Cimwai's Bay, now available for download on Amazon

Look. At. This.

I've written a blog post. I know, it's been a while. Closing in on a year since I last posted. I never meant to stop blogging, I simply ran out of time.

Aside from having a active 20 month old, I've been working part-time from home, and I'm also an now an aerials instructor! Yes. As of May 2016, Brass Butterflies in north Waterloo, offers lessons in aerial silks and aerial hoop. I'll try to pen (type) a few posts about this new direction in my life in the coming weeks. If you have any burning questions about aerials you need to have answers to now, feel free to fire them my way.

The main purpose of this post is to announce my recently released novel, Cimwai's Bay for download on Amazon.

Ava is an average girl-next- door—albeit with a mane of emerald hair. Soon after her failed beauty treatment, which cannot be turned back to normal by dye, or remain trimmed at a shorter length for more than a minute, she is forced to flee her beloved home to escape the archaic anti-magic laws of her community. Ava doesn’t desire great magical power, even when she’s told she has the potential for it. Rather, she’d prefer to hide away in a quiet, clean kitchen where she can turn out perfect pot roasts and flaky apple pies. Half of her wish comes true when she finds work in the capital city of Korval as the housekeeper of the great magician, Jacob Baine. Sensing her magical skill, Jacob coaxes her, or perhaps more aptly infuriates her, along the path to taking control of her magical abilities. With all the stress of her new life, can Ava be blamed for falling for the mysterious Troy? Dashing and charming, treating her to cake and tea, she doesn’t realize the danger he represents. Only when it’s too late to escape Troy’s plans does she realize she’s the key to his plot to break the magical seal over Cimwai and bring himself to power.

This is a self-published title, and it's now available as an e-book. I've decided to use my pen name Peggy Fitz (a few readers once privy to my first attempt at a serial 'VoP', may recognize this moniker). Currently there is only one title featuring Ava Ravenscraft available, although a second is partially completed. It's my hope to release the full trilogy, but I can't tie down a timeline at the moment.

I have further self-publishing plans, which includes the release of my aerial romance, 'The Circus of Love,' before the end of the summer. Featured in this novel is Beth Witt, an aerials silks performer who finds herself caught up in a company scandal and romance. I still need to piece together a cover, but that shouldn't take too long.

Finally, I will be re-releasing my previously self-published title, The Cure, with a new cover at which time I will change it over to my pen name as well.

You'll hear more for me soon.

Ciao,

Andrea

My venture into self-publishing: picking retailers

I had hoped to have The Cure out for sale by now, but things will be postponed for a couple more days at least. I'm taking an online course on self-publishing offered by Author E.M.S., which runs from September 8th to October 4th. I'd been wondering before I started the course as to whether or not I should delay publishing until after I'd completed the session (I have so much to learn!). After the first day of reading, I was feeling overwhelmed with all there was to cover and was pretty sure that I ought to read through at least a few lessons before I plunged in.

**The moderator of the online course I'm taking just popped up on the discussion board to make an important distinction between publisher v. retailer. Amazon, Kobo, Barnes and Nobles, etc., are all retailers. They aren't publishers, they just distribute my work. That's the thing about self-publishing, YOU'RE THE PUBLISHER! I have to promote and protect my own novel.**

Part of my concern was what to do in regards to tax claims on Amazon. The way I understand it is, that although I don't have to pay American taxes, I need an International Taxpayer's Identification Number (ITIN) in order to get paid. Additionally, I'm subject to a withholding tax on any royalties I make, unless I show that I'm from a country that has a tax treaty with the US. I'm actually lucky here, since I'm currently residing in the US and have a visa, my route to an ITIN may be easier than if I was living in Canada. I'm still being paid by a Canadian company, by the way, which is why I currently don't have any other reasons to interact with the IRS.

If you're looking for information on how to get an ITIN, you can check out this blog post by Joan Leacott.

So, that was one of my big concerns about rushing ahead into publishing on Amazon. The other was, how on earth to price my novel, but that's more easily overcome with a little market research.

Something that came to my attention during my first course reading was, why hadn't I thought of publishing on Kobo Writing Life, a Canadian company? I'd been focused on Amazon's Kindle Direct, assuming that since Amazon was so huge, it was the best way to go, but considering the difficulties surrounding the payment and tax issues, why not go with Kobo, at least to start?

To be clear, I don't want to publish with only one company, and there's no need for me to publish with only one (although depending on which program I sign up with on Amazon, I may have to agree to an exclusivity period). In order to gain exposure and make sales, I need to get on as many different platforms as possible. My current intention is to get onto Kobo as soon as I get my ISBN (maybe I'll post about that another day...), meanwhile I'll begin the steps towards obtaining my ITIN. Once that comes through, I'll publish on Amazon. After that, we'll see. There are lots of other companies to self-publish on. It's just a matter of how diverse do I want to get/have the time for.

Ciao,

Andrea

My venture into self-publishing: the editing

Although I felt that The Cure was fairly well edited, I wanted to get someone with a more professional eye (than my friends and husband) to look over my novel before I put it up for sale on Amazon. As always, I was concerned about the grammar aspect, but I wanted to make sure the story and characters made sense as well. I figured, even through I couldn't get a proper publisher to release it, I still wanted it to be as polished as possible.

