Several years ago now, I asked myself what would be a fun first novel for me to write, and a fun read for others. The answer was Voyage of the Makai an adventure story of five youngsters who cross the wide Pacific from the coast of California to Hawaii to right the wrongs that have been done them. First published under the title Children's Voyage, the Long Journey Home through Lulu.com, it was my first foray into Print on Demand publishing and a way to learn how to write a full length novel, albeit for youngsters. The result received truly enthusiastic response from friends who read it and from Goodreads giveaway readers and from a very few genuine purchasers. To my virgin author's ears, these seemed like rave reviews, but I have learned that such responses don't count for much in the world of publishing, not if that is where you leave things.This blog itself if my attempt to go further in learning the POD process of online promotion. There are wonderful new tools available to authors at Amazon and Goodreads and many other sites but much effort will be required. The fact is, much effort would be required going mainstream as well. No longer are writers captive to a publishing industry that increasingly limits what is published to what will make big money for them - while asking more and more of authors in the promotion of their own work - as much as if we had printed it POD - and with less return.
Not wanting to include vampires in my novel, explore a dystopia, or reinvent Harry Potter on another continent, and not already having a "platform" of 20,000 followers, (the latest requirement to achieve the holy grail of finding an agent I am told) I decided to go ahead on my own and publish via the Print on Demand Process. I promise to add more about this experience in later blogs but for now I want to proudly announce that the second novel of the Voyages of the Makai series, Greenstone's Promise, is now complete and will soon be available. A few weeks before this, the first book of the two part series will be reissued. It has been slightly revised and retitled "Dolphin Singers" and this time the two together will receive a coherent promotion campaign.
What will the campaign consist of? That also will be revealed in future blogs on this site. I know there is an eager and expanding community of authors eager to explore the benefits of POD publishing and learn more about online promotion. For now, I will limit myself to recommending Booklocker.com as a site to explore for those wishing to try this short cut to the publishing process. They did a good job with a previous project, Buddha on a Midnight Sea, and I plan to have them take on this new one. I have also followed the first and biggest suggestion in a wonderful book on this topic entitled Plug your Book Online Book Marketing for Authors by Steve Webber: I have started this blog and connected it to Amazon's Author Central site. So stay tuned! Let's see how it works this time.
