Continuing adventures in self-publishing…

Hi and welcome to my new blog home at WordPress! What’s been happening in the world of scotthunterbooks? Well, it’s been a while coming but I have finally approved the cover for my new crime novel, ‘Black December’. I am really pleased with it; although I wouldn’t have come up with anything like the designer’s concept, it ticks all the right boxes: it’s atmospheric, slightly spooky, intriguing and well laid out. I can highly recommend the designer, a very nice chap called Andrew Brown, recommended to me by the queen of self-printing, Catherine Ryan Howard. Thanks Catherine!

Andrew – very patiently – put up with all my layman’s comments, requests etc about cover design and came up with the goods big time. If anyone wants to contact him (and I highly recommend you do if you’re a latent self-publisher), then drop me a line or contact Andrew via his Twitter account @abaloo.

Should you hire a cover designer for your eBook?

Well, unless you are a talented graphic designer yourself, then yes, absolutely. I made several attempts at constructing a commercial cover for my novels, only to give up in frustration. Yes, programs like ‘Gimp’ are free, but I challenge you, unless you’re used to these software packages, to come up with a successful ‘amateur’ cover. Stick to what you’re good at – writing – and let the pros take care of the cover. That was one of my first lessons as I took the plunge into self-publishing.

How are my eBook sales going?

Sales of ‘The Trespass’ in it’s new eBook Kindle format continue to trickle away on Amazon and Smashwords. I have to say that Amazon sales  far outweigh the Smashwords tally, but I guess Amazon is a much larger shop window, so that’s only to be expected. Thanks to all you guys and gals out there who’ve bought it, and an even bigger thanks to those who’ve reviewed it! My next task is to see how I can get the Amazon UK reviews transferred to the Amazon.com site for ‘The Trespass’ as our friends in the USA seem a little slower off the mark to commit their thoughts to Mr Qwerty.

I’m going to be bold and brave in my next post and give you, warts and all, the total tally of print and eBook sales of ‘The Trespass’, just to give you, my reading and writing buddies out there, a little flavour of how another DIYer is doing.

Whatever, I’m really enjoying being in total control of how I write, how I market, where I market, what my cover looks like, and so on, a luxury very few traditionally published authors enjoy. And what’s more, the royalties us DIYers receive are probably considerably higher than our esteemed trad-published colleagues. Can’t be bad, huh?

Next steps 

I’ll be spending a couple of months finalising the new novel, ‘Black December’, and then begins the painful process of formatting the finished word document into the various eBook formats so that I can, once again, sell the novel via as many diverse outlets as I can. First stop though, will be KDP (Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing), as there’s little doubt that it’s the prime place to be. 

Drop me a line with your thoughts!

Bye for now.