Posts Tagged by status check
A quick self-pub status check
| April 2, 2013 | Posted by annathepiper under Faerie Blood |
By very rough estimations, I sold somewhere between 330 and 364 copies of Faerie Blood‘s Drollerie edition. I have to estimate this because in my first royalty report from Drollerie, I didn’t get individual sales numbers, and some of that report was covered by the Defiance anthology. So based on how my numbers for both titles were broken out later (i.e., it didn’t sell nearly as well as Faerie Blood did), I’m ballparking somewhere between 330 and 364 for Faerie Blood, with the remainder of that 364 going to Defiance. These numbers span a period running from the book’s original release in May of 2009 up through my last Drollerie statement, which covered up through June of 2011.
As of this writing I have sold a total of 211 copies of Faerie Blood‘s Kickstarter edition in just under a year. So while I haven’t actually surpassed the previous number, this 211 has happened in a shorter time frame.
Assuming that some who bought the Drollerie edition grabbed the Kickstarter version as well, I think it’s safe to say at this point that all told I’ve probably sold around 500 copies of the book. BUT! If you actually count my Kickstarter backers as sales, that runs the number up to more squarely compete with the Drollerie number, I think.
It’ll be amusing to see how this trend continues once Valor of the Healer drops!
Bone Walker status update!
| December 27, 2012 | Posted by annathepiper under Bone Walker |
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As I’ve just posted off to my Kickstarter backers, and as I’ve been happily reporting to the social networks through the course of the day, I just finished off the last chapter in Bone Walker that’s from Kendis’ point of view!
This means that now I swing back around to fill in the bits from other characters’ points of view, stuff that will convey to the reader things that Kendis never sees. Step 1 in this is sticking in a new Chapter 15, primarily from Christopher’s point of view but which will probably also feature some Jude. I’m expecting an earlier chapter is going to be from the point of view of Jake.
And the real fun is going to be figuring out where all to put in bits from Elessir’s POV, because oh my yes, he’s going to get some camera time too.
I’ve done the multiple POVs thing before; I did it in the still as of yet unedited Queen of Souls, and all you fine folks are going to be seeing it when Valor of the Healer comes out in April as well. But this is the first time I’ll be doing it in the Warder universe, and I’m really hoping it’ll work okay with this story flow!
Soon, hopefully in the first half of January, my Kickstarter backers are going to get first crack at seeing whether it does. And anybody else who’s willing to beta read for me is going to get a shot too. So if you’re interested in a beta read shot at this book and getting your name into the Acknowledgements in the back, talk to me!
Looking forward to finishing this thing up finally and sharing it with you all! 
Long overdue update
| November 15, 2012 | Posted by annathepiper under Bone Walker, Valor of the Healer |
Most of you who follow me on the various social networks, or who read the posts I make via my personal blog annathepiper.org (whether there or on LJ/Dreamwidth), know this already–but for those of you who don’t, a couple of weeks ago I was briefly, violently ill. I had to spend four days in the hospital, but happily, the problem was relatively easy to deal with. And I’m feeling a lot better now! This did mean though that I was thrown for a pretty massive loop for a couple of weeks, while I dealt with recovering.
The good news though (well, aside from yay! I’m feeling better!) is that Valor of the Healer is officially DONE and has been handed off to my editor. Now comes the waiting for exciting things like cover art! And final blurb copy! And learning about how Carina’s ARC process works!
In related news, I’ve also finally officially signed the Carina contract. You guys, I’m a contracted Carina Press author. I feel all grown up. *happysniff*
Meanwhile! Now that Valor is done, this frees up my brain for returning to Bone Walker. The goal is to try to finish this puppy up by the end of November. I think I have two chapters left, at which point I’ll be putting out a brief call for beta readers before the book is handed off to JoSelle Vanderhooft for formal editing. Those of you who backed my Kickstarter have gotten a longer, more detailed update about this!
Groundwork continues to be laid as well for getting the Bone Walker soundtrack ready. My belovedest Dara, rock star that she is, has thrown together a bunch of practice tracks of the various tunes we’re interested in for the instrumental sets, so that we can start learning how to play them the way she’s envisioning they should sound. It’s going to be exciting, and I’ve got a LOT of tunes I’m going to have to learn how to play really fast. This is what happens when an author is also a musician, you guys!
