Some Thoughts on Pre-Orders and Templates

My next book, Seasons' Beginnings, will be published as an e-book next week on 10/21. (Hopefully I can approve the print version this week.) Every time I put a new book out, I like to try something different to see what works for this book. Plus, the field of self-publishing is constantly changing, so there's always something new to try. This time around, there were two new developments I didn't have when Twinned Universes came out: Amazon pre-orders and two-way templates.

When Amazon annouced indies could do pre-orders this summer, it was the perfect timing for Seasons' Beginnings. I had just finished my own revisions and was ready for my beta readers. So I estimated how long I would need to get feedback from my beta readers, make revisions, update the front and back matter, proofread, and do everything else I needed to do before publishing the book. I gave myself over two months, and I needed the full time. Amazon started sending me warning e-mails about a week before the deadline (ten days before publication date), and I didn't get the final version ready until last Thursday, the day before it was due. (I even found a few things to change after that, but apparently you can upload new final versions of the book during the ten-day waiting period without any problems.) It was a bit stressful, but having the due date forced me to focus on this job instead of another project. The Amazon page for the book went live as soon as I scheduled the pre-order, so that gave me a couple of extra months to link to and promote the book. And now that all the hard work is done, I can focus on marketing and planning a book tour. I didn't expect a lot of pre-orders for a new book in a new series by an obscure authors, but I have received a few. It's a very gratifying and humbling feeling; I hope the readers find my book worth it.

Something that helped me stay on schedule was using a two-way template for the eBook and the paper book. I bought it from Book Designer Templates; this is the specific template I chose. You can buy either a single-use license or a multiple-book license; I bought a multiple-book license so the entire series will have a consistent look. It was fairly easy to use; all I had to do was copy-and-paste my book into the template and insert section breaks as appropriate. I did have a few issues with the section breaks, but I think that was because I chose the wrong type of break. Front matter comes pre-formatted; I had to add my own back matter. The template takes care of hyphenation. I normally don't use chapter titles, but I did with this template since they were built-in. (They were handy later on for the Table of Contents.) While I still had some issues with formatting the print book (which is always the hardest, most time-consuming part of publishing for me), the problems were restricted to things such as section breaks and the Table of Contents. I didn't have to worry about the headers, which were always a pain for me. I would definitely recommend these templates for any author who wants to publish from Word.

Do you have any questions about pre-orders or templates? Please let me know in the comment section.

Indies and Pre-Orders

Last week, Amazon gave indie authors the ability to make their books available for pre-order. (Smashwords already offered authors this feature.) The final version has to be uploaded ten days before the release date; if it's not, the author loses the pre-order feature for a year. I'm not certain yet if pre-order sales are counted as they accrue or on the release day. If the latter, then the spike in sales can give the book a boost up the charts and increase its visibility. Admittedly, not all books may generate pre-orders, especially for new authors or series without an established fan base willing to buy them sight unseen. (Even if you don't get a lot of pre-orders, it may be helpful to have a buy link ready when setting up marketing. At the very least, pre-orders impose a schedule for getting the book out.)

I'm not sure yet how useful this feature will be, but I can't resist experimenting with it. I've therefore made my next book, Seasons' Beginnings, Book One of the Season Avatars series, available for pre-order. It's a fantasy novel, and it'll release October 21, 2014. (It's mostly done, but I'm waiting for feedback from my beta readers before I do the final proofreading.) I already posted the link on my blog, but I'm shameless enough to do it here too, along with the cover and blurb:

Kron Evenhanded is an artificer, able to enchant any man-made object, but he finds people more difficult to work with. When he visits the city of Vistichia, he encounters Sal-thaath, an extremely magical but dangerous child created by Salth, another magician Kron knew at the Magic Institute. Kron attempts to civilize Sal-thaath, but when his efforts lead to tragedy, Kron is forced to ally himself with a quartet of new deities and their human Avatars. Together they must defend Vistichia as Salth attempts to drain its life and magic. But Salth has Ascended halfway to godhood over Time. Will Kron’s artifacts be enough to protect the Avatars, especially the woman he loves, or will Time separate them?

 What do you think about pre-orders? Readers, do you pre-order books, or will you wait for them to become available? Authors, would you use this feature, or do you prefer publishing as soon as the book is ready?