Self-pubbing a gritty fantasy romance

April report!

This was a busy month. I published my second book, Disciple, Part II, (which actually went live March 25th), did a blog tour, and I got into AllRomance.com.

Sales of Part I had been dead save for a little bump when I knocked the price down to 99 cents for the Equinox sale and Tolkien Reading Day.

Since Part II hit the markets on 3/25/13, I've sold:

• 16 copies of Part I
• 19 copies of Part II

Which, not counting my Storybundle sales, is better than the modest sales of Part I on its own since November 2012.

I had heard that having a backlist helps, of course, but seeing it start to come into play is interesting. And nice.

Next up, for me:

• Participating in a crossover anthology at the Magic Appreciation Tour. We're all writing a short story where our MCs come to a besieged magical city to help defend it. Everyone's jumped in with great collaborative spirit and it looks like it will be lots of fun.
• Emailed my cover artist from Part I, who was better to work with than Part II's. I figure he will need a month for the cover art for Part III.
• Did a revision pass on Part III and am revising Parts IV - VI (the series is finished). Still working with betas on those.
• Need to revise the Prologue which I have promised to my Kickstarter backers by November of 2013. That will need a cover too and I don't have a budget for that but... (cracking Photoshop-skilled knuckles)
• Wow, this is turning into a list. I've also got an M/M fantasy romance (set in Disciple's world) burbling its way toward ready-to-write.
• Contacted Storybundle about featuring Part II in a bundle.
• Oh, and my poor, neglected science fiction. LOL.

It's good to be busy.

I'd particularly like to note that AllRomance.com, after only a month, has done as well as the other non-Amazon outlets combined. Can't say I know why I bothered with Kobo, iBooks, Diesel, etc., I've never sold a thing there.

Has that been other folks' experience?

sarahdalton said:

How romancey do novels need to be to go on all romance? My books have relationships in them, but it's not the focal point of the story, but I've heard such good things about all romance that I'd like to publish on there at some point.

Click to expand...

There isn't an evaluation process, so... I don't know if they ask people to take titles down for not enough romance.

Disciple's got substantial romance elements. Enough that I did my homework on genre tropes and expectations. IMO, it's still primarily a fantasy because I'm not promising a HEA.

In the interests of tracking a novel from inception to publishing and beyond, let it be known: I started writing Hawks & Rams on April 29th.

It's the result of reading some post in this forum a couple months ago and thinking, with a certain weary sarcasm, obviously I should be writing m/m romance instead -- and getting blindsided by a plot outline. Be careful what you wish for!

I've got no "room" for this in my self-pubbing budget, since that's all tied up in Disciple, so this should be interesting. Stay tuned for more details...

May numbers:

Disciple, Part I: 3
Disciple, Part II: 3

Progress reports:

• Went to Balticon, got good advice on social media and a kick in the pants about self-promotion.
• I need to buy a paper cutter so I can generate my own bookmarks and business cards. My printer can't align to Avery's templates to save its life.
• Attended a book fair with Jaime Mason, which was tons of fun! She's super nice and it was great to compare notes with someone published by a big name.
• Still writing Hawks & Rams.
• In touch with my cover artist and editor about working on Part III.
• My betas read the second draft of Disciple, Part VI (the final installment) and mostly squeed at me. Better than crack, that.

In keeping with self-promotion lesson #1 -- your new release is your best promotion -- I'm happy to announce that The Battle of Ebulon is now available (for free at Smash!)

It's a crossover anthology: 15 fantasy authors sending their main characters to a besieged fantasy city to help beat back a massive army of orcs.

I don't write short stories, much, but this one came easy. The team spirit and excitement in this project was fantastic (and rather unexpected, after other team projects I've been involved in.) There's been talk of a second anthology -- we'll see what happens.

Meanwhile, free cross-promotion. Yay! I'm grateful for the opportunity.

My only... disappointment... I offered to code the ebook, and I wish he'd taken me up on that. My inner perfectionist is beating her head against the wall. But let's be honest -- she was going to do that anyway. She's a bitch.

June numbers:

Disciple, Part I: 1
Disciple, Part II: 3

The only real promoting I did was for The Battle of Ebulon, so the numbers aren't unexpected.

...no, that's not entirely true. Even a trickle of sales have a certain unexpected-ness to them.

Progress report:

• Hawks & Rams reached a putting-down point and is on hold
• Did a second draft of Fire's First Kiss, it's with betas
• Smoothed over the fresh spackle on Disciple, Part III and it's waiting for FFK to be ready for the editor
• Went to my first science fiction fanclub meeting! I was brave! Because I really need to get out more...
• Have seen a few sketches of the cover for Part III. Need to poke the artist some more.

I'm kinda at loose ends at the moment, actually, which is a strange and disquieting thing for me. But a happy July to all -- stay cool!

July!

Disciple, Part I: 0
Disciple, Part II: 2

July was... a waiting game, sigh. Waiting on my editor, waiting on my cover artist, waiting, waiting... I participated in the week-long Blogger Book Fair, for which I wrote guest posts, hosted other writers, marked down my books to 99 cents, had a rafflecopter giveaway... sold nothing, one person entered the raffle and didn't answer when I asked what format she wanted the ebooks in.

Yeah. Okay. Moving on.

On the up side:

• Just got my cover art for Disciple, Part III
• Editor hopes to get stuff to me by mid-next-week
• Got off my ass and found two shiny new betas for that m/m fantasy romance novella, yay for AW's beta-finding forum
• Have been assaulted by new story ideas whilst climbing the walls due to all the waiting

Still planning to publish Disciple, Part III by September 1st. Cover reveal will be Wednesday, at my blog.