And, artist Kiri Moth (may her PhotoShop always swiftly load! May her pencils be ever sharp!) has sent me an initial sketch for the soundtrack’s cover art! Check it out!
Bouzouki Cat Says TWANG
So, lots of stuff still going on, and I’m hoping to finish the year strong–and with another finished book to show for it. Hopefully I won’t be flung any more health surprises. Wish me luck, folks!
Kickstarter rewards update
| May 27, 2012 | Posted by annathepiper under Bone Walker, Faerie Blood |
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Today, I spent a great deal of time taking care of various aspects of dealing with Kickstarter rewards to send out to people, so here’s a quick status update on that!
Those of you who supported the project, if you bought in on any reward tier that entitles you to Faerie Blood, you should be getting access to a big ol’ pile of digital versions of the cover art real soon now. Dara’s spinning off a huge assortment of resolutions, to cover not only computers but a variety of mobile devices as well!
Meanwhile, now that we have the confirmed final list of backers, we’re getting all the names into the new edition of Faerie Blood so that Dara can finish up the layout of the print and PDF versions, and I can put together the epub and mobi and any other versions we’re going to spin off.
I will also soon be working on deploying “The Blood of the Land” in digital form to all backers entitled to that, too.
A huge chunk of today went as well to organizing all my backer data and breaking it down by rewards, so that I have a clear list of who all gets what–and specifically, how many print copies I’ll need of both books, how many postcards, and how many posters. I am pleased to report that my original project estimate of about 50 print copies is about right, with some wiggle room for a few extra copies left over. Which will serve as my very first copies I’ll be able to make available to folks who didn’t get in on the Kickstarter in time!
And, I was pleased to be able to send off the first payment for art delivered to Kiri Moth. SO EXCITING. Huge, HUGE thanks go out to all of you out there who’ve made it possible for me to get Kiri to do such gorgeous work!
No actual writing done today–but then, all of this project work needed doing as well, so I consider it a productive day indeed! Tomorrow there will be some Folklife, but there will also be working on Bone Walker!
SURRENDER THE MANUSCRIPT!
| March 22, 2012 | Posted by annathepiper under Bone Walker |
In honor of my first official Actual Writer’s Deadline, I’m cheerfully swiping that battle cry from 
mizkitrachelcaine
Time to get down to Serious Business, people. I have to hand over Bone Walker to JoSelle on April 15th. Which means I have to write like a Crazy Writing Thing until then, because I’m still only about 32K in on this book. It is therefore now Crunch Mode time on the novel.
Which means also that I’m backing off hard on social networks until further notice. This means keeping tabs on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, LJ Friends list posts, or Dreamwidth reading list posts is just going to have to wait. If you need to get in touch with me, DM me on the network of your choice, or else just email me directly, since I will be monitoring my email.
But until you hear from me otherwise, people, I’m going to chugging through the rest of Bone Walker, as well as continuing to work with solarbird
And oh yes, I did just drop 635 words on Chapter 11 of Bone Walker tonight. I mention this not because of that number, but because of what happened in the words in question: i.e., I just hit Kendis’ first occurrence of telling Christopher she loves him. I was not expecting it at this point in the story, but it felt appropriate, so there ya go!
More bulletins as events warrant!
Plan of action for Faerie Blood, second edition
| February 18, 2012 | Posted by annathepiper under Bone Walker, Faerie Blood |
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For those of you who may be wondering what the status is on my plans for Faerie Blood and Bone Walker, there are a few new developments I’d like to share!
First and foremost, I’ve been doing a bit of judicious Googling and also asking around to get a sense of whether I should use one of the services available to deploy a new version of Faerie Blood out into the wild, or whether I can save myself some money and just do it myself. The answer to this question appears to be the latter. I had a lovely little email exchange with romance novelist Courtney Milan, who kindly advised me on how she got her recent self-pubbed Unraveled out: i.e., she deployed directly to Amazon, B&N, and Apple herself, and used Smashwords to hit a couple other services like Kobo and Sony. Moving forward, I’m going to be looking with more depth into how to do these things.
