The Shards of the Heart

To keep this short and simple: book 2 is out! Grab it here :)

The Many Different Self-Publishing Platforms

Quick book 2 update: I will be publishing around New Years. I don't have an exact date, but this is about 2 or 3 months sooner than my previous target.

As I'm reaching the moment of publication for book 2 of The Corpus Chronicles, I thought I'd share another self-publishing tidbit with you all.

UNDERSTAND THAT CREATESPACE IS NOT A MAGIC BULLET.

It will make your life much easier, trust me.

Most of the self-published authors I talk to, like me, used Amazon Createspace to publish. I chose Createspace after a lot of research. As EOA was my first novel, I needed an extremely user-friendly to get a good footing. I also liked how I could center ebook and paperback distribution into one very well known website. However, there were some downsides I did not know about before I started.

1. First, if you are signing up for Createspace and continue on to Kindle Direct Publishing for ebooks, DO NOT click the button signing you up for KDP Select. The agreement prevents you from having your ebook available anywhere other than Amazon and the royalties they pay you in return are very negligible - for me it was only a couple of dollars a month. You miss out on sales and your book doesn't get as much circulation. I made a stupid rookie mistake. Don't fall for it too.
2. Second, Createspace has a lot of paid services, such as professional cover design and interior layout. This sounds great and all, but Createspace receives a massive amount of orders at a time, and the cover art they produce ends up looking cheap for the exorbitant amount you have to pay them. It is much better to find an illustrator on your own. I'd recommend Kit Foster (and here's a link to my previous post detailing the illustrating process with him). He's a bit pricier than others I've seen, but the amount of time and effort he puts into his work is immediately recognizable. There are other artists that offer ready made covers for around fifty dollars (which is much better than the 200+ dollars Createspace demands). The only down side to these covers is that you probably won't be lucky enough to find something ready made that will immediately capture the essence of your book, but hey, it's worth a look. You could also design your cover yourself, but this is not something I would recommend unless you're an experienced artist/graphic designer, because everyone judges a book based on the cover. Moving on to interior layout/design - again, Createspace offers this service at a very high price. There are other services that will format the interior pages of your book for much cheaper rates. However, after looking into these services, I decided to do it myself. I had to do a lot of research to determine the preferred font/spacing for different books (yes this is a thing and there are a lot of factors such as target age group, genre, length, book dimensions, and plain old personal preference). It wasn't too difficult to do and it came out looking as good as the professionally designed ones. I must warn you though, the Createspace template was a pain to deal with.
3. Third, Createspace is very popular. Consequentially, it is also very saturated with a ton of different titles. It will be hard to get your book seen. It is important to have either a paperback/ebook available on Amazon as it is a good place to centralize reviews, but using a couple other platforms is very helpful to get more exposure. 
4. Lastly, and probably my biggest problem with Createspace, is how hard it is to list an ebook as free on Amazon. Amazon wants to make money, so besides for five day promotions run through KDP Select, you can't list your ebook for free. When I ran my five day promotion, I got hundreds of more downloads than I had ever gotten before, and as a new, independent author, getting your name out there is the most important thing. After that, I wanted to list my book for free for longer to hopefully rake in some reviews, but Amazon would not allow it. However, Amazon does have price match and you can list your ebook as free on another platform and then ask Amazon to price match. Some author friends of mine have been successful with this. I've been trying for months and Amazon still hasn't followed up with any of my requests. It's very hit and miss. 

Those were the big problems I found with Createspace, but there were also many positive aspects, so don't write it off right away. If you know what you are doing going into the process, you can have a much more positive experience, like I am with The Corpus Chronicles Book 2. Learn from the mistakes of others. It's much better than making them yourself.

As a last little note, you don't have to use just one self-publishing platform. Currently, I have EOA up on Amazon and Smashwords, but there are so many others. The more platforms you hit, the greater your circulation will be.

That's all for today. Enjoy, share, comment. 

-Esha 

The Corpus Chronicles Book 2 News

About half an hour ago I put the finishing touches on the first draft of book 2 of the Corpus Chronicles! I know it's been a while, so here are all the updates, and yes, I finally committed to a title.

- Now that the first draft is done, here is my expected timeline:

1. Self editing - through to the end of November (that is if I don't do NaNo this year)
2. Beta readers - I'll probably try and make sure they get back to me by the end of December, but schedules vary. Hopefully work based on their comments will be done by mid January.
3. Copy editing - will aim to be done by end January
4. Cover art! - My favorite part. This will probably take from four to six weeks to finalize, but the process might overlap with some of the final copy editing
5. At some point in here I will have to write a detailed book 3 outline to make sure everything matches up before I send book 2 out. Right now I just have about a page and a half covered with a messy jumble of ideas.

In a previous version of this post, I added a title release, but then I realized I wasn't ready for that kind of commitment.

As you know, schedules have a nasty habit of changing themselves around on a whim, but hopefully Book 2 will be in print very soon.

The Essence of Aptitude Ebook

The ebook is here!

http://www.amazon.com/Essence-Aptitude-Corpus-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00Y3X84OE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1432341856&sr=8-1&keywords=esha+bajaj

Book release

Hi everyone! My debut novel, The Essence of Aptitude, has just been released.

Here is the back cover blurb:

The Great Empire of Corpus thrives by the hand of a system that monitors their citizens from birth. Their inclination towards logic is calculated into a finite number that is branded onto their wrists on their ranking day at the age of sixteen, and they are separated into one of six colored categories. Juliet and Gwendolyn Fenn spend the beginning of their lives bound back by the Grey status of their parents, residing at the utmost bottom of the hierarchy. On ranking day, agents of a mysterious unranked sect, the Conscience, snatch Juliet from her home. They take her to the Cerebrum, the capitol of the land and the dwelling place of the Metallic ranks, Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Once there, Juliet is informed that she has not only been ranked as a Gold, but as the First, and will be groomed to be the crowned ruler of the nation. Gwendolyn, ranked into Blue, only one step higher from her origins, soon becomes sick with resentment as the depths of her sister’s arrogance come to light. She decides to take matters into her own hands and joins the Fracture, an insurgent group lead by the notorious Tyus Zraa, who’s true colors Gwendolyn fails to discover until she is in too deep to turn around.

You can find it here:
http://www.amazon.com/Essence-Aptitude-Corpus-Chronicles/dp/0692453628/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1432335988&sr=8-1&keywords=the+essence+of+aptitude

Enjoy!