10, 9, 8, 7...
We're getting ready to launch. Re-launch, that is. My intrepid Ninja Webmaster is designing a brand new website and new book covers for the re-launch of 2 of my books plus several absolutely, never-seen-before new ones, including two sequels in my Fat Girls trilogy. Currently we are tweaking images and such - plus lots of technical stuff
I don't know anything about. We'll go to Amazon and other e-tailers
online first but will hopefully have the books available for print as
well.
6, 5, 4...
And why am I doing this? Well, first of all, I always felt like my novels, LOVE, MEG and ALL ABOUT VEE weren't given the opportunity to reach a wide audience. Part of that was due to the very small marketing budget those books had- not my fault, not the books' faults, not the editor's or agent's fault. It's just the way traditional publishing works: only a select few books get the money spent on them. They are usually the ones whose authors received large advances so the publishers need to spend even more money on them to recoup that original outlay. Those books are the ones which are expected to rake in the big bucks.
Then there are "small" books like mine - "quiet" books that don't have big high-concept hooks - that don't receive big advances, big marketing budgets and are expected to do nothing. Publishers throw these books into the mix and let them flounder on their own. If they make any money, hurrah! If not, they go out-of-print. Well, how many do you think fall into the former category? Not many is right. Mine fell into the latter and they went OOP and now, I have the rights back.
Another reason why I'm putting my e-books out online is that the market has changed an awful lot since I first got published. The books I wrote after MEG and VEE were also "quiet" without high concept hooks and since MEG and VEE did not flourish, no one wanted these. I disagree - I think readers want them. I think people are hungry for good stories, regardless of whether they have a hook or not. As a reader myself, I enjoy good characters and solid stories that entertain me. I have a Kindle and I want to load it up with books. I think there are a lot of people out there like me. And my books are for them.
Sure, I'm also writing books that do have "concepts" that I hope traditional publishing will want to put out but if not, I am creating an avenue directly to readers and I'll get them out there one way or another.
3, 2, 1...
