Book 1 rough draft complete.

[Svpernova09]

Supernova09 I have not purchased any ISBN numbers yet. Waiting till I get ready to do cover art, which is scheduled for the 14th. Things are expensive unless you buy 100 or more at a time. I have not looked at the information you posted in quite a while, some of the sites were confusing, but I have been researching quite a bit.

My plan is to focus on the digital download distribution via Barnes and Nobles and Amazon and use CreateSpace for a print on demand paperback. CreateSpace, Lulu and offer free ISBN numbers if you print through them, but it will list those companies as publisher of record even though they are not publishers, but manufacturers. If I use my own ISBN's then I am listed and it becomes basically a selling/transfer of rights if someone wants to spend $$ to mass market it.

I have not actually read of any instances where someone was turned down by a mass market publishing house because there was already an ISBN or a vanity style release of the book in circulation. I have read of the opposite. The boy who wrote the Eragon series was self published and sold the books out of supermarkets in his home town and area in Montana, when it was picked up by someone and they inked a deal to mass market it.

The friend who i'm partners with in my insurance business has written quite a bit, but never published. 9 novels and like 12 screenplays. However his experience is in my opinion very dated. Late 70's to 90's is when he tried and did not make it. He is encouraging me, but has a lot of 'you cant do this, you cant do that' stories about how the publishing world works that frankly I do not believe exists anymore.

Getting this book to print and for sale to the world is going to be easy. Marketing it so people will go look at it is going to be hard.

I would be grateful for any advice, or references where things have gone wrong, or right as I step into this world of publishing, marketing, and transitioning from an aspiring author to a real one.

That's great to hear. I wish you the best luck. My wife owns a business that publishes a quarterly literary magazine that she runs. So most of my recent publishing knowledge is all based on her experiences. She's also a writer and has become good friends with many writers and publishers. Reach out into your community and see if there is a writing group or such in your area. My wife latched onto the local Sci-Fi / Writing convention here in Memphis and surrounded herself with writers and publishers. It's been really great for her.

Let me know how your digital distribution works out. We're looking at some options in DD'ing her literary magazine.

Try not to get too discouraged. My wife has a wall of rejection letters in her office. But she's also been published so persistence will eventually pay off. Good luck and keep us updated on your progress.

[Daeri]

I'm bookmarking this thread just to make sure I do not miss the chance to read this when available

Good luck, I hope it goes well.

[Starbuck_Jones]

It was expensive today as far as how much money I have spent in creating my first book. I paid $250 for a block of 10 ISBN numbers. Seeing how you need one for every format there was no other choice. I don't have $1000 to spend on 1000 numbers. At least not yet. It is aggravating that I am going to need 3 numbers for one book. One for Paperback, one for the Kindle format and one for the Nook format.

However the sad thing is that the ISBN website itself preys upon people by charging $25 to generate a barcode. I took a class this last weekend about writing, publishing, and marketing a book. The instructor in that class also said that you should be paying $20-$50 for a barcode from your graphics designer. Generally the same person who is doing your interior design or book cover. The best part was when the instructor said that the barcode is special because it has "film" in it. Wow, just wow. Because you know, that special film is important and its not like you cant get MS Word to create one for you, or that there are not 100's of web sites that will generate them for you as well...

I also spent $25 today to register SBJones Publishing with the state of Idaho. As a sole proprietor I would not have had to do this if my name was in the title. But I need a tax exempt number so I can have my books made and then sell them to people w/o having to pay the tax myself. To get that number, the business name needs to be registered. I should be receiving that documentation by the end of this week or the start of next week.

So $275 today. Other than a few reams of paper, printer ink and about $30 in office supplies I had yet to spend what I consider to be any real money. With additional costs coming up and trying to pay myself at least minimum wage for my time. I need to sell about 3000 downloads from Amazon or BN.com at $2.99 with the 70% commission. Thats roughly $2.09 per sell.

With this being my first book, I think that goal is going to be a challenge but doable. I don't think book one will be able to do it on its own unless I get lucky, or I spend a thousand hours selling it. Once books two and three are available, I think getting 3000 sales will be achievable. Sure I will need to sell more total books, but the next two will not have these upfront costs associated with them.

One of my current goals is to keep the out of pocket costs of this book to under $1000. So far it still seems doable.

[Starbuck_Jones]

All I have left is a cover and it will be ready for sale. I wrote up a guide on how to convert your word file into the formats used by Nooks and Kindles.

It can be read here for those that are interested.

http://theeternalgateway.blogspot.co...ide-basic.html

[Ellay]

Definitely going to read, I love anything to do with a time travel as part of the plot, makes for very interesting plot lines that have not been done 1000x over.

[Sajuuk]

Digital distribution rocks. I'd give it a read.

[Redbeard]

If only you could get all the boxers on here to buy a copy x5.... =P

Make sure you let us know when its available online, I will definitely check it out.

Thanks.

[Starbuck_Jones]

I just got back after spending about $150 on props and supplies for a photo shoot tomorrow. I'm pretty excited that the cover is finally moving forward. I made a small 90 second movie trailer for the book as well. I am going to wait until the cover is done and add that art to it before I post it on youtube. I also came up with the back cover summary a while ago, but I haven't posted it anywhere yet. Let me know if it sounds interesting enough.



The Mage Council has been disbanded. The ruling class for a thousand years is dissolved after the War of Antiquities and technology gives rise to a new era.

Kail Kelly, a young man who has spent his life on his aunt and uncles farm, finds himself in the middle of a desperate power grab by the last ruler of the Mage Council and a time traveling mage known as The Guardian who is trying to prevent the world from falling to darkness.

Angela Atagi, the mysterious woman born a thousand years in the past who also has the unique ability to fly, is given a second chance by The Guardian if she plays her part in the prophecy

With the help of an unlikely group thrown together by The Guardian, including the captain of a prototype airship, they set about unlocking hidden power on a journey that takes them across the world and to the edge of time.

[MiRai]

If they eventually make a movie out of this I expect to see "And all the multiboxers at www.dual-boxing.com"
at the end in the Special Thanks section.

just sayin'

[Starbuck_Jones]

I updated my blog about the status of my book here
http://www.TheEternalGateway.com

Here is the alpha book cover after the 2 hour photo shoot and a bottle of wine later in the basement with my friend. It still has some work like adding my name to it and some of the cropping cut her feet off. Note to self. Drink after the work is done.