Nell Walton liked an update for The Knightmares

Hello my Knightmares!

A few things to update you on. Firstly, thank you to EVERYONE who has recently ordered. I’m behind on sending out my thank you messages, but will do that today. I have had this dream of being published for the last 21 years.

One might ask why I didn’t pursue it until now. The answer is simple; I never thought I was good enough. I kept a lot of my work to myself, and most of that was done during late night writing sessions after I put in a full day of work at my day job.

Being a writer is tough. It’s so subjective and extremely difficult to break through the noise. Getting published is a full time job all to itself. You can either go the traditional route or independently publish. I chose Inkshares because it was somewhere in between. Crowd-funding is difficult! I have probably emailed everyone I know 2 or 3 times. I have sent Facebook messages, posted to Facebook and a Facebook fanpage. I have paid for ads, posted to Reddit, Instagram, LinkedIn and more. I have even created a website dedicated to this project and all that it can be.

With that said, I am still struggling to get pre-orders.

I get it. I really do. It feels like an odd investment versus something that’s actually going to be in your hands within a week or two when the mailman strolls up with a package under his arm for you. And yeah, some people prefer non-fiction or picture books or self help or chick-lit or anything but fantasy/sci-fi/horror...but I promise you there is a little something for everyone in this book.

I am asking you to please, put that aside.

If everyone who balked at the opportunity to back this project bought just a single e-book for $10, I would already have surpassed my 250 Quill mark and be well on my way to being published. If you really want to support the project but have already purchased, please purchase again! Every order counts.

Or copy and paste the below message (filling in the appropriate information) into an email and send it to your friends and family who might be interested.

******

[YOUR OWN SALUTATION]
I’m writing to ask you for your help. My good friend has written a book and in order to get published, he needs to hit 250 preorders. There’s only 30 days left and he needs all the orders he can get.

It’s only $10 for an ebook, and $20 for an autographed soft-cover book.

Any and all help you can give would be greatly appreciated!

The book is a horror-comedy about 9 geek-culture loving, bantering punk kids who are pitted against an evil, sexy succubus from another dimension and her demented plans for resurrecting her long lost love. There are ghosts and pirate treasure and alien gods and alchemy and exorcisms and lots of weird stuff too. Its a fun ride and worth the support to help an indie author achieve his dream.

Please go here buy: https://www.inkshares.com/books/the-knightmares

And while you’re there, check out the trailer and read a sample chapter or two!

Thank you! I really appreciate any help you can give!
[Closing]

******

Crowdfunding is about word-of-mouth, and about community. Right now, all of you are forming a community of support for this project. It’ll be worth the investment. The below is an excerpt of the kind of humor and craziness you’ll find within the book. There are scares, genuine laughs and plenty of snark.

Excerpt from THE KNIGHTMARES:

Neither Gavin nor Thad had ever seen Bob behave this way. Bob was fearless. Bob was stoic. Bob never backed down, not even that time the crazy cashier at the Burger King placed the wrong order and rung him up for a single Whopper, when he explicitly ordered a double. She threatened to stick fries in places on his body that fries should never be placed, and still he didn’t back down until they laid an extra beef patty between his buns.

So please, everyone try and pitch in if you can. If you can get just 2 people to purchase a book, that would go a long long way to helping me hit the magic 250 number needed to see this book.

An update on the new cover art is coming.

And remember, every order gets a Knightmares bookmark (I’m playing around with the idea of 11 different bookmarks, one for each character).

Buy 2 books and get a poster. BUY 3 and get the whole set of 11 bookmarks.

Refer the most people to my book and win a framed copy of the new cover art, signed and autographed by me and the artist.

Thank you for reading my update! I appreciate all the support. You guys are awesome! Let’s go hit 250!

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Nell Walton commented on Jump the Gun

Wow - Portuguese is my second language and I can only IMAGINE what a book would be like if I tried to write one! WTG! I like it so far - couriosity is misspelled. I would do a few editing tweaks, but you are off to a great start with this chapter!

