Progress Update: A Sour Chord
After what felt like forever of no progress, things are finally moving in the right direction with A Sour Chord.
I got artwork back from the graphic designer who implemented all of the changes I requested and it looked amazing. To make sure I was really in love with it, I compiled the book into Kindle and iPad format with the artwork and put it on all of my devices. I then stared at it for a good three or four hours to make sure it really said what I want it to say.
Turns out, it didn’t. The concept was the same, but we’re changing a bit of the minor details and should have it finalized by this weekend. Which means I’m one step closer to publishing.
Since I’m getting so close to publishing, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to two important pieces:
- The price point. I’ve read almost every suggestion on the internet about how much you should charge for a self-published first time novel, and there’s really no right or wrong answer. I think that’ll come to me in the spur of the moment and I’ll just pick something, wait a couple of weeks and see how it goes.
- The description of the book. All three of the systems I’ll be selling through (Amazon, iBooks, and Barnes & Noble) allow you to provide a description of the book to help people know what it’s about. Writing that — without spoiling the book itself — is proving challenging. I’ve written four or five so far and will gather feedback from those that have read the book before picking one.
It’s really interested to me to learn that the hardest part of this whole book writing process isn’t writing the book itself. The book just flew out of me, word after wild word, flowing from my fingers faster than my brain could process what I was writing. The first draft was finished in roughly four weeks back in April of 2013.
Ever since then, I’ve been working on the harder parts; the editing, the artwork, the setup of the online services. I had no idea that so much went into this process, but I’m glad I’m learning. If this goes well and I go back to working on the second book, I’ll be a lot more educated on how this all works.
I’m hopeful that this’ll all tie together in the end and I’ll have something to show for all of my hard work (and money spent) in the next month or so! I hope you’ve enjoyed this journey as much as I have!