The Northboro Library!

About 25 people attended my reading/book signing at the Northboro library last night and about 15 books walked out the door with them. It was a wonderful evening! We talked cheese, lard, healthcare, science and publishing — all great topics as far as I'm concerned! — and I am so grateful to everyone who attended for making me feel comfortable. I hope they all had as much fun as I did.

I'm also very grateful to Eileen Palmer for setting this up and hosting, and to Diane and Matthew Webster for helping make things run smoothly!

The other great news is the the Northboro library has decided to carry The Blind Pig! The biggest win is that part of stocking it involves cataloging it. This is something that takes a fair amount of time on the part of the library, so if you aren't Steven King, it's challenging to get someone to do it for you.

This is the book club phenomenon in action. The Northboro Mom's and Tot's book club and the Algonquin HS book club are reading the book, and they are asking for it at the library. Similarly, a book club in Shelburne, VT is reading the book and they've been asking for it at their local bookstore, Flying Pig Books.

I've taken this new level of demand as a sign. It's time to take another look at Lightning Source. This is the printing service that, for a fee, will print the book on demand and also stock it in all of the catalogs that bookstores and libraries use. It's a step up in printing and distribution. At least, I think it is. Before I do anything, I've got to do some comparative shopping.

I could use CreateSpace, my current Print On Demand service, to get into these catalogs, but if I do, then I need to raise the price of the book. I just don't want to do that. I like my price point and other people do too. I think $10 is a fair price for a paperback. I could set up a discount for non-bookstores, but it would be a lot of work on my part to communicate it. And readers would have to remember to use it. It's just not the same as having a book priced right.

The other big publishing project on the docket is getting my ebook on Amazon. I published my ebook through Smashwords months ago and it's still not sold through Amazon for the Kindle. When I asked Smashwords why, here's the response I got:

"We're working with Amazon to get clearance for our files, but I can't guarantee when that date might be.  It might be one week, two weeks, or much longer, since much of this is in their hands."

I think this is preventing Kindle users from buying it, so I'm going to publish directly through Amazon's ebook service. This kind of pisses me off — I'm doing exactly what Amazon wants by using their special service — but who am I to fight the giant? If I go back to my core goal here — I want people to read my book — then it makes sense for me to open every path in front of me and keep the price down.

So that's what I'm planning to do.

I'm also meeting with my film-maker, Eric Joslin, today to talk about my book trailer. Whee! I'm very excited about this project! And I'm so so grateful to all of the people who are volunteering time, equipment and energy. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have the support of so many friends.