As for the movies mentioned in the title, I’m happy to announce the final official book trailer for Servants and Thieves. I held off on announcing it until the November edition of the book was uploaded and ready to go. Book trailer, corrected and updated book, what more could you ask for?

Truth is, I wanted to finished book 3 this year, and now it seems this is only way I can do it. 50,000 words makes a nice start to the end of the series, and then I can focus on finished editing on book 2. Is there ever rest for this author? No.

Did I mention a new video is in the works to advertise the book? Probably not, but yes, there is. And another story in the works. Oh well.

More craziness to come…check back at a later date…

That being said, it will likely be another week until the dust settles. Meanwhile, I have my marching orders for this month and next. I’ll be working on research, preparing a new promo video for the completed book, and starting November 1 I’ll be writing like crazy with NaNoWriMo. That should get me started on book three. After all that, it’s back to book two for the final thorough edit, and then massive proofreading before I can release that one. Think spring, probably.

But wouldn’t it be nice to just have it all done? I’m reminded of Paul, who said, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.” (Phil. 1:21-24) I think that goes for anything we wish to be done with: it is better live in the moment we have.

Hopefully, next time, everything will be ready and the season of marketing can begin.

With the cover firmly in place (with a new font picked out as well), the next step in my book making process is to focus on the inside of the book, the interior formatting and font selection. After enduring the nightmare of Kindle-ready formatting (that will be another post), I was looking forward to working in InDesign to make Servants & Thieves a pleasure to read.

Aside from the obvious choices–what the chapter heads should look like, whether to use a drop cap or not, and what to do with section breaks–there are several typesetting considerations that I never considered until now. Here’s the short list of things I had to ferret out of the vast universe of the Internet to help make reading the book easier. (Kind of a punch-list of formatting.)

• Convert any straight quotes to “curly” quotes
• Ensure there’s only one space after a period
• Make all dashes (- -) into “em dashes” (—) and space them with “thin spaces” (gotta have InDesign to do stuff like this)
• Convert all ellipses to periods separated by (you guessed it) thin spaces
• Decide on the hyphenation rules (how many letters in the word, how many before, after, etc.)
• For each page, make sure there are at least two lines of text at the top
• For each paragraph, make sure there are no single “floating” words at the end (if possible)
• If a line is skipped at the bottom of one page (for spacing), the facing page must match as well
• Ensure there are at least four lines of text on the last page of a chapter
• Remove header from all chapter pages

I know there was more stuff as I went through the text, but this was newer material for me. I had studied how other books were put together, and a lot of this made sense, but it wasn’t until I had a checklist did I put it into practice.

Here’s a sample of chapter one, which shows the formatting for chapter heads as well as the first section break. Shows you almost everything but the page headers. Okay, here’s page two and three as well, to give you an idea of how that turned out.

Getting closer by the day to finishing out this process! The Lord willing, we’ll get it done.

No, I’ve not been working on it all this time, but have been busy finishing edits on book 2. But as a reward for waiting, I have also uploaded the “making of” for the cover, and now offer it below.

Also notice the change in title. This is a move to match it with later titles, and also shorten it. Trust me, changes to the web site are coming soon, and the old title will be nothing but a myth. Enjoy!

Here’s some stuff I found:

CreateSpace (that Amazon sponsored self-publishing and e-publishing site) has all kinds of services, including interior and exterior book design. Their designs come with different packages, or you can purchase individual services (like cover design) for as little as $299, or as much as $1,499. Take a look at three covers, one at the low end, and one at the upper end, and the third around the upper-middle range:

Not bad, but then, did you see those price tags? Not good.

Lulu.com has two services, a basic book cover (template-driven) for $115, and a premium book cover for $450. Couldn’t get a sample of the basic cover, but the premium isn’t too shabby (image right):

Still, over budget for me.

Who else is in the game? There are a ton of independent designers, who will design your book cover, your web site, you refrigerator magnets, and even wallpaper your doghouse. I get too much spam already, so I never clicked on the “Instant Quote” button to find out how much these “services” would cost.

I also discovered I can download book cover software, for less than $200, which I can use to design all my covers. Hmm. I think I already have a program like that.

Or I can post a contest somewhere like digital point forum, and spend $20. Some people will do anything for a dollar.

So what’s an author to do? Luckily, I have Photoshop, and some iStockphoto credits to burn. Next time…the new cover will be revealed.

I’ll admit, one of the things that really drives book sales is the cover. According to Michael Hyatt, it’s one of the first considerations when a reader decides to buy. So, it’s kind of a big deal, if you hope to sell a book. Back in the days of Mark Twain, or Jane Austen, the cover wasn’t that much of an issue. But now, we’re such visual people, we won’t buy it unless the title and artwork jump off the page.

The first cover I put together (a couple of years ago) was just to give the book something on the outside. I printed some copies for the family to read, and didn’t put a whole bunch of thought into it. I’ve got a Roman aqueduct, some gears, and Big Ben, along with a rather monochromatic color scheme. Not exactly eye-popping.