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Nell Walton followed Jump the Gun

Jump the Gun

Meg, a fighter pilot, and Captain Jasmin Pierce, the civilian commander of the Rheda, find themselves on a mission that spans more than just light years: there’s mystery, adventure, romance, discovery, danger and love for the stars.

Nell Walton commented on And the Wolf Shall Dwell

Love this already!

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Nell Walton liked a chapter from And the Wolf Shall Dwell

5 am. Gracechurch Avenue’s lampposts had managed to slightly chase away the darkness left by the night, but it still refused to give way to the rising dawn. The temperature was freezing cold, and the grey-bluish night mist seemed to absorb the lampposts’ dim orange light.

Had he not known what time it was, John could have sworn it was still the middle of the night, rather than morning. The sun was a late riser in London these days, as if she was aching for a lie-in herself, preferring th. . .

recommend · recommended by Allison and 7 others

Nell Walton liked a chapter from And the Wolf Shall Dwell

5 am. Gracechurch Avenue’s lampposts had managed to slightly chase away the darkness left by the night, but it still refused to give way to the rising dawn. The temperature was freezing cold, and the grey-bluish night mist seemed to absorb the lampposts’ dim orange light.

Had he not known what time it was, John could have sworn it was still the middle of the night, rather than morning. The sun was a late riser in London these days, as if she was aching for a lie-in herself, preferring th. . .

recommend · recommended by Allison and 7 others

Nell Walton commented on Children of the Wise Oak

Thank you so much for posting this update about the business side of self publishing. There are many roads to Rome, and we have to find the one that is the best path for us!

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Nell Walton liked an update for Children of the Wise Oak

Some good news for me, and a big up for Inkshares.

Here’s the thing; I missed my funding goal, didn’t even make Quill. Because I am impatient, and because the book itself was already finished, I just couldn’t wait to try another route to crowdfund my novel.

So, I went to Kickstarter, and I did reach my funding goal. The book itself is being printed now and backers will be getting their copies before the end of June. Digital launch is set for 1st July on all platforms, advance orders available now. Paperbacks should be on Amazon around the same date.

So does that mean I turn my back on Inkshares? Well no.
Obviously I haven’t been as active on here as when I was funding, but part of the reason for that is the massive amount of work involved in self publishing.

While I was funding, I read some comments on a Kindle forum criticising the Inkshares model, saying it wasn’t good value. An INkshares spokesperson pointed out that self publishers spend on average $2,000 (or thereabouts) getting their book to market.
Another person said it was nothing like that.

Well I raised £1,666 (£1,800 before deductions) on Kickstarter, and I have spent it all and then some.

I set up a publishing imprint "Blue Poppy Publishing", I had an artist paint a picture for the cover £450, I spent £350 on ISBNs, £360 on editing (it only had one editor), £300 on cover and other design work, £900 on printing, and a bunch of other sundry stuff.

I have had to format the interior file and convert it to PDF, which included learning more about Word sections, embedding fonts, and all sorts of painful stuff like that than I ever expected to do. I had to liaise between the printer and the designer over the exact specs for the two different cover templates, and check silly details like which way round the title goes on the spine.

I also had to find out how to convert the file into a digital type layout with internal links and approved fonts, then get it converted into .mobi .pdf .txt .rtf .epub dot dot dot you get the idea?
Also had to upload a special version to Createspace because otherwise I will have to jump through hoops and pay through the nose to get the paperback available on Amazon.

So while I may be a lot more experienced at producing a book now than I was six months ago, I would still drop it all and leave the hard work to experts if I could. The difficulty for me, living in the UK is the cost of postage for physical books to the vast majority of my friends. Other than that, I think Inkshares is a brilliant idea, and I hope it goes from strength to strength. Well done for making so many authors dreams come true.

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