Well, I've been keeping up with the threads in this part of AW for awhile now, and figured it might be time to dive in myself.
For awhile (a year and a half or so) I've been stewing plans for a non-fiction book about being an anime fanatic—sort of like a guide, but not really. If that makes any sense.
So I studied up on NF publishing, since I was well-aware it was different from the process for fiction. I started working my butt off on a book proposal. Of course, the whole time I was asking questions of the Far More Knowledgeable People of the NF threads here, and a number of them started telling me the same thing: I have enough of a niche audience that a commercial publisher probably wouldn't take the book on...but that it seemed like I knew my audience well enough to get to them all on my own.
Finally, a few months back, after lurking on these self-pubbing threads and reading up on the topic in a bunch of other places, I decided...all right, I will do this on my own. I'm going indie as an e-pubber.
I started compiling a to-do list, a list of people I wanted to interview for the book, people I would need to get in touch with for specific other content.
As of right now, my work is going excellently.
I've interviewed one very famous voice actress and arranged an interview with a man who is arguably the most popular voice actor there is. I'm working on setting up further interviews with two other people in that line of work and probably still getting to a few other people. I've also spoken to some of the most popular cosplayers (I promise my audience knows exactly what I'm talking about) and will be featuring them in the book. Plus, some of the most famous anime conventions are backing me up.
I have my fellow anime bloggers willing to do a blog tour for the days leading up to the book's release. I've added it to Goodreads and set myself up with an author account. I've got an excellent cover photo and cover designer. Basically, if it can be done marketing-wise, I'm either already doing it or making plans to do it in the future.
But then there's fiction. I am a novelist, and I've always wanted to be commercially published. The issue with that is that I write queer YA, and it's very queer. I've read the recent books that are closest to mine and they still aren't at its level (by which I mean that mine go further into the queer content; I include kissing that straight YA can get away with no problem but queer really can't).
So okay. From what I've read, the fiction self-pubbers who do best are the ones who can put out a lot of books. I've got plenty planned, a lot in the same series, and I know I can do that. There is one book (a paranormal romance) that I know I'm putting out in the spring at some point, because some old readers want me to and I figure “hey, why not”.
Anyway, those are my plans for right now.
The release date for my NF is January 21, 2012 so I'll do my best at keeping this updated here. Fingers crossed!
For awhile (a year and a half or so) I've been stewing plans for a non-fiction book about being an anime fanatic—sort of like a guide, but not really. If that makes any sense.
So I studied up on NF publishing, since I was well-aware it was different from the process for fiction. I started working my butt off on a book proposal. Of course, the whole time I was asking questions of the Far More Knowledgeable People of the NF threads here, and a number of them started telling me the same thing: I have enough of a niche audience that a commercial publisher probably wouldn't take the book on...but that it seemed like I knew my audience well enough to get to them all on my own.
Finally, a few months back, after lurking on these self-pubbing threads and reading up on the topic in a bunch of other places, I decided...all right, I will do this on my own. I'm going indie as an e-pubber.
I started compiling a to-do list, a list of people I wanted to interview for the book, people I would need to get in touch with for specific other content.
As of right now, my work is going excellently.
I've interviewed one very famous voice actress and arranged an interview with a man who is arguably the most popular voice actor there is. I'm working on setting up further interviews with two other people in that line of work and probably still getting to a few other people. I've also spoken to some of the most popular cosplayers (I promise my audience knows exactly what I'm talking about) and will be featuring them in the book. Plus, some of the most famous anime conventions are backing me up.
I have my fellow anime bloggers willing to do a blog tour for the days leading up to the book's release. I've added it to Goodreads and set myself up with an author account. I've got an excellent cover photo and cover designer. Basically, if it can be done marketing-wise, I'm either already doing it or making plans to do it in the future.
But then there's fiction. I am a novelist, and I've always wanted to be commercially published. The issue with that is that I write queer YA, and it's very queer. I've read the recent books that are closest to mine and they still aren't at its level (by which I mean that mine go further into the queer content; I include kissing that straight YA can get away with no problem but queer really can't).
So okay. From what I've read, the fiction self-pubbers who do best are the ones who can put out a lot of books. I've got plenty planned, a lot in the same series, and I know I can do that. There is one book (a paranormal romance) that I know I'm putting out in the spring at some point, because some old readers want me to and I figure “hey, why not”.
Anyway, those are my plans for right now.
The release date for my NF is January 21, 2012 so I'll do my best at keeping this updated here. Fingers crossed!
