Black Earth: Exodus Release Date Announced

I just uploaded the cover and manuscript of Black Earth: Exodus to Createspace to gain approval so I can order a proof copy of the paperback. That means the release of the book is drawing near! I have set the release date for the final volume in the Black Earth series to be Thursday, December 13th. On that day, both ebook versions and the paperback version of the book will be available for purchase. The paperback will be set at $12.95 and the ebook version at $2.99.

Here's the novel's synopsis:

In the midst of the world's darkest nightmares, light shines the brightest...

In what began as a star falling in the distant Phoenix sky, Legion's invasion of Earth has led Nathan Pierce through the twisted depths of the human spirit in search of his family and truth. After a bloody and brutal confrontation with the President of the United States in Echo city, Nathan and his friends find themselves on a new path leading through the Broken Lands—toward the city of Providence, California, the battleground upon which humanity will make a stand against the Dark Army and Legion itself.

But as Nathan's group journeys through bomb-ravaged cities and demon-infested highways to reach Providence, those determined to put an end to Nathan's life enact a final plan to stop him, his friends, and humanity as a whole. An offer is made to rewind time and put back the wrongs that Professor Grey’s time travels have caused. Everything can be restored. But at what cost?

While war rages across the planet, the fragmented shards of Shadowbanish come together to form a weapon that can finally tip the scales in humanity's favor, but only if the hero can endure the trials of Earth’s final days. 

Proof Copy of Black Earth: Dark Masquerade

I just received the proof copy of my latest novel, Black Earth: Dark Masquerade, in the mail. Proof copies always make me nervous because if there's one little thing wrong with the book, another one usually needs to be ordered to make sure the correction didn't send ripples through the rest of the book formatting.

This time around, it seems everything inside of the book is in good shape. My problem seems to be the front and back cover.

For some reason, Createspace neglected to include the bar code on the back cover.

I contacted their support team and they said they are going to speak with their technical support department about it and get back to me.

The other issue is the front cover. The intended image -

turned out like this -

You'll notice that the proof copy has the bottom portion (very thin) of the Black Earth title cut off. That's my fault because I didn't enlarge the text boxes in the program I use to create the cover. That's an easy fix though. 

The biggest issue is that the background went completely black, instead of having the texture and shading of the black cloth my wife used as the backdrop when she photographed the mask. I'm not sure what went awry in the printing process that would cause the whole background to disappear and turn completely black. Createspace's support department gave me a cookie cutter answer about how small variances are expected. Thanks.

Fortunately, after showing the book to some trusted sources, we're all in agreement that the front cover image looks great the way it is. The mask vanishing into the darkness actually goes with the title and adds a bit more intrigue to the cover. I know if my wife and I try to tweak the background at all it is going to result in many more proof copies being ordered and possibly weeks before the book can be released. I just don't see the need to fix something that isn't broken, or is broken but looks just as good as my original desire for a cover design.

So, it looks like I'm right on track for the book to be released both in paperback and ebook next Wednesday!

Endangered Memories Proof Revision

There's a lot that goes into paperback production of a book. A lot more than most people give self-published authors credit for. There are many factors involved with book design - font, text size, cover design, paper color and quality, cover formatting, etc, etc, etc. If even one little setting is off in your word processing program, or one minor detail isn't caught the hundredth time through, it can leave a nasty scar on an otherwise beautiful creation, not to mention a bad taste in a reader's mouth.

I have a number of paperbacks to my name and I seem to learn something new each time I go through the process of turning my blood and sweat drenched manuscript into a physical form for my readers to enjoy. I'm by no means an expert - I realize that every time I go through this process - but I seem to be getting the hang of what to watch for before finalizing the physical editions of my fiction.

Just recently I ordered the proof copy of my latest work, Endangered Memories. Surprisingly, it turned out with minimal issues. The cover came out the way I wanted it to - including the spine and back cover w/barcode. The internal components came out pretty good:

Font is big enough ( Times New Roman -11)...

the hyphenation came out good...

the chapter headings are decorative, but not too fancy...


















The only real issue I've come across is the giant space at the bottom of each page, between the page number and the bottom edge of the page.


















This mistake is one I made in a paperback I created years back. In those days, I was so excited just to have my work in print that I refused to go through multiple proof copies to get things down perfect and my books suffered for it.

