I’ve done it! I have finished the first draft of Cade’s Point, the sixth book in the Sir Anthony Standen Adventures. Now I need to sit back and let Claire read it, when she’s ready. It weighs in at 66,000 words. Readers of the series may wonder where the fifth book is. I have a manuscript for Serpent’s Teeth, which Claire has critiqued, several times. Since the publishing process always takes me some time to familiarise myself with, I intend to publish both at the same time, fingers crossed before Christmas.
Once both Claire and I are happy with the manuscripts the first step is to submit them for review by Kirkus and The Historical Fiction Company. If the reviews are positive, I’ll have some blurb for the back covers. If the reviews are negative, then I need to rewrite. Once I have the covers I can prepare the ebook and paperback for publication on KDP. I’ll also publish the paperbacks on Ingram Spark. That’s a more costly route, but they have a returns policy which means that bookshops will buy from them. I do seem to be selling more books through them, which I hope means they’re appearing in bookshops, I know not where. This time around I’m going to take full advantage of the CWA’s publicity machine.
I’m not planning to publish the audiobooks for a while. They are relatively costly to produce, and the returns are minimal. That doesn’t mean I won’t, I’ll just wait and see how successful the ebooks are. They account for the vast majority of sales and revenues.
What I’m really hoping is true is that six really is the magical critical mass for books. I have heard from several reputable sources that when you get to six, the books start selling themselves. Fingers crossed!