the jinx is still alive and well. ๐Ÿ™ I’ve had to resubmit the cover PDF for The Longer the Fall to CreateSpace about four times now. I suppose it’s really to CreateSpace’s credit that they’re so particular about checking for you. Neither Lulu nor Lightning Source do that. As long as the basic dimensions are correct, what the art looks like and whether the spine is centered are totally your lookout. CreateSpace checks, and they kept spitting out my cover PDFs saying the spine text was too wide. (They’re being very picky–these are the same covers I used for the Lightning Source and Lulu paperbacks and the spines are fine.) I only needed to re-upload the others once, but I’m having the worst time with The Longer the Fall! First the bleed and trim allowance wasn’t enough (I’m still scratching my head over that one), then the spine text was too wide, and after I fixed it, they said it was still too wide. Meanwhile, I have proofs ordered and on the way for Gideon Redoak, Cat the Vamp and Krymsin Nocturnes!

And speaking of wholesalers…I now know for sure (rather than inferring it from Borders.com) that all my titles are listed with Baker & Taylor. I’m getting purchase orders from them…almost every day. That’s along with all the purchase orders that are starting to come in from Follett. I’ve gotten templates set up for author sales and royalty reports, now I need to create templates for wholesaler invoices and statements. I was doing them manually when it was just Brodart, but those days are over! Whew. (There is a recession going on, right?)

I sold out the first short run of Krymsin Nocturnes hardcovers and ordered a second printing. It was just delivered by my next-door neighbor because Unbelievably Pathetically Stupid left it at the wrong house. For the zillionth time. I think I’m going to order a sign from VistaPrint to post out by my driveway, because this is just so beyond ridiculous. ๐Ÿ™

I had let my Google AdWords campaigns pause while I considered the results of the first one. I decided to try a campaign just for Cat the Vamp, changing the ads and keywords more often. So far, I’m getting click-throughs but I’m unsure about sales. It’s hard to gauge because I can’t monitor sales for most of the ebook editions, and the vendors take months to report. I might try running more title-specific campaigns and see what happens, though.

I’d like to welcome By Light Unseen Media’s newest author, KT Pinto! Her novel Marco will be released in 2011.

Random other updates:

It seems to be a fundamental rule that whenever some unique celestial event is predicted, our skies instantly cloud over. That was the case for the first night of the possible Northern Lights in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. The following night, I took a walk instead of cycling, and I timed it for exactly the period when the “wave” of solar particles was expected to hit the atmosphere and possibly create a display of Northern Lights. I’ve never seen Northern Lights “live.” It wasn’t thickly overcast: stars and a waning crescent Moon were shining. But there was a high thin layer of clouds, forming a haze and diffusing the moonlight. The northern sky did seem lighter than usual, but that could just have been the moonlight and lights from Nashua against the clouds. I can’t say I detected anything that seemed to be out of the ordinary for a summer night. *sigh*

I spent Thursday afternoon watching storms blast by on the weather radar and waiting for a decision on what I have come to call Schrรถdinger’s Band Concert (because we never know if it’s dead or alive until it happens!). Although it did rain, the storms were past and the skies clear by 6:00 p.m. and the penultimate concert of the season went on. The audience was smaller but enthusiastic and the concert went well. It was still very humid and warm which is hard on Dad, but there’s only one more concert to go (and right now, the forecast is for rain ๐Ÿ™ ).

By the way: in all the excitement over the incredibly well-reasoned and meticulous decision by District Judge Vaughn Walker shooting down, point by legal point, every single hollow sophistical hypocritical pseudo-argument and self-justifying rationalization used to “defend” bans on gay marriage…did anyone happen to notice that Elena Kagan was confirmed and sworn in to serve on the Supreme Court? ๐Ÿ™‚

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