Market-less

I haven't posted anything here lately because, quite frankly, I haven't been doing too much with Provenance Publishing. I spent a week and a half up in Iowa helping out with my mother-in-law as she had carotid artery surgery, and my Internet access was sketchy at best. At least until I set my father-in-law up with a wireless router. I was pretty proud of myself for being able to do it alone, except for the assistance of my new BFF from Pakistan. Or wherever the Belkin representative was located. It was so great to be able to get on the Internet up there with my laptop, instead of having to borrow my father-in-law's computer.

I have not sold any copies of my dad's book, nor have any copies of my house history ebook sold yet. I know that they will not sell themselves, and that I need to be doing my marketing. For some reason I lack the motivation right now. I need to get my website organized to promote the books, and I hope to work on that next week. I also need to sit down and update my marketing plan for dad's book, and work on figuring out the Kindle angle for my ebook. I thought smashwords.com got you into the Kindle market, but apparently I was mistaken. I guess I have my work cut out for me next week.

The Books Have Arrived!

Yesterday I received a box containing the 20 copies of my dad's book which I had ordered from Lightning Source. Now, what to do with them? Ha! I am readying copies to be mailed to one of my kind book reviewers, the Hump pilot from Texas. (My other little Navy reviewer recently lost his wife of 53 years to cancer, and has since relocated. I will let a little time pass and see if I can get a new mailing address for him.) A second book needs to be mailed to the Library of Congress, per their requirements in giving you a Library of Congress Control Number to place in the book. The Library of Congress number helps them maintain their catalog records and assists other libraries with the acquisitions of books. There is no fee charged, but you must supply them with a copy of the book when it is published. I also need to decide if I want to apply for the formal U.S. copyright. I did it with my other book - there is a $35 fee if you file online, and then you must mail them 2 copies of the book when it is printed. You have copyright protection by nature of the fact that you wrote the book, but this makes things more official and, I presume, easier to fight copyright infringement.

Then I think I will donate a book to the Delhi Historical Society and one to the Hamilton County Genealogical Society since those would both offer good exposure for the book. I also need to have some work done on my website so that the book can be purchased there as well.

I spoke with Lightning Source (LSI) about turning this book into an ebook. I did not even realize they handled ebooks until I signed up with them. Smashwords had indicated that they couldn't touch this book due to all of the images, so I was not optimistic that LSI would be able to work with it. Obviously there is no need to have it in a Kindle, Nook or other e-reader format. But it definitely would read well as a PDF on a computer or as an ePub on the iPad. My rep at LSI said that they could sell the ebook version. It is all ready to go as a PDF, though I need to assign a new ISBN number to it. And that would mean changes to the inside front matter as the ISBN is listed there. I haven't tried to do an ePub format yet, so I will have to research that some more. So much to learn!

Progress

Today I received the revised copy of Keys to Unlocking House History from my Smashwords formatting wizardess, along with an invoice for $20. Really? I spent more than $20 trying to decipher the Smashwords manual. I know who is getting all of my future ebooks for formatting. I uploaded the revised document to Smashwords and it flew right through the first acceptance level. Hopefully this will put the book on a fast track to get in their premium catalog.

I also learned today that the proof of From Buckeye to G.I. has been mailed to me, and I should be receiving it tomorrow. I am very excited to see the print quality of Lightning Source, and to learn about their distribution channels. I really don't intend to purchase too many copies for direct sales - probably just enough for my family and perhaps the Delhi Historical Society and veteran's association in Delhi (which is where my father lived). I do wish that I had targeted completion of this book to coincide with Memorial Day. That would have been a good launch day for it. Unlike my house history research book, I am not sure that this book lends itself to speaking engagements. Unless I tailored the presentation to the importance of documenting the stories of the WWII vets before it is too late?

Wait for it

Saturday evening I uploaded From Buckeye to G.I. to the Lightning Source website. I did not receive any error messages, so I assumed it uploaded okay. And while I had previously received an email from LSI with a listing of all of my contacts there (wow, I feel so special!), none of those esteemed contacts had emailed me to say there is a problem. What I was expecting, though, was an email advising me that the proof was ready. On a whim, I went into my LSI account and found that they were waiting for me to tell them how I wanted to pay for the proof, and to verify the mailing address. Whether that means the proof is ready to be shipped or they will now prepare the proof, I am not sure. I certainly thought with all the legions of paperwork I completed, including those entailing how I would pay and how I wish to be paid, my payment on the proof would be self-evident. Not! So now I wait for it...

