The Dragon Kaseraak Series
Here’s what I’ve been up to the past few months. As some of you may know, between 2007 and 2012, I wrote a series of books, ones that I thought my daughters would like. The first one, The Dragon Kaseraak, was originally published by PublishAmerica (now known as AmericaStar Books or something like that). For various reasons I think that was a mistake, but I don’t want to get into that.
The second book, Runaway Necromancer, was self-published through Lulu Press. I have no complaints about Lulu; they were great.
One of the things I had been wanting to do for a while in my RISD-CE Graphic Design Certificate Program was to redo these books and give them new covers. At some point this spring I made the crazy decision that I wanted to actually publish all of the books. This time, I’m using Blurb Books, and the only complaint I have with them is that, in my experience, they wildly overestimate the shipping times for the books. These books I ordered after 8PM on Friday, May 1; I was promised that they would arrive before May 21. They arrived this morning, four business days after they were promised. Not bad for self-publishing!
Blurb’s books are fantastic in quality, equal to or better than any other trade paperbacks I own. The paper is fantastic, 50 pound weight, which although being labeled “economy”, is in fact far higher quality than most of the books I own. These are quality paperback books.
The books generally follow the fire mage Jana Aliston and her newly acquired apprentice Jamie on adventures through the land of Greater Westvalia and beyond. While I wrote them with a young adult market in mind, I think anyone over the age of 12 could enjoy these. They are pretty fast reads at about 50,000 words each.
The Dragon Kaseraak tells the story of Jana’s pursuit of the Pendant of Solanche. The Pendant of Solanche is guarded by the ancient dragon Kaseraak (go figure!). Also pursuing the pendant is Jana’s treacherous former apprentice Isabella, on behalf of Westvalia’s tyrant King Tybilt.
Runaway Necromancer tells the story of Jana’s attempt to inspire a revolt against Tybilt’s rule in the formerly independent city of Hockessin. She gets assistance in her pursuit by the fearful necromancer Sycosina Soulbane, although that help comes at a cost that may be too dear to pay. The book also provides a long backstory for Sycosina. Based on feedback from people who have read one or both of the published books, she may be the most popular character in the series.
Dying Cry of the Ursidae tells the story of Jana’s further attempts to inspire a revolt against Tybilt’s rule. Jana and Jamie uncover a brutal plot against them that shakes Jana to the very core — and the way that plot is resolved reframes the entire series up to that point.
The Taconite Problem tells the story of Jana’s investigation of the sabotage of mining operations in the inaptly named outpost of Jimburgh. Jana uncovers a plot that may lead to war between humanity and the ancient dragons. She finds herself questioning her loyalties to magic, her kingdom, and humanity itself.
Return of the Flutterbee tells the story of Jana’s quest to return flutterbees, insects that radiate magical energy, to their native home in the southwestern plains. Doing so may avert a war between humanity and dragonkind, but it requires confronting the dangers of a lost and hostile civilization.
At times I’ve thought about these books rather humbly, thinking that they couldn’t possibly be any good because of how I was feeling at the time I wrote them. In reading them again for this project, that belief went away. I really like these stories, and I’m proud that I wrote them. I think if you like casual fantasy, you’ll find these quite engaging.
Now to the business part of this.
Blurb charges me a certain amount of money for each book based on its page length. It also allows me to sell these books to the public at a markup through either their private bookstore, or through public book distributors. Blurb is very generous about the former; it requires no additional fees to sell the books, which allows me to sell them relatively cheaply on their site. The problem is that it’s a private bookstore and no one goes there to look for them.
The other option is to sell it through a book distributor. This would make it available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or any bookstore that wanted to order it. For obvious reasons, I’d like this. The distributor, however, charges 55% of the list price for their service. (I am not complaining about this.) The upshot is that the absolute minimum price I could set for these books when distributed widely is $10 — a little more than $4 would go to Blurb, about $5.50 would go to the distributor, and I’d get about forty cents profit for each book. Another downside of this route is that once I activate it, Blurb has to match that price on its bookstore; I can’t offer it at a less expensive price on Blurb.
So here’s what’s going to happen. I have a few more edits to make on these books, but I’m confident that they will be ready in about a month. (The due date for the RISD-CE assignment is May 28, and June 2 is my graduation.) At that time, I will make them available on Blurb for $5.99 each. I think that’s a fantastic deal for some really good books. Fair disclosure: at this price point I will be making about $2 profit on each book, and my hope is that I’ll sell enough books to make back the money I’ve explicitly spent on this project, which so far totals around $300, which does not include anything for the thousands of hours I’ve spent writing and editing the books. I have no explicit hope that this will turn into a profession rather than a hobby.
A couple months later, I will then set it to be available to the distributors. At this point the price of the books will rise to $11.99. I still think that’s a fair price for what a person gets, but it’s obviously not the great deal that $6 would be. And my personal profit will drop at that point, so I’d much rather people buy it at the lower price, but there’s only so much exposure I can get from the Blurb Bookstore.
I am hoping to be able to make the books available in e-book format, but I’m not sure how complicated that would be or what price I would set there. I haven’t looked into it.
This project has been a lot of fun and I hope that, if you do decide to buy one or more of these books, that you enjoy reading them and tell your friends.
Edit: One month? Ha, I meant two days.
