Gotcha Covered

It's here! The cover for Horsepower, the new release from J. J. Collins! I don't have a release date yet, but it should be some time before the end of the month. I think. It's been removed from the Coming Soon page on the Evernight site. I'm hoping that's just an oversight. I'm sure if there was some kind of problem they would have contacted me.

This is the book I was talking about last week, the one where the publisher and I were wrestling over my use of strange spelling and slang words. Things worked out. I made the changes in the narrative they wanted, and they let me keep my dialogue, and by extension my characterizations, which is what I was ready to fight for. I consider it a win-win.

Some people may want to use this as an example of why self-publishing is the way to go. If that's your thing, fine. For the time being I'm willing to let publishers deal with things like editing, promotion and providing a cover. I would have had to pay $300 or better to get a cover that nice. As far as promotion goes, I tend to not do much. That may or may not be why my sales aren't spectacular. I'm seriously thinking about signing up for Facebook. Start a page for myself and one for J. J. Why not? They do it on Catfish. I wouldn't mind having Nev and Max show up at my door. Although I've established J. J. is blissfully married. That should keep stalkers away.

Anyway, my single foray into self-publishing sank without a trace. Quickly. I don't know if promotion would have helped. From what I'm hearing, the people who are successful in self-publishing are either writing to a specific niche, or already had a loyal (and large) following before they uploaded their opus. Or there was a specific demand from those follows, like with the guy who wrote The Martian (which started as a serial on his blog), or the people who wanted a print copy of what became Fifty Shades of Grey. I don't foresee that happening with any of my books any time soon. For right now, I'll stick with publishers.

And now, back to the hard part, writing the next one. This time I'll write characters who speak correct English. It's August, and too hot to fight.