LYE STREET - An Experiment in Self Publishing

A lot of people have asked me how they can get hold of my novella, LYE STREET, which was published by Subterranean Press as a limited edition. The simple answer is, unfortunately, that you can't unless you spend a lot of money. Copies of this little book are now selling for crazy prices.

So I had a thought. I'm going to try to publish LYE STREET myself, as an eBook through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing. I think it will be an interesting project. It will allow those fans who have eBook readers to get hold of the novella, and because LYE STREET is a prequel to the DEEPGATE CODEX it might also be a way to promote my other books.

The Amazon Kindle publishing process is a tad confusing, especially regarding formatting. So far, I've used an application called "Mobipocket Creator" to, well, create the required format from the original .doc file. After a few hours fiddling with paragraph spacing, it now looks fine in the Kindle Previewer. I've also edited the original manuscript to make things a little clearer for those who are new to the DEEPGATE CODEX. This version of LYE STREET will be the "writer's cut", if you like. In addition to this, I've included an excerpt from SEA OF GHOSTS, although this worries me slightly since it adds 30 pages to a 130 page novella. I'm concerned that readers might think LYE STREET is longer than it actually is. Perhaps I can clarify this in the blurb? Or should the excerpt be shorter? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

The cover was designed by Ian McQue. We opted for something simple, a design we hope will stand out as a thumbnail. I also wanted to make it clear that this is a novella rather than a novel. It looks like this:

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Lacking a Kindle myself, I'm not sure if all eBooks require a Table of Contents. Can anyone help me out there? Should I put a Table of Contents at the beginning? It seems odd to include this for a single work of fiction, but then it might make it easier to navigate. I found an article which explains how it is possible to accomplish such a thing in MICROSOFT WORD, but I don't use MICROSOFT WORD, so it's left me baffled.

Then there's the issue of price. Amazon gives a 70% royalty rate for eBooks priced between $2.99 and $9.99, and 35% for those priced lower. $2.99 seems too high to me, so I think I'll opt for an initial price of $0.99, and see how that goes. I'm keen to see how pricing affects sales.

Anyhoo, I expect to publish the book in the next couple of days, so I'll keep you updated.