Going hardback

Getting better at DIY

One of the joys of book publishing is holding your book, that finished product in your hand. You stare at it, see your name on the cover. As a person who grew up haunting libraries in an older age, that joy is greatest for me when the book is in hardback.

The first time I held a hardback copy of my book in my hand, it was a technical book. It was exciting. After a few bouts with trad publishers, I was one of the many delighted when indie publishing came into its own. I jumped on that bandwagon with my fiction and haven’t looked back.

When Amazon introduced hardbacks, I was disappointed in the case laminate version they came up with. Except for textbooks, hardbacks cry out for dust jackets.

But that lament quickly became ancient history (a category that includes anything in publishing that happened over a week ago). Various vendors have been introducing varieties of options. I am not the right person to weigh the pros and cons of Bookvault and Ingram Spark and Lulu, and there are millions of videos comparing the options, which tend to support different business models and needs.

I chose to work with Ingram-Spark.

I have turned a corner with my publishing effort, which used to be more a writing effort that involved wrapping up each book by getting a cover, and doing a little packaging. Now I’m focusing on taking the time to do more and using the tools available to go toe-to-toe with the big kids in publishing (successful indies and the big four, five, whatever).

I’ll talk about some of the aspects of that, but one thing I wanted to do was created a hardback. But things seldom work right the first time out of the gate, and I decided to do a hardback of my thriller novel BETRAYAL. It’s part of my Storefront Assassin series. It would be a test and a learning experience.

I’ll discuss the production aspects later. This is just a report on the surreal feeling of getting a copy in my hands. It turns out to be exactly as much fun as it should be—a serious thrill.

I am very pleased with the results. I’m also happy that I can let you have a copy of this edition for $21.93US if you buy it from Ingram Spark. It will be $29.99 from other retailers. Just click on the cover.