Publishing Mystery

The Half Elven Orphan is the first book I’ve published and I’ve done it independently, so everything is a new experience. First off, it looks like I’ve actually sold some books. Not enough to buy more than a junk food lunch, but it’s not zero. My primary channel is Ingram Spark and they have a dashboard where you can see where sales have been made. To my great surprise, the first four print books that have showed up there have been sold in Germany. I mean, I do know people in Germany, but them buying more than one or two books when I’ve already told them I will give them copies for free doesn’t make sense. It stands to reason, then, that these must be other Germans. Which is very odd. My website has almost no traffic from Germany that I can’t match to people I know.

Beyond that, I know that there must be some e-book sales too, as the book has a sales rank on some e-book only sites, but they haven’t showed up yet. So, thanks (or Dankeschön) everyone who has bought one. For e-book buyers, there will be another sale over on itch.io starting the 17th of December. I still highly recommend itch if you want the e-book. No DRM, it comes with a pdf with a a Table of Contents and Glossary and files for the artwork and map. Oh, and they give the author a far large proportion of the proceeds.

Paperbacks Everywhere

Just a small update to the previous post. Paperbacks seem to be orderable off all Amazons, Barnes and Noble and presumably other places. Waterstones does not appear to have added it to their catalogue unfortunately. I’m not sure what I would need to do to achieve that. In any event, many of the sellers on the Where to buy page now offer the paperback. I’m not wild about delivery terms, but hopefully (ebook) sales makes them take a few in stock.

Paperback Version Available!

The paperback version of The Half Elven Orphan is available now. At the moment, it only seems to be orderable from Amazon.com. Hopefully other local Amazons will make it available soon, though I assume number of sales will have something to do with that. In any case, it should also be possible to order it at any regular bookshop. To do so, you need the ISBN number which is 9789083478302.

I haven’t put together a hardback edition, but it wouldn’t be a huge amount of work to do so. If anyone can’t live without a hardback, drop me a line and I’ll make the effort. I did check what it would cost and a proper hardback edition with a substantially larger font size would end up costing something like thirty-five euro’s though amazon and equivalent. I may be able to keep the price more reasonable if I only do direct sales. For now, I’ll wait to see if there’s any demand for one.

Ebook Released Today!

The Half Elven Orphan became available today on all the big sites. I’m attempting to list the places where it’s available on the Where to buy page. It’s also on Goodreads now. Obviously, I’m in dire need of reviews, so if you’re a reviewer and would like a review copy, please let me know.

Where to from here?
Next up, I’ll be polishing Dropship Down book one of the Clausewitz Series. I’ve been going through it a bit the last few days and honestly it doesn’t need all that much work. It’s about 160k words and I doubt much will be changed. The time for another long stretch of editing. Never say never, but I might manage to get this out in a few months.

After that, I’ll be focussing on The Value of Nobility, book two of the Alagariel Series. How fast I try to get that out honestly depends a little on whether The Half Elven Orphan generates any interest at all. It is going to have some major work done to it before it’s up to the same standard as Alagariel I.

It’s hard to see the future beyond that, but of the 10-15 books I have in a state that look a little like completeness, I’d like to publish one every six months or so. Time will tell if that can be achieved.

“It has been well said that an author who expects results from a first novel is in a position similar to that of a man who drops a rose petal down the Grand Canyon of Arizona and listens for the echo.”

P.G. Wodehouse, Cocktail Time

Available November 15th (Amazon)

The amazon page is now up. The print-on-demand version will be a few more days I expect as there was a problem with the cover and they’re very busy at Ingram Spark.

Anyway, it’s beginning to look like I may have published a book…

It’s a little poetic that this coincides with the release of Episode 59 of the version of The Half Elven Orphan that’s on the site here (20k words shorter than what’s on Amazon).

A interesting tidbit: Episode 59 actually became Episode 1 of The Value of Nobility (Tales of Vatan: Alagariel Book Two). It’s not in the longer book that’ll become available at all the e-book stores over the next few days.

The Half Elven Orphan itch.io release!

I just released The Half Elven Orphan on itch.io.

You can find it here.

I decided to go with itch.io first for a number of reasons. First off, it allows me to give epub readers a pdf version with the cover art and a map. Second, I can update things in future and buyers can easily re-download. Third, they pay authors far better, which for now, means more (human) artwork and real editors in future.

For those of you who want a print version or want it in their customary library, the big sites will follow soon(tm). It’s much harder to update things there, so I’m being rather more meticulous about the whole thing.

The cover of The Half Elven Orphan, with the protagonist, a femal half-elf, crossing a river at night mounted on a black horse.