Orphaned series - looking for your thoughts, ideas...

I had the same problem with the second book in a series; the publisher was dragging their feet because they really preferred stand-alone books. I had confidence in the sequel, however, so I decided to try some other publishers. I immediately got two manuscript requests and ended up getting a multi-book deal with one of them. That multi-book offer also helped me land an agent.

My advice is if you are confident that it's a great book, try to get a publisher or an agent. If necessary, do what I did and write the book so that it can also stand alone. In other words, work some back story in there via dreams, flashbacks or whatever that will bring readers up to speed. With 93K words, you could almost make two books out of it if you wanted to.

Bottom line: If you think the story is great, don't give up until you find a publisher. Don't self-publish unless you have no more options. I did it once and made no money. Good luck!

Sheryl Nantus said:

I've been informed by Carina Press that they won't be going any further with the Tales from the Edge series - the second book comes out next month and that's it.

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I'm sorry to hear it, Sheryl. Not to mention surprised, because of the great reviews. But as you said, SFR is a tough sell, even with the Firefly vibes.

I think it would be difficult to sell Book 3 when Books 1 and 2 are with another publisher, unless Book 3 can stand alone. Then it might be like Books 1 and 2 don't really exist in terms of selling the manuscript.

As for self-pubbing, I'm planning to do that now with two novellas that I'd like to use to promote The Deepest Ocean. I've been emailing cover artists, and some of their rates are quite reasonable. But I hear you on the >$500 price tag for editing. Not sure what you could do about that short of a crowdfunder to make up the cost. It's not a huge amount, so raising the funds might not be too difficult.

Good luck from another soon-to-be-hybrid author!

SFR? Not in the AW dictionary.

Angry Guy said:

SFR? Not in the AW dictionary.

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Science fiction romance.

I hate to bring up things that might make SP more daunting, but . . .

People self-publish for all different reasons and with all different goals. But I'm getting the vibe from your post that you want to match your trade pub's standard with the third book. So here's my advice as someone who was trying to hit a minimum trade-pub-esque standard while not breaking the bank: It still cost a lot more than $500.

First of all, if you find someone who will edit a 100k-ish book for $500, that is dirt cheap. So cheap that I'd want to make very, very sure they're a great editor who has other reasons for having a rate that low (i.e., just starting out or something). That's only about .5 cents a word. All the editors on my shortlist charged more around the neighborhood of 2 cents a word -- I paid a little less because my editor does a sliding scale and my ms went to her very clean, but her average rate is still around 2 cents a word. So that's more along the lines of $2k to edit.

It's your decision, of course -- but I'd be very skeptical that anyone charging $500 for editing a 100k book isn't going to be doing anything my awesome betas couldn't do for me.

Cover design -- you might get lucky and find a perfect premade or something. But if you want to match your first two books, that means a custom cover, which on the affordable end run about $100 (though people can and do spend much more).

Formatting -- Formatting for ebook isn't that hard to do yourself, but if html/css sound incredibly intimidating, you might have to outsource this as well.

Typesetting for the paperback, should you choose to do a PB -- Also an extremely specialized skill. Also a very expensive one. Most typesetters I've seen charge a few dollars per page. (Some people don't hire a typesetter and do this themselves. That wasn't an option for me -- bad typesetting makes me crazy. I'd rather not have a paperback!)

ISBNs -- Are expensive. You don't strictly need one to self-publish, but I'd recommend it. If you use ISBNs, you should have a different one for each format (epub, mobi, paperback, etc.).

Copyright registration -- I was advised to have a lawyer do it, particularly as I was registering under a pen name. Plus the copyright office fees. It was a little over a $100 all told.

Other things I spent money on: I consulted with a lawyer about whether I should start an LLC, whether I needed a DBA for my pen name, whether I needed to register my copyright, etc. (this was VERY helpful). I also rented a PO Box so I could start a mailing list (you can't have a mailing list in the U.S. without listing a legal address, and I didn't want to list my own).

All told I spent more than $2,000 on start-up costs, though some of that could be considered pro-rated over more than just the one book (the PO Box, the ISBNs). And I could have spent much, much more -- this was what I considered the minimum to reach the production standard I wanted.

Not everyone spends this much, of course! It all depends on what your goals are. You might decide you don't need some of the stuff on this list (or need some things I didn't list). It's all up to what you want and what skills you might have yourself.

I do think that as the last book in an orphaned series, however, your book would be perfect for crowdfunding. You could figure out what all your costs will be and then Kickstart it with your fans. You could even do something like "here are the minimum costs" and then "here are stretch goals" (like, minimum would be only doing an ebook, a stretch goal would be hiring a typesetter for the paperback, etc.). It might at least be worth trying for -- all it will cost is a little time, and if you don't hit your goal, no harm done?

If you used Indiegogo, wouldn't you be able to keep the funds promised even if you didn't reach your goal?

Queen of Swords said:

If you used Indiegogo, wouldn't you be able to keep the funds promised even if you didn't reach your goal?

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That sounds right, but I've never done crowdfunding myself so I don't know the pros and cons of the various platforms. Maybe someone more knowledgeable about it can come along and say -- I know there are several people on the boards who have successfully Kickstarted their books, but I don't know why they chose KS over IGG.

I'm not sure that Sheryl Nantus is still following her post, but I'll lay this out there, anyway.

Since you already had a publisher for your first two books, I think self-publishing would be a step backwards. When my novel comes out in 2016, it will have been almost three years since I began looking for a publisher. But each time I get a book published, it's by a publisher who is a little more well-known than the last, so it's like climbing a ladder. If you stick with it, eventually you'll reach the top.

But that's just me, I guess.

Is it worth waiting until the rights revert to you? Then you could perhaps submit all 3 books to another publisher. It could be an option.

I've not had very much experience in terms of publishing, however you are correct in thinking that it may be harder to sell the third book when the other two are published by another company. Self-publishing may be something worth looking into.