'Tis More Blessed Giveaway

 

Milo James Fowler at In Medias Res has created a great idea for a giveaway every Friday in December.

Today, I'm giving away two e-copies of The Nightmare Collection and Gravity: The Complete Trilogy. All you have to do is fill out the Rafflecopter below. I'll announce the winners next Wednesday, December 11.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The other participants giving away books this holiday season: 

I've been interviewed!

The lovely Julie Flanders interviewed me! We talked about Gravity: The Complete Trilogy and what I have next for readers. You can read the interview here on Examiner.com.

Wednesday's Writing Update: Creating a Print Book

 

Happy Wednesday!

Brief writing update, I'm writing Nightmare Ever After and hope to finish it this weekend. *crosses fingers* I'm going to have to work at NaNoWriMo speed (about three chapters a day or around 3,000 words) to get it done, but it'll be great having that first draft finished and off to the CPs. So far I've written through chapter 13 and have almost 13,000 words.

Gravity: The Complete Trilogy is Cinderella-approved, but it might be because her name is in it.

Now I'm going to talk about creating a print book. Ebook formatting is challenging in its own ways. I use the Smashwords Style Guide and with a few minor tweaks, I'm able to post readable ebooks on Kindle, Smashwords, Nook, and Kobo, but creating a book for print was a tad bit more difficult.

I went with CreateSpace. I've heard from various authors that it's very user friendly and pretty easy with its step-by-step instructions. I agree with this.

The first thing I did was decide on the size of the book. I went with the 6x9. It makes it a fairly good sized trade paperback. CreateSpace offers free templates for their sizes, so I downloaded the template.

Then, I was ready to start formatting the interior design with Microsoft Word. You can use other programs, but I'm pleased with how my interior looks. It's simple, clean, effective.

The template gives options on how to format, so I followed their title page, made a few adjustments to the copy right page, added a reviews page, kept the dedication, got rid of the Contents page and added an Other Books By page and an Author's Note. I like to put the Acknowledgements in the back, so I removed that page as well. Most of this stuff was copy and paste and then spacing it the way I wanted it. Then I added chapter by chapter to the document. The template goes through 10 chapters, so then I had to create my own. After you learn about paragraphs and the like when formatting for ebooks on Word, then it's pretty self-explanatory. At the end of the last story, I added a "If You've Enjoyed This Book" page, an Acknowledgements page, and then my About the Author page. I would suggest keeping several print books around to see what they looked like.

The template design for the body of the work was Garamond 11. It's a nice font, but the size is a smidgen on the small side. After I got my proof, I decided to up the body size to Garamond 12 to make it a bit easier to read.

The nice thing about CreateSpace is they have a digital proof, but if it's your first time (like it was mine), ordering a print proof is a good idea. I used my print book to mark up anything I wanted to change. This included a final final proofread. I found a handful of typos, changed some punctuation that could've gone either way, and found two or three formatting errors. Interestingly enough, the story that had the most errors was Defying Gravity, the story I have edited more than the other two combined. Oops.

As for the cover art, they have a cover art digital designer you can use. It was really helpful getting the spine right. You upload your cover art, and they tell you if it is right. I noticed the spine was off, and Aubrie was able to fix it.

The process was fairly simple, even if it took me about two and a half weeks to proofread the e-copy, format for print (and ebook), get my proof, proofread the print proof, make changes to the print (and ebook) format, and have a published book. The hardest part was formatting the interior, but it'll be easier next time. CreateSpace also shows you how much you can price your book and what your royalties would be. I decided to price mine at $7.95 (around mass-market paperback price) to make it cheaper for people to purchase. I would use CreateSpace again too.

To purchase the print book: Amazon   Amazon Europe UK / DE / FR / ES / IT  CreateSpace

By the way, I'm currently doing a Goodreads giveaway for two copies of Gravity: The Complete Trilogy. It runs through October 31st. Right now it's just for the US, but I plan to do an international giveaway around Christmas.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Gravity

by Cherie Reich

Giveaway ends October 31, 2012.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. What are you working on this week?

Wednesday's Writing Update: Once Upon a December Nightmare re-released and the cover art for Nightmare Ever After

 

Happy Wednesday!

