A Rational Arrangement: editing complete!

[rowyn]

As I was doing my usual aimless webbrowsing this morning, I thought, "I should do something more productive. Like edit A Rational Arrangement ... oh wait, I'm done with that."

Right.

I declared last night that I was going to stop poking at A Rational Arrangement now, and officially handed it off to alinsa, who'd volunteered to typeset it for me ages ago.

My plan for the story from here goes something like this:

* Serialize it on LJ and Dreamwidth (under my existing Rowyn accounts). The serial will run three times a week, for 250 or so posts. (Come to think of it, I actually do have to poke at the manuscript some more to divide it into posts.)
* Possibly serialize it some other places at the same time, such as tumblr, or on its own site.  "Its own site" does not seem worth the effort of creating; almost everyone I know who has their own domain complains about the effort required maintaining it and its unreliability. But maybe something will change my mind on this. All the cool kids have their own sites, after all.
* Create a cover for it.
* Not long after starting the serial (maybe a month?), release it as an ebook, so that people who don't want to wait for each post can buy it.

Possibly-optional steps:

* Set up a micro business for self-publishing purposes.  I don't know how important this is, but some sources say it's useful for tax purposes to have your writing under its own business, and it doesn't seem like it'd hurt. Should research.
* Buy some ISBNs. Some of my friends who self-publish say you don't need to do this any more, and some of them still do it, so I should presumably research it further.

The cover is the part that feels like the most work, at this point. I don't particularly want to commission a professional artist to do a cover, for various reasons. The two biggest reasons are: (a) I don't think the book's odds of profitability justify the expense of a pro cover. It's a niche product for a niche genre and (b) I have no good ideas that would require a pro artist. I have been trying to picture how I'd illustrate the book in standard "here are the protagonists" romance style, and I got nothin'.

I have  one idea for a cover that I like, which would be "smallish photograph of three overlapping wedding bands, against a dark background, with book title the dominant element." I might need to pay a photographer for this. I dunno. Presumably it'd be cheaper than paying for a cover painting, at least. This style of cover is popular in YA, which my book isn't, which is the main downside to it. The main upside is that I like it, unlike everything else I can think of.

I have no actual design programs. I will play around with ideas in ArtRage and see what I come up with.

I plan to publish the book under a pseudonym, probably "L. Rowyn". This would save me the trouble of getting social media account names that match my author name. Also, assuming I ever publish non-romance books, I'll probably do so under a different name anyway. Not out of a desire for anonymity, but because the markets are different enough that I think a different 'brand' makes sense.

I am probably forgetting some steps. What am I forgetting?

Also: yay! I finished editing a book! I've never declared victory on editing before. Exciting. \o/

Comments

[alinsa.livejournal.com]

Can you re-sell ISBNs? Not really. You can give them to whoever you want, but they will always be associated with whatever company got assigned to them when you bought them. There is no 'ownership transfer' or the like.


I think it'll be simpler to do it myself, and not have you dragged in forever There's actually no direct relationship between where any of the money goes and what name is attached to an ISBN. There's not a database of "if ISBN belongs to company X, send the money to this address..." or the like. Other than attaching a publisher's name to the book, I don't think there's any other direct impact of such. (I'm not 100% positive on this, but I'm about 98% positive.

(I'd mostly mentioned it, though, because I'd pondered a few times paying for a block of ISBNs to make it easier for really small folks whose work I might typset to get it out there. The problem with that plan, of course, is that I really need to find more people to let me typeset their work. But that's beside the point.)


I am more concerned about "functional" than "pretty" Well, I can certainly get something running and then point you at a bunch of wordpress theme sites and go "see anything you like?"


Presumably you can give me access to the code Absolutely! Though, let me tell you, doing pretty much anything with wordpress themes suuuuuuuucks. A lot. A whole lot. Unbelievably a lot.


I'm hoping to do some cover mock-ups this weekend Yay! Feel free to share. :)


I need to photograph actual rings, I will probably see if I can find a jewelry store that will let me do it. If you did a bunch of prepwork and basically figured out the camera bits, the lighting, the background to use, etc, so that you could basically walk into a jewelry store and, once you've found the rings you want, spend just a few minutes with them 'on loan' to get what you need, I suspect many stores would be pretty willing (especially if they're non-chain stores, and you tell them what you're doing. Maybe buy something in thanks. Something cheaper than a wedding band, that is). Figuring out the lighting and positioning and backdrop and everything is going to be the time-consuming part, so you really don't want to have to do that on-location.

(I don't know, off the top of my head, what to suggest for lighting, especially that you can pick up and move easily. The lighting part is really important, though, so you don't just want to throw a camera flash at it or something. Hmmmm...)