Just hit publish

Book 3 has been released into the wild.  :D  It will be live in a matter of hours.  When it is, I'll send out a newsletter to announce it and then I'll make a blog post about it.

New back matter

I've updated the back matter for the trilogy on D2D and Kobo.  I may update it again for D2D; I'm still trying to decide if I want to add a Books2Read link for the next book in the series.  There's already a link added automatically, so this would be redundant, but it would put it right there on the last page of the book instead of a couple of pages later.  Decisions, decisions...

I'll have to update the back matter for Mind Games when I upload this latest book, so I've still got some of this stuff to do.

Stick a fork in it

Book 3 is DONE.  :D

I've finished proofreading it.  All I need to do is add back matter, convert to epub, and publish.

Word count = 129,048.  That includes chapter titles, copyright page, and all the rest of that stuff.  It's the longest story I've ever written.

I won't publish this weekend.  I prefer to do that on a weekday.  But I'll plan to do that Tuesday night, so it should be live Wednesday.

My plan for the rest of this month is to re-vamp the outline for book 4, do some household chores that I've been putting off, attend to some family obligations, and get my tax documents ready for when I meet with my accountant some time in March or April.

When will I start the first draft of book 4?  Good question.  It might not be until April.  It depends on how everything else goes.  It especially depends on how long it takes me to be satisfied with the outline.  I already know it needs work.  I have no idea how long that work will take.

But right now, I'm feeling pretty good.  It took a year, but I finally got it done. 

Three down, five to go.  :D

First impressions

I contacted PublishDrive recently and asked them about formatting the product description on Google Play.  The paragraphs aren't separated the way they should be.  I also wanted to test out PD's customer service.  This is a minor issue, and should be a simple fix, assuming it's fixable, so it makes a good test case.

So far, I'm pleased.  The PD guy told me he tried to fix the formatting and that we'd probably know by Monday if Google made the fix happen or not.  He then offered to set up an author bio for me on Google Play since he noticed I didn't have one yet.  I took him up on his offer and gave him the same bio I use on Amazon.

So, yeah... my first impressions of PD's customer service are very good.  Google Play is kind of a stick in the mud about some things, but I think I'm going to like working with PublishDrive.  I'm still finding my way around the site, but I think I'll like it a lot.

Another naming goof

This time, at least, the names were very similar.  But it still bugs me.  Grrr...

On a side note, the manuscript of this book is now at 128k and change.  It won't just be the longest story I've ever published.  It'll be the longest one I've ever written.

Decisions

Success!  The books I loaded to PublishDrive and sent to Google Play are now all listed as live in the GP store on the PD dashboard.  I'll start adding links to the sidebar.  But it's nice to know that it just took a while, that it wasn't a glitch or anything.  Obviously, I'm still feeling this thing out.

Now I need to decide two things: back matter and prices.

Since I'm only distributing to Google via PD, I'm thinking about putting Google-specific links in the back matter.  I'll have to check PD's terms and conditions to make sure that's cool.  But if it is, then I'll probably do that.  The downside is that I'd have to change all that back matter again if I ever wanted to send the books to any of the other retail options offered by PD.

As for prices, PD automatically adjusts the prices to compensate for GP's ridiculous discounting policy.  If PD can be relied upon to do this in a timely enough manner to avoid me getting a nastygram from Amazon, then I can change the prices so that they're the same as those at Amazon.  I'm leaning towards doing this.  Still mulling it over, though.

Also, Barnes & Noble has finally changed the price of Mind Games back to $3.99, so I've submitted the price change at Amazon.

While proofing book 3, I came across a goof.  I had the wrong names in some places.  I fixed it, and hopefully that's the last goof of that sort.  I hate it when I do stuff like that.  But this is why I go over this stuff as carefully as I do.  I want the end product to be as error-free as possible.

That's all for now.  Thanks for reading and supporting my work.  :)

Update

Thanks to everyone who purchased Mind Games during the promotion.  Hope y'all enjoy it.  :)

I'm trying to get the price back to its normal $3.99, but Barnes & Noble hasn't changed it yet.  It's been about 24 hours since I submitted the change via D2D.  And I can't change the price back on Amazon until B&N changes because I don't want any price-matching shenanigans and resulting nastygram from Amazon.  So come on, B&N.  Get your act together.

Free downloads of CoV have fallen off a bit lately.  Probably just a seasonal thing; a similar pattern happened last year at this time.  I've got a promotion planned for later this month, but I might run a bknights or something in the meantime to give a little boost.  Still deciding.

Book 3 is mostly proofread now.  First 28 chapters are done.  Just a few more days.

Google is doing away with Google+.  That's fine by me.  I think I accidentally uploaded something to it once.  I was trying to click on one thing, but then something Google+ loaded and I inadvertently clicked that instead.  Just a pain.  Good riddance to this nonsense.

Still trying to figure out PublishDrive/Google Play.  My product pages are there, but on my PD dashboard, the books are still listed as "on the way."

That's all for now.  Thanks for reading.  :)