Deadlines and Promo, a Ramble

First of all, Polaris Rising is on sale for $1.99 at the various US ebook retailers for the next two weeks (I don’t know about international—sorry!). If you’ve been meaning to pick up a copy, now is your chance to get it on sale! :)

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Apple Books | Kobo | Google Play

As for deadlines, some of you may remember that book three was due on July 1, and today is July 1. So book three should be finished.

Except it’s not.

At the beginning of June, it looked like I wasn’t going to make it, for a host of reasons that are all excuses and don’t alleviate the fact that I was very likely going to miss my deadline. I hate missing deadlines. Hate. But sometimes, life gives you what it gives you.

So my agent reached out to my editor and asked for an extension. Thanks to a bit of wiggle room in the schedule (and thanks to my editor being a saint), the date is now early August and I didn’t have to try to kill myself to hit July 1. I actually played a game, and took a weekend off, and slept.

I still have a lot of work to do, so it’s going to remain pretty quiet around here for another month or so. As always, I’m most active on Twitter.

Oh, and don’t forget, The Queen’s Advantage releases next week! You still have time to get your preorder in. :)

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Apple Books | Kobo | Google Play

While I’m here, I might as well tell you about the good news/bad news for the print copy of TQA. The bad news is that thanks to the extra length (the final draft is ~52k, compared to ~39k for TQG), the price jumped to $10.99, which is not ideal, I know. Before I get angry emails: the ebook remains $2.99 despite the extra length.

Why is the print cost so high?

I asked my agent the same thing. There are a couple things at work here. Print on demand books are more expensive, full stop. And to put the book into Amazon’s expanded distribution (which lets libraries and other bookstore customers order it), there is a middle-man that must be paid.

At $10.99, I make about $1 when someone buys an expanded distribution copy, but about $3 when someone buys from Amazon directly, and those prices can’t be set separately (I asked). That’s compared to about $2 for the ebook. So if we set the print price any lower, then I make pennies when someone outside of Amazon buys it. :(

Now for the small piece of good news: print books don’t have a preorder option. They are either up or not, and since my agent is out of the office this week, she wanted to get it up before she left.

So if you want a print book, you can order one right now and Amazon will rush it to your door. If you prefer to buy from BN or another bookstore, it will be up whenever it trickles through the system, hopefully by release. (ISBN: 1075962099) Fingers crossed!

Now back to making words. I hope you all are doing well!

11 thoughts on “Deadlines and Promo, a Ramble”

  1. Books bought and preorders in,,, I think.
    Don’t work too hard, everyone needs down time.
    I love your books.
    I prefer paper books, and don’t object to the price,,, no matter how high it goes, but I’m not that way about e-books. I buy them because when travelling as they are a joy in comparison to the weight of real books. :-)
    Any book I like I buy both e-book and hard copy, but I’ll wait till the e-book price drops under $10.00

    1. Thank you! I generally prefer to read electronically, just for the convenience, but I do buy paper copies of my favorites. My bookshelves are stacked two deep; it turns out I have a lot of favorites. :)

  2. Shaz (N Ireland, UK)

    Hi Jessie,

    Thank you – Amazon UK have Polaris Rising on sale for £1.99 today (1 July) so I have just grabbed it! Both Kobo & Google have it for £11.49 (it was £6.99). I really enjoyed the Queen’s Gambit and excerpts so far so am looking forward to reading this and everything you have coming next!

    I first heard of you on the Ilona Andrews’ blog so recommendations often do turn out the be worth following up!

    1. Thank you for letting me know that it’s on sale in the UK (and for buying)! My publisher didn’t say where all the sale would be, so I defaulted to US so people wouldn’t be disappointed if their store didn’t have it. Now it’s just a happy surprise for international folks if they find it on sale. :)

  3. Finally managed to snag my copy of Polaris Rising, because the conversion from dollars to reais is not a kind one (btw the promo is working here is Brasil too!), and I’m so excited! One reading binge of PR and TQA incoming!

  4. I read this post and ordered the book and today I arrived at home after work and there it was I’m the mail *-* I got my grubby little hands on TQA a week early some advantages to living in Europe, they probably shipped all the copies here already *hallelujahhhhh* off to read it now :-)

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