It's a holiday weekend, which means I have an extra day off and therefore should be getting all sorts of work done on my book, right? Well... sort of. I did get some things done, mostly yesterday. I finished up some last-minute research (found a new book at the library I hadn't read yet, as well as a few on Google Books) and changed around a scene in the novel to better fit the timeline, am about 95% settled on a title (finally!), am about 75% settled on a cover design (found an awesome font yesterday that got the design geek in me all excited), and started creating my web site. I have everything done in the Kindle version except the copyright and "About the Author" sections (I never know what to say about myself), so I'll soon be able to do a final read-through of that for formatting quirks.
All in all, it hasn't been a complete waste of a weekend. On the other hand, I've also spent way more time than I should playing Yahtzee on my iPad. (EA Games had a sale this weekend. It was only $0.99! How could I resist?) I still have a day left, and my plan is to get the web site closer to finished, and maybe finally get that author section done so I can start that final Kindle pass. If neither of those are inspiring enough to get my butt in gear, I may skip them and start the print formatting in InDesign instead. I know that's going to take some time, so the sooner I get started, the better.
I wish I was 100% on more of these decisions, though. I'd feel much better if I was sure of the title and cover art, but I keep going back and forth on both. Where the cover is concerned, I have 2 versions: a light and a dark. The light version uses a photo of the Titanic as it sailed away from Ireland, and while it's pretty, I worry that it looks too much like a literary fiction cover and not a paranormal/time travel/romance cover. And while the dark cover (featuring a dark sea and iceberg) probably fits the theme of the book better, it's very dark, and I worry it won't show up well in ereaders or in thumbnail form on sites like Amazon. *sigh* I'm torn. I'm tempted to scrap them both and start over, but... ugh. I don't want to start over! So, the debate continues.
Another dilemma I'm running into involves the web site. I have a design that I think I like, but the hardest part is going to be content. What do you put on an author website when you only have one book out? (Or one book that has yet to come out?) I already have a separate blog, which I'll obviously be linking into the site when the time comes, but then what? I need content for the home page as well as the "books" page that will one day list all of my novels. For now, with just the one book, it's going to look pretty sparse. I know I'll have a synopsis and possibly a short excerpt, as well as links to all the places it can be purchased (my goal is to have it available for all the various ereaders, iBooks, and a print version from either CreateSpace or Lulu). If I'm feeling brave, I may even tease whichever novel I decide to release next, if I decide by the time the website goes live. Outside of that, what else is there to say? It's frustrating. Maybe I'll spend some time googling around and looking at sites of other new authors, see what they have. When all else fails, research!
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