Before you upload your book for print distribution, you need to make sure your print book set up files are checked and double-checked. It takes time, so make sure you carve out a few hours for this task.
The universe continues to give. Yesterday afternoon I received a text from the client I was supposed to meet with last Monday. The meeting was rescheduled for today, but then he just texted me saying something came up and he can’t meet.
I’ve got the morning to be productive. I am typically most productive in the morning. Today I need to finalize my print book set up files, which means I need to go through the book page by page. If there’s a hanging widow at the end of a chapter, I need to fix that. It’s pretty unpresentable and one of those self-publishing mistakes that authors make. I’d like to avoid anything that would identify me as an independent publisher. Widow-hunting reminds me of my time as a TV script coordinator.
I did a bunch of research yesterday. One of the things I looked into is what the hardcover books look like from IngramSpark. As I’ve been prepping for the book launch, I’ve been watching videos and reading blogs and listening to podcasts and absorbing as much information as I can. Regarding the hardcover format, I’ve watched videos of people unboxing their books, as inane as that is. Some of these videos had thousands of views. I assume there are people like me that want to see what these books look like before we go to print. What I noticed was that the two books I watched being unboxed had dust jackets. I am not set up for that. I would like to be, but I’m just seeing dollar signs. I’d have to go to my cover designer and ask him to do that for me. It’s probably worth it. I also want him to do interior illustrations, but that’s a cost as well. Maybe for the second edition. I want to get this out there, and November 1 is the day. I’ve waited long enough.
I started making notes for my next novel, The Swedish Fish. I’ve considered making it a series because that’s what seems to be the evergreen way to go in terms of sales, but I don’t think I want to keep telling stories with the little girls in that story. I want to write a quality middle grade book about two girls dealing with their parents’ separation and divorce, and I am not interested in bastardizing the idea so I can sell more books. When I write a series, I want to approach it as a series so I can be excited to write multiple stories with the characters. I don’t know what that’s going to be, but it’ll come to me. Naughty Week could potentially be a series, but I’ll have to think about it more.