A brief update on Gravity: The Complete Trilogy. I got my awesome proof on Friday. Trust me, the cover art looks even better in person than it does online. I read through it and marked the book up, and I spent all day Monday and part of the day on Tuesday fixing minor errors and anything I wanted to change. The e-versions are all updated, and I'm waiting to hear back from CreateSpace about the print proof, which is in review. If all goes well, I hope to press publish in the next few days. Oh, and it seems like the people in Europe must like the cover to Gravity: The Complete Trilogy because I'm on some bestseller lists in the UK and DE (Germany).

And my really good news is that Once Upon a December Nightmare is available again! After two years with the fantastic Wild Child Publishing, I got my rights back and did a re-edit/proofread of it and published it on the 13th. Also, for the first time ever, it is just $0.99!

A Horror Novelette

They were only going out to dinner and a movie.​

​But their plans go astray, and friends Cassie, Mary, Denise, and James decide to take a detour down a lonely mountain road. A felled tree blocks their passage and forces them to turn around in a clearing containing a disturbing arrangement of four deer carcasses.​

Then their truck breaks down, and their cell phones don't work. They must brave the cold December air, nightfall, and a long hike. Yet their troubles are just beginning. Tension runs high between the four young friends…and they are not alone. Each step brings them closer to safety, but will they make it to the main road alive?​

Includes the monster's origin story "Nightmare at the Freak Show"

To Purchase:  Amazon US / UK / DE / FR / ES / IT   Smashwords   Nook   Kobo  iTunes (Forthcoming)

Add on Goodreads  

Next month in time for Halloween, I hope to have the long-awaited sequel Nightmare Ever After released. Aubrie Dionne--my friend, cover designer, author, critique partner, and fantastic person all around--and I scoured through Dreamstime.com to find pictures that were creepy and worked well together for The Nightmare Collection. So without further ado, here is the cover for Nightmare Ever After.

A Horror Novella

Over ten years have passed since that fateful December night.

But the monster is hungry again. 

As the killings start, FBI Agent Timothy “Tim” O’Conner sends for the lone survivor to help him catch a murderer. Cassie Richards wants nothing to do with the beast or the agent's investigation, but she can't forget how her friends died. She returns to Virginia in search for closure, but will she be able to catch and kill a legend?

Add on Goodreads


So what have you been up to?

Gravity: The Complete Trilogy now available!

Hello, everyone! I have exciting news today. Gravity: The Complete Trilogy is now available. At the moment, it's only in ebook format, but I'm getting the print proof on Friday, so I hope to press "publish" on Monday after I've gone through the proof.

Ebook Cover

A Space Fantasy Collection including DEFYING GRAVITY, FIGHTING GRAVITY, and PULL OF GRAVITY

Three alien couples in three space fantasy novelettes fall in love in this complete trilogy.

A Persean and a Medusan crash land on a post-apocalyptic Earth and must escape their prison cells in DEFYING GRAVITY. An Earthling and an Aresian flee their vicious peoples and fight for the right to live and love in FIGHTING GRAVITY. A Cupidian and an Earthling can't ignore the pull of love while they battle to save their home in PULL OF GRAVITY.

Each print version includes information on how to get a free ebook of GRAVITY: THE COMPLETE TRILOGY. 

To Purchase the ebook version: Amazon US / UK / DE / FR / IT  / ES  Smashwords  Nook  Kobo 

Add on Goodreads, click here.

Print Cover

I will mentioned the print links as soon as it is available in print. Right now, the print version will only be available on Amazon, Amazon Europe, and CreateSpace. I considered doing the Extended Distribution, but it costs $25 and if you upload a new version of the book, then it's another $25 each time. Plus, I want the print book to be reasonably priced at $7.95, so that means I would get $0.17 per copy sold through Extended Distribution, so for now, I'll stick with what's free. 

The individual ebooks (Defying Gravity, Fighting Gravity, and Pull of Gravity) have also been updated to include their respective epilogues. If you purchased the copy for Smashwords, then I believe you just download a new copy. For Kindle copies, I'm notifying Amazon in hopes they will notify people who have purchased/downloaded copies that a new file has been added. I'm not sure what the other retailers do. If you have purchased the individual ebooks and want the newest version, please contact me and I'll send you a Smashwords coupon code to get the newest version.

