novella – Page 6

As many of us do, I like to look back and believe I’ve accomplished something in the past year. For me, this was my first full year in retirement—having finished my regular working life in late 2017.

My aim was the same as always, to use my time productively. Apart from reading/reviewing and my literary output, I had a couple of big domestic projects to plan and complete. I wouldn’t concentrate properly on my writing if I didn’t deal with one of my domestic jobs first, so January was written off.

February—I bought Vellum, a quality formatting programme to use with my Mac. Not only was I intent on producing paperbacks—I wanted the interior to look smart, and professional. Before a book was released as a paperback it would be completely revised. The revisions were already underway. My eBooks were also scheduled for the processing through Vellum.

March—Amsterdam Calling; published in paperback.

April—Ten Days in Panama; published in paperback.

May—Curious and Camping: An Erotic Journey; published.

—helped to edit and format Lisa: and other short stories, for my dear friend and fellow author Carmen Lopez.

June—Quiet Night Inn: and other erotic stories; published.

—Commenced work on the conversion of A Life of Choice from five eBooks to a paperback trilogy.

July/August—Continued A Life of Choice conversion.

—Editing and assembling stories for the next IASD anthology (with the invaluable help of several members of the group).

—Completed a large domestic task and fitted in a holiday.

September—Created Tom Benson – Artist, a new website to replace Tom Benson Creative Writer and Artist, which was heavy on admin and light on visitors.

October—Rhyme & REASON: 200 Poems, published. A collection I’d considered for a few years which encompasses my serial poetry and samples from each of my genre-based volumes.

November—Being a Good Girl: An Erotic Novella, published.

November—A Life of Choice: The Trilogy Edition, published. This was a major task, on which I started work back in June. It is the paperback version of my popular five-part eBook series.

December—Sharing: An Erotic Novel, published.

In terms of reading, I set myself a target of fifty books and completed forty-six. I will read two more by the end of year. 🙂

Do I feel as if I’ve met my targets?

I do, and apart from dealing with the occasional injury or extremely bad weather, I maintained my daily early morning cycle ride. Personally, I feel as if I’ve had a good year and I now look forward to continuing with the same enthusiasm as we go into 2019.

(I’ve never produced a ‘flag’ from folded T-shirts before ….) 😀

My aims for 2019 will be set out in my next post … very soon. In the meantime, thank you for being a part of my writing life, in whichever way, large or small. It all counts for me.

A heads-up for all you lovely people who have taken the time to read this post. I have four very different titles being offered free and they’ll be available* from Wednesday 19th through Sunday 23rd December.

*This is, of course, if there are no technical hitches with Amazon.

Have a peaceful end to the old year and a great start to the new one.

Tom

No, it’s not a title for an erotic novel, although it could be.

As any author will tell you, apart from a good story there are a couple of other important aspects when creating a book.

Good formatting to make the book look professional and easy to read, and of course, a decent price to attract sales are two areas to think about. A catchy, accurate title is in the running of important things to consider.

Where do you first find the title?

Oh yes, on the cover.

I’ve been writing since 2007 and self-publishing since 2013. Yes, I know to some people it seems longer, but there you go – those are the facts.

How have I dealt with covers so far?

I produced covers myself in the early days and though I thought they were okay at the time, I never considered them to be good. I had this misconception that as long as there was a cover to bear the title and the title did its job – that was enough.

Not so, and anybody with experience of buying books or trying to sell books will know.

Would I buy a book with an amateur cover?

Not usually, so I shouldn’t expect anybody to buy mine if they have an amateur cover. Yes, there are some people out there who are not professional cover designers and they’re doing a good job, but many of the indie eBook and paperback covers are badly finished.

I paid for a professional book cover designer to produce a cover for Beyond The Law (as it was prior to becoming first in a trilogy). I later had the cover updated at no cost. The point is, that I saw my book sell and inside three months the price of the designer was covered by those sales. My return was such that the sales paid for the same designer to deal with Ten Days in Panama, Amsterdam Calling, A Taste of Honey and the other two books in the Beyond The Law trilogy.

Do I make exceptions?

Yes, I continue to work hard at designing covers for my short story and poetry anthologies, because those types of books are recognised as being low in the sales market. For the past three months, my five-part series A Life of Choice has been selling well. To ensure the series was spotted by a target audience I created the covers with actual photographs from my military service mounted on a background of the regimental colours of the Royal Corps of Signals. I also design the covers for my erotica titles because although they sell, I consider them an extension of the joy of ~~sex~~ writing.

My efforts may not attain professional standards but I aim to maintain a brand feel by using continuity within any series. We all know that recognition plays a big part in marketing and it’s an area we should strive to understand.

What’s my next step?

Form the outset I’ve formatted my eBooks, although I have depended on beta readers to improve the end product. I recently bought a licence to use Vellum Press, which means I will now be able to format for a paperback.

As I write this, my cover designer is working on a paperback cover for Amsterdam Calling. I’m confident Aimee (the designer) will produce a good solution for me, and I’ve spent many hours working on a revamped version of the book’s formatting.

The results of our combined efforts will be here for all to see when I’ve got my first paperback in my hands. I’m nervous about taking such a step but I promised myself I would only go paperback if I saw sufficient sales of my eBooks. On top of the sales, I’ve had a lot of interest from people contacting me who for one reason or another cannot deal with eBooks.

I hope my words have sparked interest. Remember, if you do decide to pay somebody else to design your covers it will require effort from both parties, or as I suggest on another of my personal covers a little bit of Give & Take.