Publishing Notes

Here are a few notes about my upcoming book, "Vhaidra & the DESTINY of Nikodemos".

• The book is written in British English. This may make some spelling and grammatical conventions look odd to American readers. Please know that these are not grammar or spelling mistakes, but simply a different type of English than you may be used to. I personally think it adds to the feel of a fantasy novel and have long loved British English. 


• I chose the digest size(5.5" x 8.5") rather than pocketbook size (4.25” x 6.87”) for my paperback and used 14 pt. text instead of 10 or 12 pt. text. This is smaller than what is considered "large print" (16 pt or higher) in the publishing world, but should make it much easier to read without eye-strain. Tiny books with tiny fonts have always been a pet-peeve of mine.


• Did you know that the reason that some stores are out of paper bags is due to a paper shortage right now? The bad thing about this is that the cost of paper has increased since then, and so books publishing with small publishers that do not have a set price for sale in the contracts are going to be more expensive than originally planned. My apologies that the book will now be $19.99 instead of the planned $10.99-$16.99 USD price. 


• I am only allowed to give credit to one person for cover design, so it went to the amazing cover artist, Stan Saint Yak, who drew the cover, however credit should also go to Robert Nugent, who is responsible for the wonderful colors. I think he really nailed the look of Vhaidra's dark grey skin, black leather, jacinth gemstones, and white hair reflecting the magenta faerie fire everywhere that Stan drew so beautifully. I am sure that their striking cover design will be responsible for many sales, hence I am sharing my profits with them.


• I started the process with 30 chapters and 333 pages, but with editing and formatting we ended up with 292 pages and kept 30 chapters. Still circa 300 pages, which is pretty standard for a fantasy novel.


• Amazon should be receiving the books tomorrow, which puts on pace for it to be ready for the August 1st date, as there is a standard 7 business day wait for approval and listing. Any advance release or delays are now in their hands. Other bookstores will be getting it from the distributor and not directly from the publisher, so they will not have the book available until after Amazon does. Some international Amazon stores are not receiving new items at their warehouses due to the COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus Pandemic, so it looks like residents of some countries may need to order through the American, British, or Indian Amazon sites for a few months, at least. 


• Speaking of Amazon, they will be listing it as Fiction: Action & Adventure and Fiction: Fantasy. If you wanted to breakdown the sub-genres even further I would say it could fit into Fiction: Fantasy: Adventure, Fiction: Fantasy: Epic, and even Fiction: Fantasy: Romance. One publisher that looked at my manuscript even suggested Fiction: Religious or Fiction: Fantasy: Religion as an additional sub-genre to list it under.