What can I say? It got the job done, and that was about it. But not one of my better efforts.

Take two was for the expanded storyline, which I again printed through lulu.com for my family’s enjoyment. This one I put some more thought into, but also tried to keep the design within budget (which I think was zero). I’d say the results were better…but still no sale.

Okay, so this time we have an old-timey texture, better colors, but still very brown. I like the curlycue elements, but I’m still not 100% happy with the title and title block. Very blah.

So what makes a good cover? Is it the artwork? The fonts? Is it how big the authors name is? (Just kidding.)

I think it’s time to do some research, and see what the competition is putting out there to sell their books. Plus, I’ll be taking a look at what CreateSpace and other companies offer for their book cover services.

That will be next time. Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with a thought on how we should present ourselves: Romans 12:1, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” (NKJV)

I’ve read arguments on either side of the issue, and I’m on the fence myself. On the side of the traditional publisher:

• You get exposure for your book that you couldn’t get elsewhere. This applies more and more to fiction these days, as almost anyone with a non-fiction book and a platform can get speaking engagements and Oprah spots to promote their book. Still, with brick-and-mortar bookstores in trouble, where does that exposure get you?
• You get the professional services of editing and cover design and marketing. But did I mention the rumors that many publishers are cutting back on some of these services? If they are cutting costs in these areas, or are expecting the author to pick up the slack, then where did the advantage go?
• You get an advance. But just like the candy bars you see in the grocery store, they’re a whole lot smaller than they used to be.
• You get to be a bona fide, industry-recognized author. Not just a wannabe who printed out his own book.

And then there’s the dark side, the lure of electronic publishing, the attraction of ultimate control over your intellectual property! [Insert Machiavellian laugh here.]

• With self publishing you have ultimate control. That’s a good thing if you an ace writer, graphic designer, typographer, and marketer. Not so good if yur a bad speler. Bad product equals poor sales.
• You get a lot of profit for each book sold. The word is, the Amazon Kindle store offers 70% of cover price back to their electronic book authors. Traditional publishing? Not as much, and for the same digital copy, sometimes less than 10%. Ouch.
• Best sellers are much smaller numbers. Let’s do some math: if you sell 5,000 copies of your self-pubbed book, at $10 a piece, and make $7 from that, you get $35,000. Not too bad. How many books would you have to sell to get that same amount through a traditional publisher? Using a generous round figure of 20% royalties, you’d have to sell 17,500 copies through that publisher, if the book sells at $10. (The publisher would probably put the cover price as $15, but through Amazon discounts and other promo pricing, the average is around $10 anyway.)
• Last but not least, you could still be picked up by a traditional publisher. Odd as this sounds, if you e-publish a book, and it sells well, then you have a proven sales history to show a publisher, and they may be more interested in taking a risk on you. Don’t ask me how that works, but it’s a possibility.

A lot of this stuff I’ve learned just reading the blogs of agents and publishers and fellow writers who wrestle with what’s happening in the book industry. There is a lot of speculation about where this is all going, but as for me, I’m going to pursue this crazy idea of e-publishing and see where it takes me. I just hope I don’t get into a fist fight over it.

Joshua 24:15b “But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

Making a list, checking it twice…okay, Christmas songs still ringing in my head. I sat down and figured out the kind of things I need to plan on for an e-book enterprise, and it goes something like this:

You need,
• A completed book. (Shucks, I have two. That was easy.)
• A completely edited and publication-ready book. (Okay, still working on that part. More on editing later.)
• An acceptable cover. (As much as I enjoyed the covers I’ve made, I need to see what’s working and what’s not, and design something more appropriate. Again, more on this later.)
• A place to publish. (This will involve a lot of research into formats for Kindle, Nook, iPad, etc. as well as a place to buy a physical copy, either CreateSpace or LuLu.)
• A marketing plan. (Gettin’ the word out is half the battle.)
• A really awesome web site that will really speak to people’s wants and prompt them to buy the book. (Okay, that part needs work too.)

Am I missing anything? Virtual book signings? Big name endorsements? I wonder if I should buy a kindle now…

Okay, cheezy plug aside, for many reasons, I’ll be putting books out there on various e-publishing sites, and figuring this out as I go. Is it wise? Is it worthwhile? We don’t know. But we’ll find out together.

First things first, we need a plan. Do we have a plan? Not yet, but it includes things like, making sure the blog is working (okay, seems to be), working through edits, creating a cover, converting to digital text, and publishing on Amazon, etc. I’ll come up with a more detailed plan later, when I’ve got a minute, but that’s kind of the rough outline. You may also notice things disappearing off this site for a bit (like the trailer) as I recreate them in a more professional manner (ahem).

To close, we need some encouragement, which comes from Matthew 19: “Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” If there’s ever a time for the impossible to be possible, now is that time.

More excitement to come…