So, I hired an editor. I was given a name or someone, whom I contacted, was given a quote, and a time frame. Unfortunately that experience didn't work out as well as I had hoped. I had to nag to get chapters back and although the responses were generally quick (after I nagged), the excuses almost became comical after a while. The comments in the manuscript felt sarcastic at times (it's not cool to use ALL CAPS, or smiley faces like you're joking) and almost like the editor was lecturing me for having not corrected errors from the last time I made them (never mind that I sent my manuscript to them all at once). Eventually, I ended up in tears one night somewhere in the middle of chapter 12 and decided that enough was enough.

I either had to battle massive self-doubt for the remaining chapters as I worked through edits, or I had to find someone else to look through the end of the manuscript.

Then it occurred to me that my sister-in-law might be able to help. I recalled that she'd done some freelance editing, and that she'd trying to organize a story-share one time which I participated. So, I sent an email, explained my situations, and thankfully, she agreed. I'll do another post of about her editing later. It's a part of our deal. She provided me with an important service and I'm going to write her a testimonial on my blog.

For now, I'll just say that I'm extremely grateful. I'm back up to where I left off with the other editor (yeah, she went through the whole manuscript from the start for me) and I hope to have it wrapped up by the end of the week. Yeah. I hope to have the whole thing wrapped up in just a few days. It seems a little crazy now that I'm writing this. Wrapped up, and out there for people to buy. I just hope a few people buy it, and at least some of them enjoy it and look forward to seeing the second story.

For now, I need to get on with the editing, so I can indeed have it on the cyber shelves within a week or two.

Ciao

My venture into self-publishing: my cover

One of the steps involved in self-publishing is getting/developing/creating cover art. You need something to catch the eye of a browser, right? Because people really do judge books by their covers.

When it came to thinking about my art, I knew I didn't possess the skills to create something cool, so I contacted a friend of mine, Anna Krider, who has tons of skillz in graphic design. To see her work, you can check out her website: Peach Pants Press.

I didn't have any particular ideas of what I wanted my cover to look like, I just wanted it to look "professional." After a little back and forth, Anna created something funky and abstract. I like the sparkly bits throughout the body, plus she used some nifty layering techniques (that I can't tell you about because it's actually spoiler related!). Anywho, here's my cover:

Now I have a super awesome cover, and I got to employ the skills of a friend. Two birds down with one stone, I'd say.

Cheers,

My venture into self-publishing: the why

I haven't looked back over my blog posts to see how many times I've said I wasn't going to self-publish. It's probably been more than once, or twice, or...enough times, anyways. Sometimes I feel like I have no constancy. I tend to run with an idea for a while, while it's exciting and new, but once things aren't going so smoothly, or they're taking too long and the excitement wanes, I change my mind, or perhaps more accurately, I just give up.

So, what's changed this time around?

Back in April, around my birthday, I was exchanging messages with a friend. A friend who I contact whenever I need publishing advice, usually when I get a hint of success (I've had 2 different publishing companies interested in my work, one for Nora, one for Ava, but they've both fallen through). When we were talking this time, she mentioned that she had released some work through the Amazon Kindle Select program. I'd already released Nora here on my blog, but it hadn't gotten a large readership, and so I got to thinking.

It still might not get a large readership on Amazon, but would it hurt? It couldn't hurt. Right?

E, self-publishing is popular. Occasionally authors see a great deal of success--not that I'm expecting big numbers and big money--but authors are also seeing decent success. With the Amazon Kindle Select program anyone can publish with it (although there are some rules about what type of material can be published) and editing isn't required (although I hired an editor to go through the manuscript). The royalties are also much better with an e-book than a print book, which is a plus--assuming I can get people to buy mine.

And so I hope to have The Cure available early to mid September. This isn't exactly how I'd always dreamed of making my publishing debut, I've clung to the idea of being traditionally published for a long time, but at least for Nora, it's the only way she's going to see a wide release. I feel that I've racked up enough rejections with her to have to take the hint that no one's interested. I'm still going to query agents and editors with my other series Cimwai's Bay, but who knows, maybe if Nora does well, I might try the same thing with Ava.

So does has this post answered the why?

If not, feel free to ask a question, although as I note, I moderate the comments, so it won't show up immediately.

Ciao,

Andrea

My venture into self-publishing

I haven't exactly started my venture into self-publishing yet (if you consider the start to be once the book is finally available for purchase on Amazon), but I've been getting ready. I've been editing and formatting my manuscript, acquiring cover art, etc. It's coming and soon (I'm aiming for early in September).

I plan to compose a few lead-up posts prior to the book's release describing the processes I went through such as finally making the decision to self-publish, getting an editor, finding an artist to create a cover, formatting the manuscript and then finally making it available on Amazon.

But, you might be wondering gentle Reader, what manuscript am I publishing? Well, I've decided to start with The Cure. Which means I will soon be taking down the posts which I released last fall and winter. It's partly, the cow v. the free milk scenario. It's also that Amazon has an exclusivity clause so I'd be contractually obligated to remove it.

So, watch this space over the next couple of weeks for more details on the release of The Cure, and maybe even consider purchasing it once it's not available. Or, if young adult speculative fiction isn't your bag, consider passing it on to someone to whom it would appeal.

Ciao,

Andrea