This time, within minutes I realized my footer size was set at .7" instead of the .5" I meant for it to be at. Although it seems like a minor correction, resetting my footer from .7" to .5" threw off all of my spacing, hyphens and page layout. After fixing everything, I managed to get the page numbers down another line and closed some of that gap at the bottom.

Now that the book is in the process of populating to Amazon, I'm off to get edits done on the second book in the series - Lost Birth - so I can start formatting that. For anyone who's interested, here's a link to the paperback on Amazon - http://tinyurl.com/42w6kye.

Great Tools For Self-Published Authors

In the past, I've posted here and there about the tools I use for my web design, marketing and audio projects and figured I'd bring them all together in one reference for others wanting to check them out. This is by no means a full list of all that is out there, just a list of what I've had success with. Some are free, some cost a minimal amount of dough. Overall, I know most self-published/indie authors are on a tight budget anyway, making it difficult to outsource some of the different jobs one has to do, so these tools will definitely come in handy if you're a do-it-yourselfer like me.

Gimp (www.gimp.org) is a great FREE design program if you don't have the cash to spare for a copy of Adobe Photoshop. I mean a legitamate copy of Photoshop. Gimp has great tools that I use for website, cover and logo design. There is a learning curve, but Gimp has a great online instruction manual, and there are innumerable tutorials online by other Gimp users. Once you learn the basics of layers and importing brushes, you're on the right track.

Audacity (audacity.sourceforge.net) is a FREE program for recording and editing audio. I am currently using it to record myself reading my books instead of paying another company/group hundreds to thousands of dollars to do it for me. I am also using a basic Radio Shack headset with microphone to do it. It seems to work just fine since all I'm doing is reading.
I'll include some other links that go well with Audacity -
Lame (lame.sourceforge.net/download.php) - lets you convert your Audacity file to MP3 format (FREE)
The Levelator (www.conversationsnetwork.org/levelator) - automatically balances out the audio level and volume of your audio file (FREE)

WebEasy Professional 8 (www.avanquest.com/USA/software/web-easy-professional-8-130293) is a web design program I have been using for years now. It is very user-friendly and relatively cheap - $49.95 last I looked - and gives you a great drag-and-drop canvas to work with, allowing you to include video, images, links, code, and other great items in your website. It has a relatively easy walk-through to help you get your website posted to the Web. If you want to check out what I've done with WebEasy, head to my website at www.davidnalderman.com.

Musicshake (www.musicshake.com) is a nifty FREE program a friend told me about that allows you to mix different, pre-recorded instruments, beats and vocals into unique songs. I am currently playing around with this program to create some theme music for the beginning of my audio books and eventually for when I desire to start podcasting. The program is free to download and free to use, but if you want to export what you've recorded into MP3 format, they offer you to do so at a price of 99¢ per song for non-commercial use and $19.99 per song for commercial use.

Dreamstime (www.dreamstime.com/free-section.php) is a great resource for finding the perfect image for a blog post, your website, or any other design project you may have in mind. They offer royalty-free images for a price, but they also have a section devoted to FREE images that can be used without (from what I've read) having to credit the person who posted the image.

Smashwords (www.smashwords.com) is becoming a pretty popular place to set up and sell ebooks. But more than that, what first drew me to Smashwords was the fact that their technology helps you format your manuscript for almost every major ereader out there - for FREE. They include a downloadable PDF that walks you through the whole process. I found when I followed all the steps - including 'nuking' (cutting and pasting your document into Notepad to strip it of it's defunct formatting) the manuscript, which I do before I even start formatting now - that my novel came out looking pretty good on ereaders. You can list and sell your ebook on their website, sign up for the various distribution channels, and even create coupon codes for your work. Smashwords does take a minimal fee from your profits, but the great thing is they won't take anything from you if you want to offer your book up for free.

Createspace (www.createspace.com) is one of many self-publishing sites out there that put the control of your book - and all of its content - in your hands. I have tried a couple other services such as iUniverse (which I did not have a good experience with) and Lulu (which is very similiar to Createspace), but I go with Createspace because my books are cheaper to purchase myself and that allows me to make more cashola. Createspace lets you upload your formatted manuscript to their site and put it in paperback and Kindle format. They charge nothing if you're taking care of the cover design, formatting, editing, etc yourself, or they offer publishing packages for a charge. They also offer ISBN#'s, which is convenient. Createspace allows you to set up your own virtual storefront for each of your books, and also offers distribution packages to get more exposure for your novels.

