A friend of mine says I write like a whirling dervish, having produced two very "big historicals" (700+ pages each) and completed the first draft of the third.substantially shorter third book in my Queen of Scots series. The debut novel "The First Marie and the Queen of Scots" (Createspace, May 2011)took a great research effort but the second, The Last Knight and the Queen of Scots (Createspace, May 2012) was much easier, since much of the research had already been completed. Before I began this project had never heard of either Marie Flemyn, (the First Marie), or Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange, (the Last Knight). I learned as much from them as I learned about them, and I remain in both their thrall and their debt.
Practical lessons came with the adventure. I learned, for example:
1. 700 pages of historical novel is way tooooo long a read.
2. Three line edits are essential. Then do a fourth! THEN DO A FIFTH!
3. Do not expect people to buy a trade paperback that is priced higher than the books on the NYT Bestseller list.
4. Expect your ebook version to outsell the print version by a lot! Mine exceed a ratio of ten to one.
5. Cover illustrations are important.
6. Do not expect the people who tell you they are submitting a review to do it. If it isn't on Amazon within a day of their promise, it more than likely never will be .
7. If you are writing a series with recurring characters, select readers for the subsequent titles who have NOT read the earlier selections to make sure they stand alone, (assuming that is your objective.)
8. Do not quit your day job. (Book two will show a modest profit by the end of its first year,mostly all ebook sales, and the first book will show a profit this year in spite of the excessive amount spent on interior art and upgraded cover and interior design).
All of this brings me to a dilemma. With ebook sales exceeding print sales by a ratio of ten to one, is there a good reason to bother with anything but the ebook version? I would love to hear what others think. Since book three, The Midwife's Secret will be headed for its second edit next week, I can have it in production by October if I do not use Createspace to produce a paperback version. That will require me to study at length the formatting requirements for publishing on Amazon kdp. because I have had Createspace do the conversion in the past, and their work in that area is economical and excellent. Unfortunately, they do not provide that service for books not also offered in a print version. A bare bones Createspace pacgage would cost about $450. ADVICE,ANYONE?

And I hired an editor for my latest and still did five line edits, three before and two after and still find mistakes.