BLOOD MOON To Be Released In Paperback & ACAPULCO NIGHTS News

Hello, readers!  I know I am usually clogging up my blog with StitchFix reviews, but today I'm actually going to update you on my writing. Exciting stuff!

Let's start off with my young adult book, BLOOD MOON. BLOOD MOON was released as a Kindle-only book in May 2013. I revised it several times and even attempted to sell in e-book format through a distributor in order to get my book on Barnes & Noble, Apple Books and other reseller sites. When I didn't see a lot of activity on other resellers, I went back to Kindle-only in order to be eligible for certain advantages Amazon gives to Kindle-only authors.

I had dreamed of making a print copy available, but all I knew about print was that you typically had to invest a LOT of capital into the process (thousands of dollars). It didn't seem worth it to me, since I never expect a huge audience for my self-published works.

Then, I read a blog the other day that I found on Twitter:

Self-Publishing - It's About Breaking The Rules

It really was just a basic blog post about how self-publishing has shaken up the publishing world by redefining what publishing is...length of book no longer matters, for example. Short stories can be sold one at a time. You can put together a novella of 30,000 words and find an audience (and decent $). Etc.

Anyway, somehow this blog post lead me back to CreateSpace, which is the printing arm of Amazon's self-publishing juggernaut. I wanted to find out what the costs were with printing your books. And I learned something new: you can upload your book for print with ZERO cost (if you can do the work yourself...cover design, document formatting, etc.). The books are printed on demand when ordered. You can even make your printed book available to other retailers through CreateSpace, who supplies your book to distributors.

So after reviewing all of this information, I decided to go ahead and make BLOOD MOON available in print. I have re-formatted the book to fit into a standard trade paperback size and am working right now on creating a full cover (back cover, spine, front cover) in the correct size. BLOOD MOON will be my 'experiment' in print sales. I will give you an update when I find out more about the production process and when my book will be ready for sale!

I am also working on making ACAPULCO NIGHTS available in the Kindle store and in print!  I was only expecting to make this book available through the Kindle store, but now that I have figured out how CreateSpace works, I will also be offering a print version of this book in the fall.

I have already worked on the basic formatting for Kindle, and will be doing another edit to fix what I can before I go to print. This book is in a very different style (first person) than my other books, so the editing becomes a different animal. I am also planning on possibly purchasing a cover for this book, so that I don't have to create both a Kindle and a print version of the cover. It can be time consuming! Although I had a couple of cover ideas, after the survey and listening to friends/family about the two options I provided, I'd like to find an even better cover. I'm not a design master, so it takes me a LONG time to create a decent cover that is of high enough quality for print. We will see!

Wish me luck in the printing experience. I'm learning as I go!