The Creative Penn (www.thecreativepenn.com) is a personal favorite of mine when it comes to useful blogs for indie authors. Run by Joanna Penn, an indie author herself, I have found this blog to be EXTREMELY helpful when it comes to self-publishing, marketing, book design, etc. Joanna interviews many authors, marketing gurus, and other special guests and loads up her blog with useful posts and podcasts that help with many different aspects of author and book promotion, spanning from shortcuts in using FBML in your Facebook pages to the elements of cover design for your book. I highly recommend this blog and this link - http://www.thecreativepenn.com/resources - will take you straight to a page she created for newcomers to start at. She even offers a free download of her Author 2.0 Blueprint which covers many different aspects of book and author promotion.

Hope some of you find this short but comprehensive list useful. I'd love to hear of any other goodies authors have found across the web, so drop me a line or a comment and let me know about them!

Price Changes

It's 2011 and the new year has brought a new vision in mind for where I want to go with my books. Self-published books - especially ebooks - are flooding the market and now is the time to take a second look at my marketing strategies and my writing business as a whole. After much research and scrutiny, I've decided to revamp the pricing structure of my novels, both in digital and paperback formats.

The cause for my change in attitude, at least when it comes to the pricing structure of my books, has resulted from catching up with the blogs of J.A. Konrath and Amanda Hocking and reading about their self-publishing ebook success - (you can check out J.A. Konrath's blog here and Amanda Hocking's here) In their blogs, they both are very candid about their sales numbers and the success they have experienced through self-publishing ebooks.

I've spent the last few days taking a good look at both of these success stories and taking a second look at my own marketing and sales plan and realize there are a few changes that need to be made on my part if I want to stay in the game.

One of these changes is the price of my books. Until now, I had the paperback version of the first book in my Black Earth series, End of the Innocence, available for $13.95 and the second book in my Black Earth series, The Broken Daisy, available for $17.95. I had these prices set so high primarily to be a part of the Createspace Expanded Distribution Channels which make my books available to be sold on thousands of major online and offline bookstores and retailers.

The problem with this distribution option is that my royalty shrinks to less than 50 cents for my first book and $0 for my second for any books sold outside Createspace and Amazon. That's right - even at $17.95, The Broken Daisy makes $0 in royalties for each copy sold through retailers outside Createspace and Amazon. But to be part of the distribution program, you have to have your book set at a certain price to allow for those outside retailers to take such a big cut.

Personally, I think $17.95 is ridiculous for a paperback version of any book. This was one of the major reasons I left iUniverse so many years ago - they were unwilling to lower the price of my 300 page paperback below $18.95. For a fairly unknown author to have their debut book set at a  price like that, for a paperback edition no less, is a hard sell. I'm not saying new authors don't deserve that kind of money, but for readers out there swimming the river of books, especially self-published ones, a lower price makes it easier to take a risk on an author they may have never heard of.

With the success I've seen with the ebook market lately, I'm drawing out of the distribution outlets and only allowing for my books to be sold in paperback through Amazon and Createspace. I have decided to change the prices of the paperback editions of my books to $9.95 for End of the Innocence and $12.95 for The Broken Daisy. I think the lower prices, especially for End of the Innocence, will allow readers to find out what my writing is all about without having to hum and haw over if the price is right for such a leap of faith.

My ebook prices are getting an overhaul as well. Through Smashwords, I can have my ebooks available through the Sony Reader, the Nook, the Kindle, etc. And Smashwords only takes 20%. And Smashwords pumps my book out in formats that I can take to Kindle myself and distribute for a 35% and 70% royalty.

That said, until now I've had my ebook prices set at $2.99 for End of the Innocence and $4.99 for The Broken Daisy. I've garnered very little success with those prices (though there are other factors that play into that) and I've decided to change my pricing structure for all ebooks I self-publish from this point on. These prices are of course subject to change as I see fit, but at this point in time, I am changing the price of my ebook version of End of the Innocence to 99 cents and the ebook version of The Broken Daisy to $2.99. All subsequent ebooks in the Black Earth series will be set at $2.99 as well. I plan to keep this structure when I release my young adult series this summer. Most novellas that come out I'll be listing at about 99 cents too.

So, if you've been waiting to jump on board my sci-fi/fantasy series, now's a good time to do it. The book prices have officially been dropped and you can head over to Amazon or Barnes and Noble online to grab a copy for your Nook or Kindle, or jot over to my website to grab the paperback if you are so inclined. :)