Keeping an open mind

Editor:

Yes I now have one.

Guest blogging:

There is a literary blog that invites authors to submit articles, so I did.

Pricing an eBook:

A thorny question. I’ve tried free giveaways and I’ve tried an introductory lower price going up in steps to ‘the full price’.

Editor:

I’ve just had an email from Solstice Publishing, introducing me to my editor for Eliezer’s return. Now in the past I was mismatched with an editor and we clashed. In the end I pulled-out of the deal, with Emma the Agents agreement, because the editor was a writer himself and thought I should write in his style. I know that there will be editorial suggestions and I know that there is a good chance that the book will be better for them. I know this because a good friend of mine, Larry Jeram-Croft has made editorial suggestions for several of the Karno books. Although I didn’t incorporate all Larry’s suggestions inevitably they were points well-made. Let’s hope the ‘man from Solstice’ is of the same calibre, I’m sure he will be. In the meantime, no writer likes to have their work criticised so I’m working at keeping an open mind.

Whilst I’m on the subject of editing, I’ll mention proof-reading; something completely different of course. I proof-read the Karno books myself and inevitably some things do slip through the net. I think I’m getting better at it but occasionally American spelling will turn up and yes, I do miss things. Sorry and all that.

Guest blogging:

Some time ago I came across the intriguingly named Chris the Story Reading Ape’s New Authors blog. Chris invited indie-authors to send in articles so I did. He seemed happy with what I wrote and it will appear on his blog on Feb 14th. I’ll put a link to the article once he’s published it.

Pricing an eBook:

A thorny question. I’ve tried free giveaways and I’ve tried an introductory lower price going up in steps to ‘the full price’. What I haven’t done is put the price up. Not only does that seem a bit counter-intuitive but I’ve always tried to price my books fairly, bearing in mind they’re fairly short. To be clear, I’m talking about the Karno books here. Solstice will set the price for my books they publish and I have no say or control over that.

I had noticed that the paperback versions seemed to be a lot cheaper than most other self-published paperbacks but again, I worked on what I felt was a fair price rather than what was the most that a reader would pay. Well, maybe I was wrong. I’ve put in links to Nick Stephenson’s blog before and here’s what he experienced when he played around with pricing. It made interesting reading for me and hopefully will give an insight into what’s involved with self-publishing. I should say that Nick enjoys far better sales than I do so what’s true for him may well not hold true for me. That said, dare I suggest you buy now before I experiment along similar lines?