Newsletter #72 — ARC Stamp Arrives!
December 15, 2023
Newsletter #72 — ARC Stamp Arrives!
Fun with Rubber Stamping — In anticipation of needing an ARC stamp because copies of Exit Velocity would not be marked ARC by the publisher, I ordered my own stamp and ink pad and am ready to go. Note: This takes me waaayyy back to the 1960s!
PreSale Issues — The main reason I'm using BookBaby to publish Exit Velocity is this: I want to see if I can sell more books this way than I can by publishing through KDP. But that's not the only issue, of course. Ease of use is another issue. Publishing policies are still another.
Right now I'm grappling with the fact that some of BookBaby's policies interfere with my plans. My plans are to publish Exit Velocity on June 4, 2024. That's both the paperback and the ebook versions, on the same day. And, I want both paperback and ebook to go on preorder eight weeks before pub date: that would be April 9. (Amazon requires a minimum of eight weeks if you want preorder.) The advantage of putting a book on pre-order is that people who have ARCs can leave reviews. Also, a book's preorder sales on Amazon and elsewhere can encourage brick-and-mortar bookstores to order copies and stock the book.
Further, my plans are (were, actually) to have BookBaby send me 25 ARCs (mentioned in the previous newsletter) by mid-December at the latest, so that I can send the ARCs out to trade publications six months before pub date, as the publications require.
Now I've learned two things that relate to this:
(1) BookBaby does not alter the book's cover or content to indicate that these are ARC copies, as do traditional publishers. So any copies I received in December would be identical to the June copies. Which is why I ordered the stamp, so that I could make it clear to reviewers that these are ARCs— it is ARCs that they want.
(2) And I've now learned that BookBaby puts an ebook on pre-order the minute the author approves the ebook proofs. For me, that is bad: I could approve the ebook now, or in early January — but I don't want the ebook on pre-order until April. However, there's a way around this — I can simply wait until April 8 to approve the ebook proofs.
Except — here's the catch — BookBaby requires that before any paperbacks can be printed, the ebook proofs must be approved. So, if I approve the ebook proofs now, in order to receive my paperback ARCs (which I want), I will be stuck with having my ebook on pre-order for half a year.
Short-run POD publishing to the rescue! I found an online source that prints short-run POD books and ordered 15 copies. They arrived December 2, I enthusiastically stamped them all as ADVANCE READER COPY, and began sending them out to review journals.
Mule Contemplates Last Desert — On October 30 I sent Some Will Make It Through: Ballad of the Horse and Mule to the last six publishers on my list. They each reply at the end of six months, so come April 30 I'll know if self-publication is the route the mule and I must take. If we must, we will. Deserts can be crossed.
Ballad Problems — I mentioned the mule book above, and so it seems fitting that my current blog is also about the mule book. I hope you enjoy the humor.