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Books on Shelves
January 15, 2011
Uncategorized - A very short update with some good news: Fire Season will be making an appearance on Waterstones shelves shortly.I did a full post about what it took to get listed on Waterstones system some time ago (see here). While the publisher and distributor are handling the main stock, I screwed up my courage and asked my local. I didn't have high hopes they would take any: Fire Season is a small press book from a new author. However as I found out, if the book is already on their ordering system stores can be very happy to help.So several copies are now making their way to Waterstones. Once they arrive in-store, I may pay a visit with a camera, just to get a shot of them on the shelves and convince myself it's real.Read More
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Using Feedbooks for promotion
January 10, 2011
Uncategorized - Since I put arrival up on Smashwords, several people have suggested I should look at Feedbooks: http://www.feedbooks.com Similar to Smashwords, Feedbooks allows you to post short stories and novels in e-book format for download. However unlike Smashwords, all self-published books on it are free, making it useful for promotion or bonus content but less suitable for commercial use. I decided to put Arrival up, both to test out the system and to reach a wider audience. What follows are just my views.To upload the story, you first set up metadata: name, description of story, and a few more details including choosing your licence. The licence options are interesting - No licence, public domain and a full range of Creative Commons. If you are trying to use Feedbooks for promotion the CreativeRead More
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Using Smashwords for promotion
January 8, 2011
Smashwords - Since I put Arrival up, I've had a few questions about Smashwords, most asking about how easy it is to use. As I only have one story up, there are better people to ask, but this is just my opinion.It's pretty easy to use, taking a standard .doc Word file. No real technical knowledge is required. As long as you make sure that you follow the style guide, paying attention to things like paragraph formatting and breaks the results are pretty good. It took a couple of hours to get Arrival into shape, but if you aren't aiming for the Premium catalog, you can be less precise. However there are a few snags that came up which it didn't cover.Some characters don't go through the conversion process e.g. I lost my en-dash character. Also, smart quotes and apostrophes appear OK on most formats butRead More
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Kindle and Smashwords
December 28, 2010
Arrival, Smashwords - I did not intend to blog over Christmas. After all, with all the shops closed, the snow falling and everyone at home what could possibly happen?Well, Arrival could hit 800 downloads and a brief appearance on the Smashwords most downloaded anthologies list. It was at #8 when I checked so you'd need to scroll down to see it, but that is a nice Christmas present. This is completely unexpected, and a very pleasant surprise. It is getting to the point where I am tempted to do a trailer for my free ebook.ArrivalOn the other hand this does give me some grounds to approach my publisher about moving the release of the Kindle edition of Fire Season up. I have no idea whether or not a commercial product will be as successful, but the ebook does seem to have moved rather fast. I hope you had a MerryRead More
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A Christmas round-up
December 24, 2010
Uncategorized - SInce it's Christmas Eve, I thought I'd add a few notes on how the year has gone so far. After all, mince pies and sherry are a great help to reminincing.I started with a manuscript, and ended it with a book. In between, a quick summary of the year shows that things were eventful. The first book deal occurred in April, then the manuscript was released in June. After a few months of negotiation with various publishing houses I went with a small games publisher who released it in December.The main problem with the launch was the snow, which no one could have expected. Sicne the books were stuck in a snow drift, with the publisher, printer and distributor snowed in, they weren't available on shelves. To recover this, I sent out author copies for review in early December but I only had aRead More
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A quick update on Arrival.
December 24, 2010
Arrival, Smashwords - Going by what other bloggers had said, I was expecting maybe ten downloads a day. Short stories from unknown authors with little promotion apparently go unnoticed. Instead Arrival (uploaded on 14th December, went into directories on 19th) reached 500 downloads last night and is still going. That's not including anyone who read it on Goodreads or viewed it online. My round-up for the year will go live later today, but that news makes a very nice early Christmas present.Arrival by VH FollandRead More
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Arrival – a Free short story
December 14, 2010
Arrival, Smashwords -
Back between August and November I released a short story, linked to Fire Season, through tweets and regular blog updates. It proved rather popular, drawing over 6,000 followers on its various channels. So, since it's coming up for Christmas, with the help of the publisher it is now available as a free download on Smashwords in most ebook formats.Arrival is set a few years before Fire Season, covering the arrival of one of Brooke's Vale's more unique residents.
ArrivalEbook Price: Free! 1560 words. Type: FictionAuthor: V.H. FollandReleased: December 14, 2010A short story about the arrival of one of Brooke's Vale's more unusual residents.A prequel, set several years before Fire Season, this was originally released through Twitter.*Click here to Download Free*
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Amazon hijinks & £3 a book?
December 9, 2010
Uncategorized - I was rather surprised this morning to find that a seller, book depository, had started advertising my book at about £3. I contacted my publisher to see if this was a promotion, and found out a few things. There is apparently some hilarity going on at my publishers. Due to the snow, they currently know where every copy of the book is, and have for the last three days. Certain sellers who do not have copies have been advertising it for the last three days. On the other hand, Book Depository's offer is legitimate. More importantly the sale rate to the distributor is fixed, so it doesn't affect my royalty or the publisher's margins. So, for anyone looking for a stocking filling for Christmas, please consider my book. After all, that is £2.97 for something you can guarantee they don't have,Read More
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And they are here!
December 7, 2010
Uncategorized - My books arrived in the post this morning, and were waiting for me when I got back from work. I think the packet survived about 5 minutes from the time I got indoors, that being how long it took me to get the scissors.So, now I am holding my book. The first copies I've actually seen. My impressions? It's bigger than I thought, at 352 pages. The cover is a matt laminate, and the artwork has come out well. Overall it has the slightly old fashioned style I wanted for the book, but will definitely stand out on shelves which is important. The page is nice, and the font, although larger than usual for a mass market paperback, is nicely readable.To celebrate, there is another goodreads giveaway going on - this time for three of my author copies.Goodreads Book GiveawayFire Seasonby V.H.Read More
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A book released – into a snow drift…
December 1, 2010
Uncategorized - My book was officially released today, on the day that snow blanketed parts of the UK. My publisher is currently snowed in, as am I, and my books are not likely to reach the distributor due to snow delays. On the other hand while the book mght not get to stores, not many customers are either.In better news, Fire Season has received another 4 star review on Goodreads, from a reviewer who said it's not her usual choice of book. "...the ending had me, literally, sitting on the edge of my seat!" Ruth, Goodreads (Full review)Read More