My brain is stirred.
Busy weekend. Lots of Running about. Small amounts of writing getting done.
However, I have added some extra poems to this…
I’ll be adding to it periodically, but click here to read.
On Tablo’s New Publishing Plans
Tablo is now moving into the publishing business, at least into the distribution side. Click here to check out the details of that. In essence, you pay $99 per year/ per book, to have your stuff published on iBooks, Amazon, Booktopia, Barnes & Noble, and the rest of the 10 largest ebook retailers. Tablo gives you an ISBN and everything. For $149 per year/ per book, you get that plus the remaining 10% or so of the online market, and digital libraries. For $299 per year/per book, you get paperback distribution to about $40,000 retailers.
That per book/per year seems somewhat daunting to me, and I’d really have to test it out and run some numbers before I could commit to it. But it would save time and trouble.
One of the things I like about Tablo is how responsive they are to their users. So when I ask about the details of their plans, I get immediate feedback. After asking for verification that the publishing plans are per year/per book, I share some thoughts vis-a-vis cost registration. Here’s the response I get:
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this Andrew! It is a different model to publishing independently, and for some authors this still may be the preferred path.
For us, the model we’ve tried to create is similar to the model of a blogging or website service, like SquareSpace or WordPress, where there are no servers, no domains, no DNS etc, and the owner can pay $8 per month or $100 per year to have a live and fully hosted website.
We hope that for authors, the value of reaching all of the world’s bookshops at once, without thinking about assets or ISBNs, and even having a paperback version available, is akin to hosting a blog without having to think about your own server or domains. In a scenario like this, the value of the service might outweigh the costs of publishing independently.
Worth considering.
Light Blogging today.
I’m celebrating a milestone and will be largely away from my computer. But some good posts about publishing will be incomprehensible by this week. I’ve been weighing WordPress and Tablo, and I’ll have some thoughts to share.
Changes in Tablo Prompt The Rise of Poetry
Since I last made updates, Tablo has made large structural changes to how it publishes and distributes books. Consequently, I’ve had to make some changes as well.
The big takeaway is paperback publishing and retail distribution is now available. Given that the prices seem to be per year, per book, rather than a one-time fee, I’m not certain whether it’s worth the outlay (even if I just do the e-book distribution, if I have 5 books published there, that’s $500 per year. I’ve got that many titles on Amazon right now, and it doesn’t cost me a dime).
However, the more important change to me right now is the update to the Writer Software. It’s fancier now, but it’s lost a feature that I used to quite like: the ability to manually select to have some chapters of a book available to read and other, unfinished chapters, not. Now anything you upload and update is available for viewing, as a whole.
Which is fine. But it does change my small works-in-progress. Consequently, I have ended the availablity for Chemical Angel, which was just posted. But I’ve added something new…
It’s not all of it, but it’s the first few from the years 2005-2106 that made the cut. I’ll be adding some more recent works over the course of the next year. Consider it an ongoing project. Click here to read some of my more experimental scribbles.
New UJ, New Tablo Novella, Everything Is New!
Here’s the new Unnamed Journal. It’s chock full of weird dark goodness.
Also, Tablo changed how it’s web site worked recently and I didn’t notice (which is to say, I ignored the email alerting me to it). And I’ve added a thing that I’m a chapter-and-a-half deep into, as a new novella. I won’t get to it until The Sword is done, but here it is:
The Sword Update
Here’s where we are on my Civil War novel.
- I just finished Chapter 7 of a planned 15.
- Chapters are averaging somewhere between 4,000-5,000 words (rough estimate). This will put me at about 70,000 words, reasonable size for a novel.
- If I finish in the next six weeks or so, I can let it lie fallow for a bit before editing it and then figuring out how to publish it.
- At present time, I want to try traditional publishing, then if that doesn’t work, perhaps a Kickstarter.
- I have a new working-cover. It kind of looks like a flag:
It’s been a while since I updated on this, but I’ve been working on it – especially since I finished Void. I’m toying with offering a chapter on Tablo to see what people think. Then again, I might not.
I’ve also been toying with the idea of trying to make material available completely available from this website, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog post…
How to Publish Stuff on iBooks, using Tablo…
I laid out the steps some weeks ago on my Ello page. If you like having your stuff iBooks, Tablo takes much of the work out for you. Here’s the basics:
Step 1 – Put Your Book on Tablo. You can write (or copy-paste) your work there with their Bookmaker software, which is intuitive and very easy, or you can upload a Word document. I’ve only done it the first way.
Step 2 – Publish. Having your book on Tablo, even available to read there, is separate from it being published to iBooks. When you click on your book, you will see three links at the top of the page: “Write,” to continue working on a book, “Publish on Tablo”, to allow it to be read on the web site for free, and “Sell on Bookstores,” which will send it to iBooks. You can have all, some or none of your book available on Tablo to read. You can select and deselect individual chapters. You can post chapters as you write them, to build a readership. Or you can skip this step entirely and go straight to:
Step 3 – Sell. Setting your book up for sale is all done on a single page. You will need to input the following:
- Title
- Subtitle
- Description
- Author Name (pseudonyms permitted)
- Language of Book
- BISAC Category (there’s a clickable drill-down to find yours, so don’t worry)
- Tags
- Pricing for US, UK, and Australia (there will be a suggested price point for each, but you can set them to be whatever you want)
- Paypal email (Yes, you need a PayPal account to play)
- Book Cover (Upload any high-res image)
Then just click the button and wait. This is the downside: you will wait.
I didn’t end up waiting as long as I thought I would, because as of a few days ago The Devil Left Him is up on iBooks. It has an alternate cover from the Amazon version but is otherwise the same. It’s also cheaper.
That’s Three Novellas Done, Gang.
I just put the most satisfying words – THE END – an author ever composes onto Void. The last three chapters will be available in their entirety in the next issue of Unnamed Journal.
Which means I’ve finished almost a week ahead of my June 1st deadline.
Which means I’ve hit all my deadlines this year – with time to spare. In January I had none novellas finished. Now I have three.
So now what?
First, these need to be revised, and then published. On Kindle certainly, and with paperback versions as well.
I’ll probably go back and revise them in order of composition – Devil, Last Tomorrow, then Void.
So let me set myself some more arbitrary deadlines:
- The Devil Left Him – Let’s say June 23rd. That ought to be plenty of time. I don’t think this one needs that much revision.
- The Party at the Last Tomorrow – I’m going to give myself more time with this one. It’s kind of half-baked at this point. We’re going for July 28th.
- Void – I don’t know that Void is going to need much work. I’m going to give myself three weeks. August 18th.
While I’m doing this, I will be working on a full-length novel. It’s the Civil War novel I’ve already started, working title The Sword. If I can get it done over the summer, I’ll be pretty pleased with myself.
Watch this space.
Void 7 in the Bag, Baby…
Climax done. Now for denouement.
I’m toying with making rumors of a characters demise greatly exaggerated. I don’t know if I like the character or just didn’t like the death I had planned. It’s all in the soup, folks.
Quick Void Update
Last time I posted, I sounded a little overwhelmed by the threads I needed to nail down to finish Void. Today, I can safely report that I’ve finished the 6th Chapter, and am confident that I’ve set the third act up in such a way as to be able to be confident of a quick Chapter 7.
In the end, it’s all about character. I stopped trying to create competing motives and just let the protagonist and antagonist work it out for themselves.
I also snuck in a classic philosophy problem, which students of the art should catch right away. Hopefully it’s not too on-the-nose.
Also, since 6 is done, I’ve made 5 available to read on Tablo, for anyone who wants to catch up. Enjoy!
