Many of you may have noticed that you can purchase the paperback version of the book now while the e-book is still in pre-order mode. This was not done on purpose, and I hope to have it fixed today.
Let me explain.
When preparing a book launch, you need certain ingredients. You need to have a whole lot of words in some sort of order, and then you need a cover and a table of contents. You need acknowledgements and chapter headings, and if you’re so inclined, an “About the author”, which for me is the hardest thing to do out of all of it.
Once it’s all laid out on the page, there is formatting and with that comes decisions and in the end you just want to step out for a smoke before you remember that you quit smoking more than a decade ago.
So, it’s pretty weird.
On top of that, you start thinking of timelines and marketing. When should I release my book? Of course, the answer is Halloween, but while that is an awesome idea, most people are out doing things on Halloween and definitely not searching for first-release books by unknown indie authors. So, you have to release before Halloween. You also realize that it’s July and you’ve been putting this thing off long enough. Your creative anxiety is over. It’s time to launch this thing.
But, there’s still marketing. How do you craft a perfect book launch?
From what I’ve heard, but don’t quote me is, you put the book into pre-order for a week or so and then send out advance reader copies to folks who are willing to leave you a review in exchange for the free copy. The idea is that within a week or two, your book will have enough reviews from the free copies that the new god named Algorithm will accept these offerings and smile upon your writing career, putting your book on top of the hundreds of thousands of other authors who made the same sacrifices to the same named god and are hoping for the same results. It’s inevitable that mine should be the next Netflix series.
Algorithm be praised.
(Besides, my wife spends enough with Algorithm’s keepers that we really should have earned a favor or two.)
Actually, that might all be true, but something happened and it was probably my fault. Through a couple different conversations, I was told not to push THAT button before I was ready. I vaguely remember the conversation, but if you’ve ever been on the publishing side of Amazon, you will know that there are questions to answer, things to do, and Save and Continue on your way to the next thing.
Apparently, and I was warned about this, I accidentally published the paperback version while holding back the electronic version.
Now, at least one of you might be saying that I should have done the opposite, that e-books are much easier to manipulate and paperbacks, not so much, and, why would I even keep the e-book on pre-order when people can go but the paperback all willy-nilly like. But you’re right. I didn’t mean to do that.
So, I’m going to fix it. As soon as the Keepers of Algorithm allow, the e-book shall be open. I’ll keep it at the $.99 price point until the original launch date which was August 17 so that in good faith, you can help me feed Algorithm by reading the book and leaving a review, thus elevating this lowly writer’s book into the stratospherium of books.
Thank you for understanding,
Billy Stuart