This is a behind-the-scenes post, since things have been pretty quiet on this blog lately. It’s busy in my office!
As you know, I write contemporary romances and paranormal romances as Deborah Cooke, and historical romances as Claire Delacroix. This year, I amalgamated my PNR websites into this one, leaving me with two websites instead of four, which means the urls for all the book landing pages changed. I also moved my three English newsletters to a new service, which meant the sign-up links changed. Both of these changes meant updating my ebook interiors with the new links.
My historical romances have been in KDP Select since last fall, so I did the updates only at Amazon. My PNR went into KDP Select in the spring, so again, I did the updates only at Amazon. Now (haha) the books are coming out of KU and going into wide distribution again, which means updating the ebook files at the other portals. I load directly to Apple, KOBO, GooglePlay, Nook, Draft2Digital, Smashwords and PublishDrive. I also sell some books directly with delivery via BookFunnel. That’s 7 or 8 uploads per title. Some portals process uploads quickly. Some take forever to chew through each one.
In August, 22 of my medieval romances came out of KDP Select and were republished wide. There’s a blog post about that on the Delacroix site, right here.
In September, 22 more of my Delacroix romances (medievals, time travels and boxed sets) come out of KDP Select to be republished wide. The one hold-out will be The Beauty Bride, which leaves KDP Select in October. (It was enrolled later.) I’ve already updated the files at most portals and just need to republish them when the time comes—with the exception of the time travels, which will get new covers first.
In October, 45 of my paranormal romances and boxed sets come out of KDP Select and will be republished wide.
Also in October, the Spanish editions of 15 contemporary romances come out of KDP Select and will be republished wide. These are delivered to the non-Amazon portals from an aggregator, Draft2Digital, so that will save me some uploading time.
Taking the books wide again also means setting first-in-series free and booking promotions for it. The Countess is free this month, and by November, The Beauty Bride will be a free series starter for my historical romances again. Also by November, Kiss of Fire will be a free series starter for my PNR. Of course, Just One Fake Date remains a free series starter for my contemporary romances. I’ll probably book a sale on the two bundles of series starters, First Knights and Dragons First, as well. As I write this, I realize that Claire didn’t have a new trope boxed set this year. Oops. I’ll add that to my To Do list.
But by November (when I stop to catch my breath!) over 100 of my backlist books will have beautifully updated interiors at all of the portals and some will even have new covers. At the end of the year, I’ll be able to unpublish the two paranormal romance websites, and discontinue my former newsletter service. It’s been a big transition and is a job I’ll be glad to see done.
Next year, I’ll be able to focus on writing, which is the most exciting part of all!
Deborah Cooke & Her Books 