I cannot tell you how happy I am to have these books back in print, with ebooks for the ebook readers. This represents years—decades—of research and work.
Just nine years ago, this wasn’t possible and, believe me, I looked into it. Nine years ago, you had to invest $ 25,000 per book to produce an independent title.
Now, thanks to Amazon and your own ingenuity, the cost is negligible.
The scheduling freedom, control over your own marketing, and the reaping of the monthly profits is the reason why most traditionally published authors I know publish at least some of their new titles and most of their backlist independently.
First, you need to secure the reversion rights from the original traditional publisher—usually not a problem.
Then you need to master the correct format for a print book (and the correct format for an ebook). You no longer have to know HTML to do this, though; the website these days does the programming for you.
Then you can either go with Amazon’s cover creator function, buy cover art at a website like Dreamstime, or hire a cover artist.
Amazon’s cover creator is useful if you want to be sure your cover meets the specifications—and you don’t care whether your cover is ho-hum.
Buying cover art from a website runs the risk that your book will look exactly like some other author’s. I’ve seen this phenomenon multiple times, including from small publishers who should know better!
Hiring a cover artist may be expensive, but you will be assured of a unique cover for your book.
If you opt for the latter two choices, next you also have to hire a paste-up artist who will know how calculate and lay-out the back cover, the spine, and the front cover.
Fortunately for me, I’m married to an accomplished artist plus an old-fashioned lay-out artist! Hooray for Tom Robinson! (While he was a student at the San Francisco Art Institute, he worked for Francis Ford Coppola’s City Magazine.)
But yes, I pay him. He’s expensive!
Here are the links to the print titles above:
CHROME (“I was enjoying the characters and the story so much that the superb writing simply did its job”) is in U.S. print as a beautiful trade paperback. Also in U.K. print, in German print, in French print, in Spanish print, in Italian print, and in Japanese print.
Summer of Love (a Philip K. Dick Award Finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book) is in print as a beautiful quality trade paperback in the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Japan.
The Gilded Age (a New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book) is in print in the U.S., the U.K., in France, in Germany, in Italy, in Spain, and in Japan.
The Garden of Abracadabra (“Fun and enjoyable Urban Fantasy”) is in print in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Japan.
Cyberweb (“Some very deep philosophical questions are posed…a very entertaining and thoughtful story.”) is in print in the U.S., in the U.K., in Germany, in France, in Spain, in Italy, and in Japan.
ARACHNE (“Highly recommended and very memorable.”) is in print in the U.S., in the U.K., in Germany, in France, in Spain, in Italy, and in Japan.
One Day in the Life of Alexa (“[An] absorbing read with an appealing narrator and subtly powerful emotional rhythms.”) is in print in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Japan.
Strange Ladies: 7 Stories (“A must-read collection—The San Francisco Review of Books) is in Print in the U.S., in the U.K., in Germany, in France, in Spain, in Italy, and in Japan.
Join my Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=23011206 and support me while I recover from the Attack. I’ve got lots of goodies there for you with more on the way.
Donate from your PayPal account to lisasmason@aol.com.
Visit me at www.lisamason.com for all my books, ebooks, stories, and screenplays, worldwide links, covers, reviews, interviews, blogs, round-tables, adorable cat pictures, forthcoming works, fine art and bespoke jewelry by my husband Tom Robinson, and more!