Indie Publishing Week 1

So, here's the schedule – and it's already all corrected!

Ahem, well… cover artist had forgotten she was busy on Monday, so I'm seeing her today – hence the switch.

SO! Saturday I did the final edit of Air and worked on the book cover (and printed a first draft of Earth as well, so I can give it to my first beta). Sunday was off to take care of the spirit/soul/inner writer (AND it's Six Sentence Sunday – I DO visit all the other 90+ blogs, even if I don't leave comments… which isn't something everybody else does! ) and Monday had the usual Happiness is… post scheduled. But what did I do of the things on the list?

"Opened" the Kindle account – first a new one, then I realized I can actually use my Amazon account, even if it's under my real name. Have no idea of how to close the second account, though – Amazon feels free to close accounts, but doesn't allow users to opt out easily? Maybe I just can't find it. I'll just leave it dead and use the older account.

Then I read all the Kindle fine-print and again wished I lived elsewhere. That 70% royalty rate? It's only for UK, US and Canada. MUST find a husband in one of those countries (and my Muse has a Canadian passport… maybe I really should propose! JUST KIDDING! ). Or stick to the 35%. Have to get on the Kindle anyway, because as Mark Coker himself says "Amazon is 2000 times larger than Smashwords" so if I want to find my 5000 readers, I must get on the Kindle. Somehow I'm relieved because the exclusion includes also an English-speaking continent (Australia), so it's not only a question of mother tongue.

Then I did my Smashwords formatting, but I don't have Word, I have Open Office at home. And I'm away from Day Job where I have Word. So I'll ask my cover artist if she has Word so I can add the hyperlinks to the Smashwords file (couldn't figure out how to do it with Open Office) – otherwise I'll have to complete the file next week. Sigh.

Oh, and I managed to finish all my handwritten Zero Drafts, so anytime I'll switch off the computer to give my eyes a rest, I'll be drawing SKYBAND chapter 6 – no more procrastinations excuses (and if you wonder where this fits in the schedule, look at the last column).

What I haven't done yet, but is on the list, is check how much is a book tour with a company that contacted me to be part of someone else's book tour (so next week I'll have a guest post), if it's worth the expense or if I should just try to organize it myself like Krista D.Ball is doing. Has anyone done a virtual book tour? Did you organize it yourself or paid someone to contact people for you?

Next: the meeting with the cover artist!