Secondly, I also asked Ms. Milan if she had preferred software for creating her ebook editions. She pointed me at this excellent guide by Guido Henkel about how to do ebook formatting, with a focus on epub and mobi versions. Boil it down to its essentials, and what you get is “do a bit of tweaking to your original manuscript file, throw in some HTML and CSS, and then fling it through Calibre”. As y’all know, I’m a professional techie. HTML and CSS? Not a problem. So yeah, I can totally do this formatting myself.
(Mad, mad props both to Ms. Milan and to Mr. Henkel, by the way. If you’re a romance reader you should totally go read Ms. Milan’s Turner series, the first two books of which I have reviewed here and here! And if you’re not already familiar with the ebook creation process and you want to be, you should go read Mr. Henkel’s guide and thank him for his work!)
Third, in commencing the tweaking of Faerie Blood‘s previously released RTF file, I’m finding some things that need tweaking. After several hard rounds of editing on Lament of the Dove, my older tendency towards ellipses, which is still present in Faerie Blood, is standing out hard. So I’m going to clean those up.
Also, since this book was originally written in 2003, its ‘present day’ setting is in fact 2003, and that now reads a bit weird to 2012 eyes–especially in regards to things like my mentions of older-style cell phones and passing references to pay phones as well. I’m going to tweak these things a bit since it won’t impact the story any, just incidental details to give a better ‘present day’ feel to any new readers who may pick me up. I am aware that this will require me to adjust my perceptions on ages and timing of certain things that took place before this novel; that’s okay. None of those things are actually in released work yet, so they’re still flexible!
And! I was sad to have realized that the first edition of Faerie Blood didn’t have a proper dedication or a proper acknowledgements section. I will be correcting both of these problems, along with an Author’s Note that will mention the changes I’m describing here.
Fourth, I will definitely be pursuing working with Third Place Books (and possibly also the University Bookstore) to engage their espresso book machine to generate any print copies of Faerie Blood–about which I am more excited now that I’ve learned that these machines are not restricted to trade paperback size. So step one here is going to be to get solarbird
Fifth, I am investigating a particular artist recommended to me by tiggymalvern
Last but not least, please note that all of these plans do not preclude proceeding with a Kickstarter for Bone Walker! Before I move forward with that, though, I’d really like to nail down a cover artist, since it will be important to me to have professional-looking art that can give all three books of this projected trilogy a unifying style. More on this as it happens, too!
Status update re: plans for Bone Walker, and also, questions!
| February 15, 2012 | Posted by annathepiper under Bone Walker |
Wanted to do another post to let you guys know what I’m up to in regards to getting Faerie Blood repubbed, and getting Bone Walker finished up and ready to go out in its wake.
First and foremost–still trying to find out whether the cover artist I’m looking at can do a commission for me for art for Faerie Blood and Bone Walker both. In the event that that doesn’t work out, though, does anyone out there have recommendations for artists you like that might suit? I would prefer people who do drawn or painted art vs. photo manipulation, but I’m willing to consider people with decent photo manipulation skills as well.
Link me up with your recs, people! Bonus points if the people in question have previous experience doing cover art and a prior history of commissions.
Secondly–I’m still planning the Kickstarter idea but I am also strongly considering BookBaby. BookBaby is a sister brand to CD Baby, and from what I’m seeing, they could potentially provide not only the ability to deploy ebooks to all the major ebook vendor sites, but ALSO printed copies. Most importantly, they claim they give 100 percent of sales back to the author. Now, since these are the same people that do CD Baby and I know of several musicians (including my very own beloved spouse) who are happy with that, I’m inclined to look on BookBaby favorably. But does anyone out there have any direct experience with using them, or know people who do? Let me know!
Right now my highest priority is finishing the last round of edits on Lament of the Dove so that I can fling that back at Carina Press, finally. I’m hoping to get that done by February 25th so that I can have it off my queue before Dara and I run off to Canada for a grand four-day weekend of awesomeness! After that, my next priority will be spending as much of March as possible finishing Bone Walker so that I can then get it edited.
More as I know it!
