Summer seems to be flying by. I'm sadly not getting a lot of time to write, but that doesn't mean I'm not busy. Lulu is a really good publishing partner, but be warned that you still have to do a lot of the work yourself. They're not perfect and occasionally make mistakes. If you don't catch them, it'll cost you later if you want it fixed. If I have one complaint, it's that what they deliver is what you get and if something is missed, that's on you. Case in point. With Volume 4 I failed to note that the title of the series was printed vertically on the spine. It was horizontal on the first 3 volumes. It was a mistake I didn't catch until I lined up all 4 books side by side on my bookshelf. By the time I realized the error, I had already approved the final draft of the book, so any subsequent changes would be at my expense. Since the error has no bearing on the quality of the written material, I let it go. But it is annoying every time I look at my books lined up side by side.
Second case in point: For some reason, when Lulu listed my 9th book on their site they put a semi-colon after the book title and then listed the name of the series. Like below.
The Fifth Age; Verdan Chronicles Volume 9
For all other books they used a colon, like below.
Blood and Magic: Verdan Chronicles Volume 8
Again, it's not something you really notice until you see all 9 books in a list. And nowhere on the book itself is the the semi-colon used, so it has no impact on the end product. It's just annoying. When I pointed this out to Lulu they sent me instructions on how to correct it, but as far as I can tell it involves creating a whole new revision to the book and republishing it out to all the Retail sites. For such a simple fix, they kind of make it seem scary, as if a dozen other things could go wrong making the correction. And thus I'm letting it go, once again annoyed. I don't think Lulu understands that these things tarnish the quality of their entire product line, which is really good overall. And thus I feel compelled to offer warnings along with any recommendation and cannot bring myself to give them outstanding scores on their surveys.
Enough of that and on to some more productive stuff. I've given away 40 copies of The Fourth Age so far this year and 5 copies of Dark Passages. Most are kindle giveaways. In return, I'm up to a total of 6 ratings for my books and 5 reviews, all are either 4s or 5s out of 5. That doesn't mean everyone likes my books, but it does mean that some readers are enjoying them. Sales continue to be very slow at about 1-2 books per month.
So I would warn any prospective author that trying to get self-published work noticed is a lot of hard work and persistence. And the return may never equal the cost, so do it if you like it, but don't torture yourself if you never see the results. It's very humbling on Amazon to note that your book sales lag behind over 2 million other titles. The enormity of available reading is staggering. So if anyone sacrifices the time needed to read your book, that's quite an accomplishment. I try to treat every reader like a precious jewel, because that's how I feel about them.
So for now I'll probably do another giveaway or two on Amazon for Kindle versions. It's all about getting my book into the hands of as many readers as possible in as economic a way as possible. You hope some of the winners actually read it and that a few might actually like it enough to seek out the other volumes. And if you can pry some reviews (hopefully positive) out of someone, that is also a great accomplishment.
Alright, so that's what's happening. Oh yeah, I'm also working on a Facebook page. I have literally no experience setting up a page and every little addition seems to be a research challenge. I'm sure it will be nothing special, but I do hope to launch it next weekend. We'll have to see if it generates any traffic.
And as far as Whispers in the Universe goes, i think about it a lot. I'm really excited to tell the next chapters in Verdan's story. Now I just have to find the time.