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

[Elok]

Where did you leave the review, though? It's not showing on Amazon for me.

[C0ckney]

hmmm, i left it where i bought it (amazon.co.uk). i'm not sure why you can't see it. i'll look into it.

[Elok]

Okay, I can see it there. Thanks! Odd that it segregates reviews between subsites that way.

[rah]

Do you have an estimate of how many you've sold? Just curious. Feel free to ignore if it makes you uncomfortable.

And Yeah, hurry up on the sequel because I guarantee that I'll be one of the first in line to buy it.

[Elok]

The first one did take over a year just to write, not counting editing and formatting, etc. And I'm probably going to have a much busier life soon, since this won't pay the bills and I'm in my mid-thirties and have no real job skills. Going to try to get into the local community college's physical therapy assistant program (this doesn't count as switching careers yet again, I became a pharmacy tech with the specific intention of moving on to a more advanced specialty once I'd broken into the industry). Anyway, full-time student and part-time work plus family is going to put some pressure on.

As to units sold, it's eighteen paper, two kindle, and eight of the paper books were my mom. Thirty-eight people like my author page, twenty-eight of whom are my FB friends. I try to post interesting stuff, but I'm not the best at clickbait; "interesting" to me means long, considered articles about social or political trends. My target audience is basically nerds who like really deep and complicated reading, so my best guess for effective marketing would be maybe to buy an ad on Slate Star Codex or something. Dunno. The book is, to some extent, its own reward. Sadly, I can't turn it into food.

[rah]

Hopefully it will snowball a bit as it goes. Investing in an Ad may be a good choice.

[Elok]

Huh. SSC charges $250 a month. Maybe if I feel hella rich some day I can float one for a month, but that's probably a bit steep right now.

[Jon Miller]

I would recommend going to an independent bookstore in your region with a few paper copies and offering to do a 'meet the author'. Usually these stores are happy to do this, and if you sell a number of books they will buy a few extra from you to sell later (you well through the store, so basically it is win/win for them).

The last independent book I bought from a bookstore was an author of this type I met in one of the little towns in eastern Maryland.

I don't know if you are back there.

[Elok]

I live in an economically iffy town in the FL Panhandle now. I don't know if we have independent bookstores--well, I know one, but it's been having a going-out-of-business sale for about a year now. Still, it's worth a thought. Thanks.

[Jon Miller]

Try campus bookstores too. The college's SF/Fantasy club might even be willing to buy you dinner or pay for gas.
Pensacola State College
Northwest Florida State College
Florida State University
Flagler College - Tallahassee
The Baptist College of Florida

JM

[Ming]

Or you might want to go to a Sci-Fi Convention. Most love to have has many authors as possible. Maybe get yourself on a panel or do signings.
Two upcoming events in Florida

11/18/17 - 11/19/17	Fort Walton Beach, FL	Emerald Coast Con	United States
Add
02/22/18 - 02/25/18	Daytona Beach, FL	Coastal Magic Convention	United States

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

P.S. The Curse of Life and all subsidiary creative material appearing in this thread, including, but not limited to, all art, any excerpts, maps, and the rules and board design of the game of Hakamyette, copyright 2017 Brayton Cole.

-Elok, my media law schooling doesn't tell me whether a third party not expressly your agent -legal term, but if you had a literary agent, he'd be this kind, too- saying that on your behalf has any legal weight whatsoever; edit something like that into the OP. I also figure doing it after the fact is a weak legal precaution, but do it anyway else if the book ever blew up, it could be argued that you released Hakamyette into the public domain. It's a small effort to cover your butt, and again, get in the habit of dotting all your legal Ts and keeping your ownership every time, ALWAYS.

Just glad there's no trademark issue. A simple copyright notice on all publication covers you for 70 years or something -Disney, et. al., keep getting it extended, and I don't keep up- trademark, you have to send a cease-and-desist for every violation known to you, or any public third-party public use the court deems a reasonable person not living in a cave should have known about... -And that should never come up unless the book/series blows up GoT-level, but it could really make a difference in how you stood to profit should it blow up a little and there was an opportunity to sell Hakamyette^(tm) sets..,

Also, you need some sort of catch-all copyright notice on your FB author page, and run down some RC posts at AC2, else you've arguably released the Nurayah portrait and your map draft into public domain...

[Dinner]

We seem to have a few budding authors here.

[ZEE]

By the Anunnaki, your hands are ghastly!

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