I can honestly say formatting and building a paperback was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. I understand why authors go through publishers and pay formatters oodles of money to do the work for them. It is some of the most fiddly, exasperating work I’ve ever done. And yet, I’m really glad I did it.
I learned an enormous amount, I accomplished something I thought was out of my reach, I pushed through the moments when I wanted to tear out my hair and scream, and I have some beautiful work to show for it. I even figured out my business name and put together a logo.
I did a ridiculous (if completely necessary) amount of research before I began creating the paperbacks. Even then, I found myself flying by the seat of my pants with some of it. Wait, where do I put the section break? How do I unlink from the previous section? I couldn’t have done it without Mr. Vaughn (who put in at least $1,000 worth of work per book, if he billed me what his office bills his clients at his tech geek job). He’s a whiz with headers, footers, and table of contents pages. Plus, he took my original cover images and text and combined them into two beautiful covers.
I went through a number of possible versions before I decided to combine the four novellas into two volumes. It seemed like it would give you guys the best value for your money. Volume One (Equals and Partners) is 272 pages (about 90,000 words), while Volume Two (Family and Husbands) are 230 (just under 70,000 words). I perused Amazon and compared my work to other m/m authors with books of similar length and arrived at $13.99 and $12.99 for the paperbacks.
They are available on Amazon and CreateSpace. Did you know that authors get a larger royalty when the books are purchased directly through CreateSpace? I certainly didn’t. Amazon is certainly easier to purchase through, so you won’t get any complaints from me if you buy the books there, but if you have a few extra minutes and want to buy through CreateSpace it would be greatly appreciated.
Oh, and if you want signed copies? Give me a week or so and I’ll have some available. I’m still working on that part.