Let's face a few things: Huge amounts of novels have not yet been moved. For that, the entry level cost per copy is still far too high. The best is people buying the books off the website; but accommodating a shop's profit in the equation is not easy, and adding an agent's margin pushes the selling price out of range for normal book lovers. So the greatest challenge is to find a printer who will go low enough on small volumes.
The second largest challenge is publicity, but I blogged on that before and will be blogging again; not tonight though.
However despite small sales volume the business has grown enough that it now sports quite an enticing little range. The range is due to be extended once again, in the very near future:
- "Forest Circle Quest" is practically print-ready
- So is "Lupa"
- "Freedom Fighter" is print-ready
- and we are adding a lovely little range of books for young children, hard-cover and fully illustrated, by children's book author Leslie Hyla Winton Noble with his delightful sense of humour, and a very talented young illustrator.
The one thing that catches me a bit is overload. I find that as I haven't stopped doing what I was doing before for bread-and-butter, i.e. running a music studio, I work until late at night, to be up before dawn again the next morning. This takes its toll, and the item that suffers most is my own writing. I can understand and envy writers who howl, "all I want to do is write". Like being a full-time mother, being a full-time writer is a profession for a select few privileged souls who don't have to earn a living en route to their first bestseller.
Btw, did you know in South Africa a book counts for a bestseller if it sells 3000 copies here? One needs to raise the bar - nobody can get financially independent on 3000 copies of a book!
That's all for now...