On the ebook front, I found a woman willing to make the appropriate changes to Keys to Unlocking House History so that it can be included in Smashwords premium catalog. She said she will be able to get to it this week since the book is so short and there were only a couple of things that needed to be corrected. She attempted to explain to me what Smashwords e-geek speak was saying, but she may as well have been writing in Greek. For $20 or $30, I am going to let the pros do their thing with all upcoming books.

Not So Lightning Fast

Approval of my account with Lightning Source (LSI) finally arrived today. This was after emails going back and forth on completion of online forms, downloading of multiple documents requiring signatures, and faxing forms back to LSI. In talking with more established LSI clients, apparently this is all new as they never had to complete all the paperwork or experienced any delays. My word to the wise is to apply for an account with LSI well before you are ready to send a book to them for printing.

Having just downloaded the six page document on uploading my book, the next step is to see if I can make that happen. I am hoping there is something in there about uploading large files, because I had problems sending the book back and forth to my designer.

On the ebook front, I was informed by Smashwords yesterday that there are two problems with "Key to Unlocking House History", preventing it from getting into their premium catalog. One has to do with Heading formatting and the other to do with NCX for the e-pub format. Googling these two items resulted in me understanding that I have absolutely no idea have to fix the first problem, and no idea what the second problem actually is. So I have emailed one of the ebook conversion specialists recommended by Mark Coker to see if she will take this on, and how much it will cost me. I am definitely learning something new every day!

Smashwords Link

Obviously I need to work on my marketing plan since I neglected to put a link to my new ebook in my last post. Here is where you can find the book, download sample pages or purchase Keys to Unlocking House History.

As of today, five people have downloaded samples of the book. There have been no purchases. I am hoping that once the book gets into Smashwords' premium catalogue I will begin to see some sales. I need to get started on self-promotion of the book as well.

Smashed It!

I finished up the revisions of my house history research book, following closely the ebook offered by Smashwords on how to successfully send a submission to them. Taking a deep breath, I hit the upload button. I had to take a few more steps because I got questions back from them (such as "Where is your cover?" and "Where do you want your money sent?") Now frankly, if they had you complete the online "paperwork" first before telling you to submit, these issues could have been resolved ahead of time. But regardless, I got everything sent to them and bam! My ebook went live! It was quite amazing. I am still awaiting approval to be added to premium status, which gets me in their premium catalog for distribution to major retailers. That can take up to two weeks, so I am hoping all my diligence pays off in getting me into this status quickly.

Under Cover

Here is the cover for my new ebook. I am really happy with how it turned out. It seems to contain all the suggestions I have seen for creating a good ebook cover. I have been working my way through the Smashwords guidelines on converting your Microsoft Word manuscript into a successful ebook submission. Is it ever tedious! But I am shooting for getting it accepted on the first submission. Apparently not many people make it through on the first try. We'll see what happens. I have made the changes and have printed out the book to see how it looks. I need to verify that I removed all references to St. Louis County, as well as the forms I made available in the print book. The forms cannot be reproduced in an ebook. Down the road I think I will package the forms as a pdf and sell them separately off the website.

In terms of my dad's book, I am at a standstill until I get the back cover and book spine designed to go with the front cover that Katie came up with. On a whim I asked the ebook cover designer if she knew of anyone who would do those two pieces without also wanting to do the front cover. On her website she had indicated that she no longer is designing print book covers. She said that since I am going to print through Lightening Source, she would take on the project. I'm not sure what difference the printer makes to her, unless it is because she is familiar with their cover specifications? At any rate, I plan to take her up on her offer. I need to get a few things put together for her before she can begin. I also need to ask her what the charge will be for the design. She was so reasonable on the ebook, I'm hoping this print cover will be an acceptable fee as well.

Keys to an E-book Cover

The e-book I am working on, a revised vanilla version of "Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed(room)?", is coming along. I still believe that I will e-print this book through Smashwords, so I turned to them for assistance with the cover design. Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, provided me with a list of freelancers who will assist you in getting the interior of the book Smashwords-ready, as well as those who design the e-book covers. I am still attempting to do the interior myself, but I selected a woman from Mark's list for the cover design. We have been exchanging ideas back and forth, and I sent her a copy of my original book cover to show her what we did for the first book. The e-book version will be called "Keys to Unlocking House History". I like where she is going with the cover. She is cleaning up a scan of an abstract to use, and I had asked her to replace the house keys she had used with more antique-looking keys. I sent her a link to a free jpeg I found, as well as a photo of an old key that I had taken. She might be able to just duplicate the key a couple of times in photoshop to get the look I am seeking. I can't wait to see the next revision!