Art of my non-novel's cover

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Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Some of you have been reading my stories that I've been posting in my LFTW thread on this sub-forum, either in that post or on my site. For those who haven't, short, short version: It's a site full of fairy tales that avoid the softened way that fairy tales have become thanks to Disney and instead draws inspiration from old folk tale mannerisms and content (without retelling those stories, because everybody seems to be doing that these days).

Those stories have added up, and it's time to put them out in book form.

The collection will contain everything that's currently on the site (and into early January's updates), but that's only half the book. New stories make up the rest, as I wanted the book to offer more than what's online, without removing content from the website as I've seen some others do (PBF). The book also contains some illustrations by my wife, who also drew the cover.

The innards aren't entirely finished (couple bits left to edit, and gotta get that damn back cover of the book part written), but we're almost there and should be ready to get the proof ordered by the weekend.

I anticipate the real challenge will be converting it into this newfangled eBook thing.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Tinwhistler said:
that looks pretty awesome :)

Seriously, if you need any help converting to ebook, let me know. I've been through it, and can help.

Also, check out smashwords.com, they have a pretty thorough help section on converting your book to ebook format.
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You've actually helped already, since I was trying to use MobiReader straight from .doc to .azw, with awful results. Then I saw your post about HTML and when I did word to html to .azw, it came out almost perfect. Thanks.

We plan to order the proof this weekend and I'll finish the eBook stuff on Saturday or Sunday.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

"WHY ARE YOU READING THE BACK OF THE BOOK?! THAT'S WHAT THE BOOK IS FOR!" - my wife's suggestion for the back of the book summary.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Proof is ordered and eBook is prepared. Wife and I are both crossing our fingers that nothing's wrong so we can just say "Yes, full speed ahead!"

99 cent eBook, 9.99 print will be the plan. Not putting the eBook up until the print is ready though.

I honestly have no idea how I'm going to promote besides putting it on my website and hoping the story-centered ads continue to attract people. Maybe I'll do an ad or button based on one of the book-only ads or something.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Gusto said:
Maybe this is a dumb question, but are you planning a volume 2? 2+?
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Not a dumb question; I plan to keep doing the site, so more stories are forthcoming. I have about 50 pages written for volume 2, currently made up of my January buffer, one of the online stories I decided to save over, and a couple off-site stories. I predict that one will come out in April or May of 2012.

However, Julie didn't think putting "Volume 1" on the book was a good idea, and that's why it doesn't say so (plus there's already a lot of text on the cover). It didn't seem urgent either since most stories are stand-alone, with every now and then a character or item appearing in another story, but even direct sequel stories like one coming at the end of this month can be read without reading their predecessors.

That said, the book will be marked as Volume 1 on Amazon.com, at least for the Kindle edition.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Anyone curious for a list of story titles can check this post on the site.

Debating whether or not I should post one-sentence descriptions of the book-only stories to better entice people, along the lines of what I have on most of the story buttons on the site and advertisements.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Proof came in today. Only a few minor problems existed, but they were significant enough that we had to change stuff and put in for another review (cover art issue, header issue). We should hopefully be ready for the weekend though. Ebook's been done since Friday; I just don't wanna go ahead until both sides are set. But overall, the interior looks good and I'm happy with how the illustrations came out.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Tinwhistler said:
Smashwords is supposed to put it into nook and the apple store for you, but mine's been sitting in the "pending" categories for those stores for about 3 weeks now..meh
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I had a feeling it'd be that way. I'm not in any rush... but I guess neither are they. Thanks for telling me.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Tinwhistler said:
I like your forward, and enjoyed the first story tremendously, and I'm looking forward to reading the rest. I spend my Sundays mostly trying to pound out words, so it'll probably take me a while to read the whole thing, but that's perfect. I like the fact that you've got a lot of little stories that I can finish in 5 or 10 minutes each. One of my favorite books when I was a kid was a big tome of fairy tales--I still have it on my bookshelf as a matter of fact. I'll probably end up springing for a copy of the paperback when I get through the kindle version. I'll definitely give you a review when I'm done.

After you get some reviews, you might consider raising the kindle price. I'm selling just as many kindle copies at 4.99 as I was at .99, and I'm bringing in nearly 10 times as much in royalties. My book should break even on costs some time in January if things keep moving as they are. Of course, ymmv.
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Glad you're enjoying it, Tin. I was adamant about having lots of little stories, so much so that I pushed some larger stories out, saving them for the next collection, to make room for smaller others (meaning the next one will probably have a few larger stories, though I may shuffle things--we'll see).

I'm glad the price raise has done so well for A Touch of Magic. I don't think I'd want to raise mine over 2.99, but I did say on my site the Kindle version would be 99 cents "for the time being", only because the stuff you were talking about in your book's thread made sense too. We'll see what happens in the future.

I hope you enjoy the rest of the book.
 
Officer_Charon

Officer_Charon

I will have to look up both of y'all in the Kindle Market... when I finally get a wi-fi access point. These sound like the perfect items to start up my e-book collection
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

Well, I went to your website and read the Krampus story.

Based on that, I'll be getting the book when I have the money to do so.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Bowielee said:
Well, I went to your website and read the Krampus story.

Based on that, I'll be getting the book when I have the money to do so.
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That seems to be a popular one, though Wedding the White Death continues to trounce everything else on my site.

And very cool, Bowie. I hope you like the other stories as much.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

I'm not sure. Honestly, I'd never heard of him until sometime in November when my wife found this demotivational poster:



She went and did some research, and after telling me about it, I decided I had to do a story.
Soon after though, I noticed Jill Thompson putting out a Krampus T-shirt, and Scott Kurtz started that PVP arc. I know Randy Millholland did some Krampus stuff years ago with Something Positive, but for whatever reason, Krampus is getting better known. What was funny was, I threatened my little cousins with Krampus if they weren't good this year. They got scared about it at first, but got over it a couple weeks later. In that time, they apparently spread word of Krampus all over their elementary school. :D
 
Officer_Charon

Officer_Charon

Snagged it last night, then when I FINALLY had some downtime, I chewed through a couple stories.

Your pacing is great, loved the introduction (slapping people in the face with the grimdark Little Red Riding Hood lets them know exactly what to expect).

The only thing that I've found... off... thus far has been the cursing in the text. It's not the cursing, per se, but it's placement. I could see it if it was part of someone's dialogue... or even monologue, but it seems a touch jarring, coming from the Narrator. Just my $0.02.

But don't get it twisted: I am LOVING this, and will show it to my wife when I get through. Looking forwards to the next one!
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Officer_Charon said:
Snagged it last night, then when I FINALLY had some downtime, I chewed through a couple stories.

Your pacing is great, loved the introduction (slapping people in the face with the grimdark Little Red Riding Hood lets them know exactly what to expect).

The only thing that I've found... off... thus far has been the cursing in the text. It's not the cursing, per se, but it's placement. I could see it if it was part of someone's dialogue... or even monologue, but it seems a touch jarring, coming from the Narrator. Just my $0.02.

But don't get it twisted: I am LOVING this, and will show it to my wife when I get through. Looking forwards to the next one!
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I take it you mean the intro. I wonder if I should have put that in quotes, because the only reason I used the word shit is because that's the dialogue from that rural French version of Red Riding Hood. That's the only incident of the word shit in the book, so I see what you mean.

I'm glad you're loving the stories though. Thanks for checking it out.

EDIT: My wife is going "HAHA I told you so, I told you so!" in regard to the word use. :|
 
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