Meredith Mansfield, Author

Last post I said I needed to buckle down and get serious about preparations to launch BLOOD IS THICKER–and I did.

I fixed the minor formatting problem with my Smashwords file. Yay! As I suspected, I had to just go back to the original and step through the formatting process again.

For those of you who are maybe thinking about epublishing, I always start with Smashwords for several reasons:

1. Smashwords has a very comprehensive style guide (free). It takes a couple of hours to step through the process, but I have never had a formatting issue with any other upload once I’d gotten the Smashwords file right.
2. Smashwords always knows that it’s my  book. I can download any version I want as many times as I want. Free. This makes it possible to check the various formats that come out of Smashwords meatgrinder.
3. Smashwords makes it very easy to just upload a corrected file, so it really makes sense to check files and make corrections here.
4. Smashwords lets me generate coupons for anything up to and incuding free, so I can offer my writing pals a free copy and hope for a review in return.
5. Smashwords will, if I want, take care of the distribution of ebooks to almost everywhere but Amazon.

So, now that I’ve got a good Smashwords file, it only takes a few revisions to make the file for Kindle, which went live early this morning. You’re the first to know. Well, except for the person who apparently already bought a copy.  

It’s now on Goodreads and I’ve started the process for the paperback version on CreateSpace, too.

It’s a paradox. In order to prepare for a launch, you actually have to go ahead and publish about three months ahead in order to have something to offer reviewers and to use for giveaways. (Goodreads, for example, will only allow giveaways of actual books, not ebooks.)

So now I have to prepare to do the exact same thing for the dual version, both BLOOD WILL TELL and BLOOD IS THICKER in one volume. Part of my promotion plan is to offer both for the price of one for a period surrounding the official launch in November.

Meanwhile, you can still read the first six chapters of BLOOD IS THICKER free on wattpad.