The holiday was actually on Wednesday. I love garlic! Nice that there's a holiday for it. I'm not sure if it's still there, but a while ago there was a shop downtown entirely devoted to garlic. It smelled amazing inside! There were garlic cookbooks, oils, salad dressings, storage for garlic, clothing, and I think there were even garlic candles.
Several hours ago, I finished setting up a print version of Sweet Endless Terror, and submitted it to Amazon. They have to review it before actually publishing it, and that could take about 12 hours. Probably will end up being late at night tonight for the US marketplace, and in a couple of days globally. I must have gotten used to formatting Alliance's manuscript for its print version, since I finished Sweet Endless Terror's in one day. (It was probably an hour or 2, technically.) Also, finished the cover the next day. (Even shorter amount of time.) Turns out the smallest size they have for the standard size is 5" x 8". Standard, meaning the size that most of their distributors will accept, as well. An inch smaller both ways than Alliance is. Still, it ended up being 255 pages. I thought it'd be shorter.
It was interesting to see how long each story was in that new format. The shortest story is The Head, at 7 pages. It's the first story. The longest is Ribbon, at 37 pages. I still think that's a short story. Each story has a different 'feel' to it.
I like how the cover turned out, except the bar code is going to cover the tip of the knife, as well as the bottom part of the ribbon and the blood pooling around it. It won't exactly have the same effect. At least, most of the knife, ribbon, and some of the blood is visible. I kept the front cover the same as the ebook version. That has my colored in drawing of a skull with a lit candle. The font is the same color as the flame. The spine just has the main part of the title and my pen name in the same font color as the front. Also, all of it has a black background. The back is my colored in drawing of the bloody knife and red ribbon flowing over it. I put the description on the back. The font is the same color as the ribbon/blood. Kind of cliche, but why not? I made it so the titles of the stories seemed to flow (or ooze?) closely over the knife and ribbon. I like the effect it ended up creating. I think it's easier to read than the back cover of Alliance. I had a totally different type of background to mess with, though.
I decided to have this one as a glossy paperback. Alliance is a matte paperback. Amazon suggested it for if I want the dark colors to be darker, sharper, and the overall cover to be shiny. Then, they said usually textbooks, children's books, and non-fiction books prefer it. Mine doesn't fall under those categories, but I think it would have a better impact than the matte. Read a bit about other horror books with a glossy finish, and apparently it is popular that way. Interesting. It's supposedly more expensive to make. Maybe that's why they try to push the matte finish for other books?
Anyways, it worked out that this one will be cheaper to make than Alliance. Might be because it's smaller in its overall size? Alliance costs about $4.50 to make/print, and Sweet Endless Terror will cost about $3.90. I looked up and compared prices of books that are similar to Sweet Endless Terror. Decided $13.99 would be good. $1 less than Alliance, and exactly $10 more than its ebook version. Just like before...Interestingly, since it costs less to make, the royalties I'll get back with each sell, will be about the same amount as Alliance. Yay!
I'm getting really excited about this one, too! I've read it also takes a while for books to globally circulate and their distributors to get it. So, I don't know how they're really going to do this way. Already had 2 new likes recently for the ebook version of Sweet Endless Terror on fb. That might be a sign. I think this might be the better of the 2, but they seem so different.
Went to the local trans group on Wednesday, like usual. During my check-in (which I don't usually say much), I did bring up that I might be non-binary, and agender to be more exact. I'm still questioning it. I'm going in circles between genderfluid (between female and agender), agender, or downplaying it and thinking I'm overthinking it. Feeling like I'm really cis, but overthinking it. It's weird. I'm starting to feel the overthinking part less, but it still goes through my head. It's not like I'm always thinking about it. Just questioning it with things, remembering how I've felt in the past about stuff, being more aware, etc. That's the thing, I feel so vague normally about my own gender. Might be a sign...The member that I know is non-binary wasn't in the room when I brought this up. They did come back towards the end, and I told them. They seemed excited about it, and their partner thought it was great. We didn't get to talk much, since it was so close to the end, and everyone was getting ready to leave. Maybe next time.
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