Going Hybrid

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lauralam

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Ah, thanks for pointing that out. I didn't notice the first time as I only downloaded it for a poster. Will do a donation when using it for books.
 

EMaree

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Leander is actually donationware, not free for commercial use. See here.

Conflicting info between DaFont and FontSquirrel here, because FontSquirrel ('License' tab) makes it clear the donation is optional but appreciated.

This Tension Type Free Font is free to use in any and all of your personal and commercial work.

A donation is much appreciated, but not necessary (donations may be done through PayPal to: [email protected]). No donation is too small.

(my bold)

I've heard from a few members over in the cover design subforums that FontSquirrel is more reputable for a lot of reasons (one big reason is that DaFont users report dodgy downloads) so they're my preferred font depository.
 
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lauralam

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A couple updates:

A friend of mine is helping with cover art and making custom tarot-like card art.

One of the stories I'm editing (The Mechanical Minotaur) now has loads of spoilers for Pantomime3, so I'm going to hold off putting it up this year and put it up next year after Pantomime3 is out. It'll actually work better - 3 stories now with characters from Pantomime/Shadowplay, and 3 stories next year with no overlapping supporting characters.

One story is completely done - just needs the copyediting and such. Another I have a shaky first draft and will dive into edits soon, and the third I'm drafting just now - about 5k into it so far.

In non self-publishing endeavours, I finished the first draft of an SF thriller and sent it to my agent last week.
 

lauralam

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Ok, things are finally getting rolling.

Looks like the first cover and blurb are going to go up this week. Other covers are in progress by my friend, who's doing them pro bono to up her profile and as a favour.

I've sent off my application to purchase 10 ISBNs, so I can put the stories up on all retailers.

I'm in the final steps of editing the first two stories, and have rougher drafts of the last two stories. I'll be working on finishing those soon.

In non self-pubbing news, I've sold two short stories to anthologies and I should be having a book go on sub to publishers soon!
 

EMaree

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I love it! It's so charming and cute. I'm really enjoying the Vestigate artifact concept behind these shorts.
 

lauralam

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Thanks, Emma! I really like this one and can't wait to see the others.
 

Ramshackle

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Oh I love the cover and the tarot card concept. And the 'vestigial tale' is awesome.

*looks at the cover again*

Pretty. Want.
 

lauralam

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Thanks! :-D Next cover should be done at the end of the month or so.
 

lauralam

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Getting close to putting up The Snake Charm - It's been edited, polished, and proofread. My friend's going to help me convert it to epub (Kim Curran - she just self-published a book Glaze, which is great, and has been sharing a lot of what she's learned with me).

I did a call out to my Twitter followers about how much they'd pay for an 11k story, and the consensus seemed to be £1.99/$2.99, so I'll give it a try. I'm going to do KDP and then after 3 months put it up on other outlets.

The cover for the second story is nearly done, and that story's been edited and proofread too.

I've had one round of beta comments on the first novella, so working through the next edit. It's currently 25k.

In non-self-publishing news, my first book Pantomime won its first award - the Bisexual Book Award for Speculative Fiction. I think I'll get a trophy! I also had a post about my books I made go slightly viral on Tumblr, and it's resulted in a lot of lovely messages from readers. Last month I had 15 bits of fan mail, and so far this month I've had 4. I'm unsure whether this has helped sales, but I'm hopeful. But I also don't care that much about the sales - I've had people say my books changed their life. That's incredible.
 
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lauralam

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Day 1: 33 sales and 2 borrows.

It'll probably fall off drastically now, but that's a good first push. 37 more sales until I break even on the 10 ISBNs I purchased.
 

lauralam

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profen4

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Day 1: 33 sales and 2 borrows.

It'll probably fall off drastically now, but that's a good first push. 37 more sales until I break even on the 10 ISBNs I purchased.

33 sales on your first day? That's really impressive. I hope things keep going like that for you.
 

lauralam

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Day 2 was 14/sales and borrows. None so far today, though.

I have an existing fan base and it's tied into my main series, so that really helped. And Robin Hobb retweeted the links to the books to her 10k followers (fangirl flail). I think the sales will fall off a fair amount now, but at least I had a strong start.
 

lauralam

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Update: my publisher of my first two books has folded. Figuring out what's going on with the rights the next few weeks. They'd already turned down my third book, citing low sales (though it was so soon after publication I hadn't even had my UK launch yet). They might hae known this was coming then, perhaps. I kept hoping they'd change their mind but, well, no chance of that happening.

It's also partly why I've been self-publishing the shorts - they're my training for self-publishing the third book, which seems the most likely option.

On the plus side, I had a bump in Snake Charm sales as a result...?
 
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profen4

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Update: my publisher of my first two books has folded. Figuring out what's going on with the rights the next few weeks. They'd already turned down my third book, citing low sales (though it was so soon after publication I hadn't even had my UK launch yet). They might hae known this was coming then, perhaps. I kept hoping they'd change their mind but, well, no chance of that happening.

It's also partly why I've been self-publishing the shorts - they're my training for self-publishing the third book, which seems the most likely option.

On the plus side, I had a bump in Snake Charm sales as a result...?


Do you mean Strange Chemistry? That's nuts! I thought they were doing so well. I'm so sorry--I know exactly how it feels. Here's hoping rights revert quickly and fully to you!
 

lauralam

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Yep, as of yesterday Strange Chemistry is no more.

The parent company, Angry Robot, might also be for sale from Osprey, so until I figure out what's going on there, I'm not sure what's up with the rights.
 

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Laura, contact them NOW and ask for them to revert your rights to you, in writing. If there's no one left in the SC offices, contact the parent company. Do it as soon as you can. Or get your agent to do it, if you have one. It's really important that you sort this out if you can.
 

lauralam

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Since my contract was through AR and not SC, I think I'm staying in print for now, but it's confusing. I've asked my agent to give me a phone this week to discuss it. You've said it, Scalzi said it on his site, and another big name author emailed me to say I should get them back too.

It seems like it'd be better for me to get the rights back, because even if they sell through whatever copies of my books they've printed, I'd still probably not earned out my advances.
 

profen4

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Since my contract was through AR and not SC, I think I'm staying in print for now, but it's confusing. I've asked my agent to give me a phone this week to discuss it. You've said it, Scalzi said it on his site, and another big name author emailed me to say I should get them back too.

It seems like it'd be better for me to get the rights back, because even if they sell through whatever copies of my books they've printed, I'd still probably not earned out my advances.

When this happened to me my book wasn't even all the way through the production process, and it took 2 blinking years to get the rights back. I hope it happens quick to you. The advance should be irrelevant (not earning back the advance doesn't mean the press hasn't earned back their investment and then some off the sales of your book--and even if they haven't, it shouldn't impact your rights.). It might be worth checking out what the press is going to do with the books they have printed. Keep them in warehouse and sell slowly, or pulp? Because you might be able to get the copies at or near cost (useful if you're planning on self pub'ing the books after you get rights back- less useful if you're planning on going after another trade deal for the series).

Anyway, I hope everything works out.
 
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