Would you buy a print edition of Faerie Blood?

[annathepiper]

So, Carina Press has said no on Faerie Blood. This leaves before me the question of what to do with it next, and at this point, I have three problems with this novel when it comes to pitching it in the current market:

1. There are already a whole lot of urban fantasy novels out there;
2. I’m not romance-y enough for the paranormal romance end of the spectrum, read, I have no sex in this novel, and there’s barely any kissing;
3. I’m also not dark/gritty/apocalyptic enough for the urban fantasy end of the spectrum. There’s not much actual violence in this book, and my heroine isn’t a badass, she’s a fiddle-playing geek who only just finds out about her fey heritage and the magic she’s inherited from her mother–she doesn’t have much time in the story to actually do anything seriously badassed with it.

Given these things, I am extremely dubious about my ability to pitch the novel to any further big pubs or agents. For one thing, I’ve already pitched it to most of the big pubs, with the exception of DAW, and the main reason I haven’t sent it to them at this point is my aforementioned wariness of the current urban fantasy market. For another thing, I’ve also already pitched it to the agents in which I’m actively interested. Part of me is still nagging that the couple dozen agents I’ve pitched it to isn’t enough work on pitching it–but on the other hand, a lot of the agents out there seem to have gotten slammed with so many queries now that their slush piles are crazytalk and their response times have accordingly increased dramatically. There are some agents whose response time has gotten to be over a year, and that’s assuming you get back a response at all.

So given all this, I’m seriously tempted to go the self-pub route with Faerie Blood and any further related stories, and focus other energies on newer things to be pitched to the big pubs.

My question for you therefore, O Internets, is this: if I were to do a limited run of print copies of Faerie Blood, would you buy one? I’m thinking about it because there are two Espresso book machines right here in Seattle, and one of them is right down the hill from my house at Third Place Books. I have two books (by other people) that are the output of this machine, and while it had trouble with the thicker one which is over 500 pages, the shorter one, which is comparable to Faerie Blood in length, is not badly assembled at all. If I were to get new, cover-quality art for the novel, it’s conceivable that I could therefore do a small set of print copies.

So I’m putting hard thought into this. I am looking at Third Place’s posted rates for their printing services, and pondering the possibility of doing a Kickstarter to raise the money.

Talk to me, Internets. Would you be interested? Because if I get enough people going hell yeah, I will move forward with this.

ETA: It has now been suggested to me on Google+ that I should consider a Kickstarter not for Faerie Blood specifically, but rather, for finishing Book 2, Bone Walker–and offering print copies of Faerie Blood as a potential incentive! I like this idea quite a bit and am going to be thinking about it very hard. If any of you out there would like this too, I really want to know about it!

Mirrored from angelakorrati.com.

Comments

[mdlbear]

Print-on-demand, i.e. Lulu or similar, may well be a better move -- that way you don't have to raise a lot of money up front.

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I already bought it as an ebook and read it. I liked it! And I like you! But I don't buy physical books that I have an ebook version of already very often. You may have tapped out your friendslist in this respect.

[annathepiper]

I know I haven't tapped out everybody, because more than once people have said to me that they'd totally love to read my book if it were in print.

I know a lot of ebook-reading geeks, but I also know a lot of people who specifically prefer print books. It's this latter set of people I'm primarily thinking about here, since I certainly wouldn't expect anyone who already has the Drollerie ebook to re-buy the book in print!

(And I do thank you for your prior support! :) )

[annathepiper]

The Espresso Book Machine IS a print-on-demand device. And the costs, aside from a $75 setup fee, are fairly minimal--for a book the length of Faerie Blood, it looks like Third Place would charge me two bucks per book and 3 cents per page.

Costs I'd incur on top of that would primarily involve commissioning new cover art. Which I'd be doing anyway if I self-pubbed via some other means, e.g., Lulu.

But the main reason I'm interested in Third Place is because they're a local business and the idea of supporting them appeals to me greatly. They are in fact very, VERY local to my house. It'd be kind of awesome to be able to just go down the hill and grab the books they've printed for me!

[maellenkleth]

Well, hell yeah, I'd want a print copy, with an author note on the front flyleaf, of course!

G'luck, eh?

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Huh. Now that's a way of getting a few print copies of my book to sell the few people I know who don't do ebooks that I hadn't thought of.

Thanks!

And much sympathy about Carina Press.

[mdlbear]

The difference is that Lulu takes orders over the web and ships them for you. Whether that's a plus or a minus for you, well...

[annathepiper]

I'm aware of that being a difference, yes, and honestly, it wouldn't make much of a difference for me. I have the technical chops to, if necessary, beef up my own web site to make it capable of taking web orders, and, if necessary, for jumping over to Paypal to let people pay me for them. And I'm perfectly capable of packaging up a book and mailing it to somebody. ;)

And honestly, given the likely scale at which I'd be operating here, I'm not seeing that this would be a huge inconvenience to me. Because we're talking self-pub here, I'd be really, REALLY fortunate to sell a few hundred copies at best. I'm not operating with massive expectations for the potential sales numbers here. :)

[annathepiper]

You're welcome! And thank you.

[annathepiper]

Thanks!

I think it'd be safe to say that if I moved forward with the Kickstarter plan, any and all supporters who chimed in for print copies would damn well get signed ones. :)

[mdlbear]

*nods* In that case, I agree you're better off buying local.

[annathepiper]

And truth be told, even if I went via Lulu, my likely sales numbers would still be small. The big question would be getting people to buy the book at all, not who's going to print and ship it for me. The ease with which people can self-pub these days means there are a whole helluva lot of self-pubbed books out there--so if you want to expect to move a lot of copies at all, you have to be really, really good at marketing yourself.

Which I'm not. *^_^*;;

So yeah. Long story short, Lulu would not be a huge advantage. I think I'd probably want to emphasize selling the electronic copies online because that's easier, but have the option of printing off copies in reserve for those that want them.

[caligogreywings.livejournal.com]

Depending on cost to me, I'd love to have a print version. I can't really by e-books, because I lack any sort of reader that isn't my smartphone. I am definitely still in the dark ages, and prefer paper.

[annathepiper]

For the record, I'll never tell somebody who prefers print that they are "in the dark ages", so never feel like you have to apologize for that to me! I may prefer digital myself, but I absolutely respect the preferences of those who prefer print.

Also, thanks for chiming in!