What's a fair price for a 500-page trade paperback?

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Every installment of the ongoing story will be someone's first...

[rah]

Different Appendices, good for you. the only time they need to be consistent is when they're a list of characters or terms. New additions to each are welcome.

On your sequencing....... Well technically a sequel usually means the first was a success. (let's for the moment concede that one) You end the first book with Yunise telling everyone to look out here she comes. If you don't at least start the next book with her, it's a big fail. It's what people will be buying the book for. She's finally supposed to actually take control like readers where hoping for throughout the first 500 pages. You have to at least start with her long enough to satisfy your fans. It doesn't have to be long, just enough to remind your readers why they bought the second book in the first place. It also provides that comforting landing place for the readers before you take them on another spin.

And of course just my opinion, and you should do what you feel best. But I have read a crap load of books so I know what I look for.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

...I've never quite forgiven Frodo for not being Bilbo...

[Jon Miller]

I think there is the way of being true to yourself as a writer. This can be fantastic, or not. Then there is the production of fiction in the most digestible format. The latter is how a lot of unknowns have made it 'big' (There was one author who I ended up reading a book by who wrote something like a book a month?) but while the fiction might be popular and sell I never found it fantastic.

I would follow your muse (and if the main characters of the current novel don't come into the sequel for 1/5 the book, that is OK... some of the best books are like that).

JM
(Often times such mass productive authors are 'comfort food'. I have only read one of her books, but Guy's wife read like that to me.)

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

I just wanted to point out a way everybody who's on Facebook can support Elok w/o spending money on his excellent book or going to any trouble worth mentioning.

'Like' his author page. https://www.facebook.com/author.brayton.cole/ -it's an SEO thing I suspect he doesn't really understand, but it directly and indirectly helps him get the word out and sell his -I loved it- book. Y'all do One Of Us a solid, hear?

[Elok]

Thanks, BU. I suspect the best way to push this thing forward is to keep writing and wait for word-of-mouth until I get enough reviews to get on Book Barbarian? I'm on Kindle Unlimited already. I could put stuff up on the FB page, but I'm not sure what, or if any of it would be seen by anyone either than the thirty-five people who like the page. Rules of Hakamyette? Sketches of in-book objects or people, assuming I can manage any decent ones?

In any case, I'm a couple of paragraphs into the sequel. Per request, the first entry is by Yima Ponsifar.

EDIT: Hakamyette would seem to be out, since I can't seem to draw the damn board. Hrm.

[rah]

Please don't do a GM and take too long to finish it.

[Elok]

Well, the first one took a bit less than two years to write, and another to edit repeatedly and work out the kinks in publishing. The world is invented now, and I'm pretty comfortable with the process. OTOH, I'm now full-time employed and my wife really does want the Byzantium book. At any rate, we both know how aggravating it is when somebody's supposed to be writing something, but drags his feet about it. So yes, I'll be slapping it down as expeditiously as I can. The wife and kids will be away for the next two days, and I don't start my new hospital job till Monday, so I should have time to at least get a couple of letters in.

[N35t0r]

So I'm over 25% of the book in so far (that's taking appendices into account) and I am enjoying it a lot. The glossary helps, although it's not the fastest to access in a Kindle. Is it at all possible to have those entries pop up on highlighting the words inside the novel?

[Elok]

That may be possible with Calibre; I've asked a knowledgeable crowd if they know how.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

I could put stuff up on the FB page, but I'm not sure what, or if any of it would be seen by anyone either than the thirty-five people who like the page. Rules of Hakamyette? Sketches of in-book objects or people, assuming I can manage any decent ones?

All of that, yes - one of the tricks to keeping up a promotional page is regular posting.

You've seen that on the AC2 page, I mostly lean on linking science articles I posted on the forum - that's sort've lame for promoting a gaming forum in a sense, but I don't have a steady supply of new mods and/or new MP games, and interesting OT conversations are hard to spot at the beginning and tough to characterize to outsiders. Posting science articles is something I'm able to keep up when I'm depressed -a good half the time- and are thus a reliable source of something new to post and tend to introduce themselves nicely to strangers interested in that sort of thing - who happen to tend to be Our Kind of People.

Point being, if you made a weekly post, minimum, on your author page, anything at all of interest related to your writing (and TCOL is definitely 500 pages minable for that) that's how one develops an audience of regulars, gets posts 'liked' and all that crap. A static page is just going to sit there and be no help. Do the things you mention - ask around and find help drawing that board -I actually own a Jetan set I made myself long ago- consider the portrait I worked on for you, and try to think of favorite paragraphs from TCOL to post; you could be posting really short excerpts once or twice a week for a very, very long time to come before the book's mined out. -Lack of context can conceivably suck newcomers in with curiosity, so don't be afraid of that... You just need to keep the page live and ongoing to give your audience a chance to find you, and you do have a rich source of material to do that from; don't second-guess yourself and/or overthink it. Just post something, anything. A line of dialogue quoted from the book that might shock or intrigue outside context - anything.

[Elok]

So, how does that work in terms of catching a new audience? Are there people who are bored enough to search for random FB pages to look at, or is some of my content being arbitrarily sprayed outside of people who Like it?

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

You never know man - I spend a lot of time closing the sidebar page offerings in my timeline, because OCD tendencies and resenting Facebook's Big Brother tendencies and trying to force it down my throat. Thing is, Facebook does that, but a relatively empty page that doesn't update isn't going anywhere for sure.

Okay, continuing our informal running course on internet free marketing as I see it and have practiced with some success, there are three truly huge, ubiquitous sites on the web that can be exploited by anyone for SEO -Search Engine Optimization, AKA doing well on Google searches- for free, and that's Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia. You've got something on Facebook, which is definitely a start (and it's tough to think of a way to come up with videos associated with TCOL or you as an author - and I would be surprised if a self-published book could make it past the swarm of aspies there who make you look like Oerdin - but it would be worth a try if you got someone else to make a page about TCOL -Wikipedia, being made of nurdz, covers the HELL out of science fiction novels, - or at least didn't admit you were the author; it's time/effort intensive to deal with those impossible people, though, and does not come highly recommended).

So at least you've got the Facebook. I've had some demonstrable success with a hard sell/very limited audience thing - a gaming forum theoretically focused on a single game that was a commercial flop when it came out 20 years ago, in the middle of a much broader online community that's in decline everywhere despite sequels still coming out. You're pushing something with inherent broader appeal - a very good science fantasy novel, and you've got more in you, and there's a sequel with work actually commenced - and posting today to simply say you've written a few paragraphs of the next book in the Corban cycle could be your weekly post of your author page. Post anything = more likely for the page to pop up on Google, more likely for Facebook to shove down my throat in those damn sidebar page offerings.

This stuff takes time and it takes effort and it definitely takes a long-running poopload of persistence - but we're stubborn nerds with OCD tendencies, and the right guys for the job.

[Lorizael]

I really haven't figured out this whole online promotion thing. The only person who consistently reads my blog is the brother I have a grudge against. I created a Twitter account for self-promotion, but I've got 19 followers there and now mostly use it to find interesting science and philosophy conversations. I can definitely give recommendations on what not to do.

[Ming]

Buster's Uncle is giving you great advice... and for free. I know some consultants who would charge for that kind of advice
And yes, get people to like your facebook page... Get some more reviews on Amazon. Get on Goodreads and other book sites.
Say something controversial on face book (not something not PC) and generate some discussion.