Wednesday's Writing Update: August Stats and September Goals

 

Happy Wednesday!

First off, I would like to thank everyone who commented on my IWSG post last week. I have decided that Gravity: The Complete Trilogy will have everything and be published everywhere (well, as everywhere as I can get it in print and ebook formats) and the individual ebooks (Defying Gravity, Fighting Gravity, and Pull of Gravity) will have their individual epilogues added to them. I think around the holidays I will try to price match Defying Gravity to free as well. It's meant a lot of formatting, but it'll make things easier for readers and that's what is important.

I have August's stats. My editing was way up, but my writing was way down.

Total Pages Edited: 840

Total Word Count: 3460

Here are my September goals:

1. Get Gravity: The Complete Trilogy published in print and ebook formats. (Please see my announcement tomorrow!)

2. Upload the new versions of Defying Gravity, Fighting Gravity, and Pull of Gravity that include their respective epilogues. (Please see my announcement tomorrow!)

3. Re-publish Once Upon a December Nightmare, which will include the monster's origin short story "Nightmare at the Freak Show."

4. Write Nightmare Ever After, the sequel to Once Upon a December Nightmare.

5. Edit my YA Contemporary Romance novel Starred.

6. Outline Twelve Days of Foxwick.

If I can get that done, then I'll be on track to publish Nightmare Ever After in October before Halloween and perhaps will have a completely edited version of Starred to start querying publishers by the end of October.

Also, Jenn Nixon shared a teaser excerpt of Women of Foxwick on her blog yesterday, C.M. Brown featured Fighting Gravity for Teaser Tuesday on her blog, and I'm over at Rachelle Ayala's today talking about Pull of Gravity.

What are you working on? Do you have some September goals?

IWSG: A Dilemma

 

It's the first Wednesday of the month, so you know what that means. It's time for the Insecure Writer's Support Group created by the awesome ninja leader Alex J. Cavanaugh. For a list of participants, click here.

Well, I have a dilemma and could use some advice.

The good and bad thing about having a publisher is that they make all the decisions for your book. The good and bad thing about self-publishing is that you make all the decisions for your book.

This involves Gravity: The Complete Trilogy. I'm working hard to format my Defying Gravity, Fighting Gravity, and Pull of Gravity together with added epilogues into a print book. (The epilogues were originally added for further incentive to purchase the collection and to move the book's length to over the 50k word mark.) I want to offer an ebook copy to every person who buys a print book (instructions would be on a page near the back on how to get a free copy). I plan to create a special email address for that and have the ebook up on Smashwords, so I can create coupon codes for people who purchase a print book and want to have the ebook for themselves or for a friend.

My dilemma comes whether or not to publish the ebook (Gravity: The Complete Trilogy) elsewhere. Should I leave the individual ebooks as is and publish the complete trilogy on Amazon, Nook, Kobo, etc., so people can decide whether they want to purchase the books individually without epilogues or the complete collection with the epilogues? Or should I add the epilogues to the individual ebooks and have the collection up on Smashwords only and the print book on Amazon, CreateSpace, Barnes and Noble, etc.? Or my third option: add epilogues to individual ebooks and have the complete collection up everywhere too in ebook and print formats? There is also a forth option of taking down the individual ebooks and just having Gravity: The Complete Trilogy out, but I don't think that's necessary and I'm not really considering that option.

I am also considering putting Defying Gravity for free and raise the prices of Fighting Gravity and Pull of Gravity, so they're the same price as the entire collection. 

Although it's time consuming, I'm not worried about formatting for each of those circumstances. I'm just trying to think what the reader would like best. Would a reader be upset to buy the individual ebooks and not get the epilogues? Or would a reader take the free Defying Gravity book (if I make it free) and then purchase the collection?

I do plan to put out a call for those who have purchased the three individual ebooks to get the free ebook collection, if they want. I want people to have access to the epilogues without having to purchase the entire book, if they've already bought the individual stories.

As you can see, I have many decisions and would enjoy hearing your advice.

What are your writing concerns?