You may have noticed we’re looking more purple here than we used to. I decided the interior and cover of the paperback Nail Your Novel were showing their age and so they’ve had a complete facelift and I’m switching publisher from Lulu to CreateSpace.
The text is exactly the same, but typefaces are clearer and the design simplified. The Kindle edition is already wearing the new cover, as I couldn’t wait to put it in its new outfit.
You may also have noticed a certain schizophrenia about the Nail Your Novel covers in the sidebar. Purple on the main Amazon link, blue and coffee on the Bookbuzzr widget. Relax, they are all the same book and the print version isn’t vanishing. I’m waiting for my final proof copy to arrive so I can offer the new edition on Amazon, and at that point I’ll update the Bookbuzzr widget so it shows the new design. Until then it has to show the book that you’ll actually get if you click Buy… clear?
Using CreateSpace should mean the paperback version will be more easily available worldwide. For some reason Lulu didn’t like to ship to Amazon buyers outside the US. And those of you who’ve kicked around here for a while will know that they seriously blotted their copybook when they deleted my Amazon listing early this year, along with my reviews, and then made the book unavailable a second time with no explanation. (Thank you to all of you who repasted reviews when I finally got my listing up again.)
I’ll keep the old coffee-n-blue design ticking over on Lulu as the links are scattered far and wide in the blogoverse. I can’t update it to the new one for reasons too stodgy to bother you with, but I’ll try to let people know in the listing there’s also a fresher version.
But if you’ve got one of the old blue copies, hang on to it. I just noticed this week that someone’s selling them on Amazon Marketplace for USD$136
Nail Your Novel 
Gosh you have a collectable with your blue book!
I do like the new purple shade of your new release. I do hope Amazon works better for you as Lulu really let you down. If I s/p again it will be via CreateSpace.
Thanks, Glynis!
Hi Roz,
The new cover looks great. My books too have been offered at inflated prices at Amazon marketplace. They’re just opportunists figuring someone might actually be prepared to pay that much and not notice it’s still in print!
Thanks, Sally! Someone told me that there are sellers on Amazon Marketplace who offer books at ridiculous prices and they don’t even have a copy. When someone clicks ‘buy’ they then get a copy at the regular price, ship it and keep the difference. I don’t know why they think people won’t dig around and find the new, sensibly priced version.
If I could sell on Marketplace US I’d put some of my own copies up to undercut – and stick the boot in – but as I’m in the UK I can’t.
Sally, I just posted this review out of delicious spite:
Terrific book and you can get it – brand new – for the regular price if you search a bit further, June 27, 2011
By
roz morris “Roz Morris, author: Nail Your Nov… – See all my reviews
This review is from: Nail Your Novel (Paperback)
Hi – I’m the author. And although I’m immensely flattered to see such a high value placed on my work, you’ll find it’s less than $10 if you buy it new from Amazon. You can also read the reviews there and find out whether it’s the kind of book you need.
Wholly for the benefit of the seller, of course. I just couldn’t resist. We’ll see if Amazon puts it up. Have a go and see if you can get away with it too!
You’re absolutely right. A lot of them seem to be doing this with every POD book in existence.
I thought you could sell on the marketplace if you list the item as secondhand. But checking now, you either have to sign up as a seller (which I think works out as quite costly) or you can only sell an item you previously bought on Amazon.
Actually it doesn’t cost anything to sign up as a private seller. I sell through Marketplace UK, as I have loads of rare books I’d hate to throw away but I don’t need. The reason I don’t sign up with .com is that you need a US bank account.
But I’ll be interested to see if they let my ‘review’ go up. Interestingly, the seller seems to have created a new page for it. Without an ISBN (that edition doesn’t have one) I wonder how they did?
Just checked. Yes, the review’s up! If you’re sufficiently annoyed about your seller, or just feel like kicking a toad, go and do likewise!
lol! Just seen your review on Amazon. I’ll do this next time I find my book being oversold (it’s selling at £22 top end right now).
Lovin’ the new cover. Sorry to hear you’ve had so much trouble w/ Lulu. Not sure if I’ll go back to them myself or go forward with CreateSpace as I did for the second book. So far, Lulu hasn’t lived up to its promise of turning my first book into epub within 6 weeks of their email. Bad Lulu!
Anyway, just wanted to say I like the re-design.
Thanks, Virginia! Yes, I had that email from Lulu offering to turn my book into epub and Apple and goodness knows what else. Since they’re so difficult to get sense out of if things go wrong I opted out. (And I don’t trust anyone to fiddle with my text…. comes of being an editor who has final say over a book before it goes to press.)
The background to my Lulu woes is this: early this year they did a system upgrade that deleted all their Amazon listings, of which mine was one. Then it took 6 entire weeks to get it back, during which time they tried inventing a number of excuses to blame me for the delay as having a hardback book. It’s not hardback, they were just giving excuses. Also all my reviews and tags had gone, plus the links I’d carefully planted all around the web were useless.
When I told Lulu they should restore everything as it was they wrung their hands and tried to wriggle out of it. I told them they must, as they had caused the damage. Then they said they couldn’t as it was all in the hands of Amazon. I told them to find people to talk to at Amazon who could do it, as it was only a computer system and someone would know.
There was more hand-wringing, and eventually I had to resort to publicly shaming them on Facebook and Twitter, helped by other kind folks who had also had this problem – or were outraged that they might be treated like this too. At one point, Lulu actually told me off – which you can imagine went down well when I broadcasted it on Twitter and FB. They implied I was expecting too much.
But eventually they restored my reviews. Although I had to start again with a new URL. Then it happened again, can you believe?
Sorry, that was a rather more complete answer than you were probably expecting. The bottom line is this. Lulu is great for one-off copies, proofs etc. But when they deal with Amazon they don’t have the balls to sort out problems, nor do they understand how important these issues are to professional self-publishers.
If I were you I’d withdraw your consent to epub your books and do it yourself. When things went wrong with my listings through Lulu I encountered only unhelpful people who clearly thought I was being too fussy.
I would love it, BTW, if Lulu would reply to this comment.
Hmmm… good argument. I was actually considering withdrawing everything except those I’ve done for personal projects (like the 2010 calendar of my daughter). Although I like Lulu’s cover designer better, I’m really thinking CreateSpace is the better choice overall.
As for the ebook freebie, I admit I was just being lazy. To be honest, I’ve been considering doing a major overhaul of the first book and launching it through CreateSpace. I just haven’t found the best time to work on that with other projects still needing my attention.
Thanks for the info.
At the risk of seeming like a Cassandra, beware of leaving private projects on Lulu. We did, and we found one day they had been made available for purchase on Amazon!
Really? Oh my god! ….
*runs off to delete all her private projects*
I can’t believe they’d do that!