Three By Moonlight out on May 15th

Three By Moonlight: A collection of werewolf tales will be launched on Amazon.com on May 15th in both Kindle format ($2.99) and paperback ($5.99).

Right now just trying to continue to build my "platform", the ubiquitous object of necessity for authors, self-published authors in particular, to build before publication. The rule I keep seeing can be summed up as "Platform before publication, PR after". I have a few bites from blogs to review the book, and a podcast or two, and hope to expand that as I connect with a few friends with connections. Still, anxious to see how far I can expand my reach. 

In the meantime, just plugging away at perfecting the press release, search for blogs that will review self-published books, and hope that the people who have already showed willingness to review will like it enough to come through. 

Anyone interested in doing a review or interview send me an email at jnelsonaviance@gmail.com and I can send you a review copy (either digital or hard copy), or set up a time to do an interview. 

www.jnelsonaviance.com

Learning the Nuts and Bolts of Self-Publishing

I've spent the last day and a half, on and off, figuring out how to format my manuscript to match the specifications required for CreateSpace, which basically is all about the margins needing to be a certain size to be able to construct the actual book, and a few other things. I still need to adjust the cover, and since it takes up to 24 hours to review the files, every time I've made a change it's prolonged this process. 

Still...I'm unbothered on the whole because I've still yet to finish my press release, still yet to have a conference call with Mother Juan Aviance and another member of the House of Aviance who will be reviewing the book and giving me a blurb, and then discuss the media outlets I might be able to use to publicize the book. 

I had a little back and forth with @YasmineGalenorn, who is lovely, which was precipitated by her Tweeting a nearly audible sigh after 13 hours of doing admin and press stuff. Even for a major author with a big-press career there are nuts and bolts, though her's don't necessarily involve the margins. 

Was reading Nathan Bransford's blog and this was one of the things that turned him off to self-publishing. Aside from the cachet of being published by one of the Penguin Group imprints, it's a big benefit to have them handle all the nuts and bolts, and, possibly, marketing. Certainly getting published by a Penguin imprint has a big benefit in access to bookstores as well as making it more likely that you'll get reviews and press. When I'm finished with rewrites to my novel, I'll shop it around to the big press places, but in the meantime, Three By Moonlight will be my first foray into self-publishing. It's giving me experience, if nothing else.

Soon to Come On Kindle...

Soooooo busy right now, but distracting myself from the stress of 2 graduate seminars, teaching 2 classes, and starring in the opera by reading all i can find on Kindle publishing and promoting. Hope it pays off, it's a big leap. That said, Three By Moonlight will come out soon, I'm still working on getting the marketing pieces in order, but I'm shooting for May 15th. 

Also, the website is now live. www.jnelsonaviance.com