So, you wrote a book. Now what?

No, really, what?  This isn't an instructional on how to promote or sell your book, because I have no idea.  Get an agent or publisher would probably be the best idea, but I have a long record of not playing well with others.  So, I've made movies and promoted those a bit and thought the book would be the same thing.  Send it out for reviews, take my lumps, but get the title in front of people who want to give it a look and enjoy the silly monster scariness we put out.

Not as easy with a book.  Everybody wants to sell me ad space, but reading takes a lot longer than watching a movie, especially when you're taking notes to do a review.  So, getting a book reviewed by legitimate sources is tough.  Add to that the fact that you're competing with proven publishers who have easier to find  content and things get really difficult.

What about digital formats?  With the movies it's easy.  Sort of.  I mean, at least I use digital formats for watching movies and I use Netflix streaming and YouTube, so running my movies online with Amazon rental and streaming sites that pay me per play isn't really a mystery and I can test the waters on my own to make sure things are working as they should.  With books I still read PAPER.  I like hardcovers, but often buy paperbacks, especially trade paperbacks, to save some money and make them easier to carry on trips.  Laying out the paperback and proofing it took months, but it turned out beautifully!  And it's so easy to buy.  I still haven't listed it for bookstores because, again, unproven publishers have to compete harder for shelf space so I would like some reviews under my belt first.  Getting listed in the regular channels costs money and investments are hard to make for unproven content.

So, digital books are a mystery to me.  I made a .pdf file with illustrations that worked beautifully on our Kobo Reader and my Mom's.  I think it worked on our Sony (not sure we tried it) and the Amazon app on our phones was able to read it, but when we converted that to a Kindle file to get it listed on Amazon dot com it went to pieces.  Literally.  Pieces of it turned red and others disappeared.  Anyone reading this who bought that version, with the red text, please, return to Amazon and buy or borrow the new one we've loaded.  Much nicer.  Or at least I think it is from what I can test on my computer and phone, but I can't seem to borrow it as a "Prime" member even though we're enrolled in that program because I don't own the actual Kindle.  When someone has a complaint I can't help them with it because I'm not having the same experience they are and as a guy who has controlled his content from concept to creation for so long, this makes me nuts.  I want people to be able to get the book as cheaply as possible because I want thousands, even millions of people to enjoy my scary short stories and sleep with the lights on just one night because of me.  I want women to swoon over the cowboy on the cover because darn it, I look good in that hat, from the back, but mostly I'd like people to read the paperback, not because it costs more (I get roughly the same royalty as if they borrowed it on Prime), but because it's a better looking book with a tactile feel, that I think gets the overall essence the old school stories across better.

TRIVIA: Every human image on the cover of the book is me.  We needed to create a crowd, so we used shadows, wigs and post effects to cover my identity.

Need a read?
Check out the Horror Anthology, "Off the Rails and Other Tales" from Hocus Focus Productions!

Well, the fun part is over

So, the five short stories are written, re-written, edited and edited again.  The photos for the cover (some that you've been teased with) are shot, tweaked, and laid out into what I think you'll find is a pretty cool cover.  The "self-publishing" company is chosen and now the fun parts, the creative parts, are over.  The technical parts are just beginning.

The book needs to be laid out.  It's a pretty short book, but switching from the format I created it in to the format the printer needs, software wise, causes some unexpected changes.  It also needs specific boarders different from those you'd use to submit a book,  I have to create a table of contents to make it easier to navigate, but until I have the foreword or introduction or both or neither, I won't really know what pages things land on, unless I insert those BEFORE the contents.  I guess I can do that.

Will I put in illustrations?  Not sure if I can with the software I'll be using and I want to keep the page count to a place that the book won't be insanely expensive for the readers.  So, I'd like to have some simple illustrations because basically I'm a big a kid at heart, but I don't want anyone to have to pay for them.

I was really hoping to release the book in March, well, back in January I would have liked to have it done then, but I want to release something you'll all want to read, share and pass along.

So, as much as I hate the registering, paperwork and file working an reworking, I'll do it to present this book, that was supposed to be "easier" than making the stories into movies, to you in the best way I can.

Stick around.  It's going to be a bumpy ride.

P.S. To top it off, my two main desktops are both acting up and I think my Internet connection is going through slow downs.