As I mentioned last week, we have a ton of projects going right now, and part of the reason for that is that I’m still playing catchup from being out on medical leave this spring. So recently, I took a deep dive into finishing up one of those outstanding projects.
The project, which was the driving force behind WMG’s May Kickstarter, is to produce hardcover versions of all the books published so far in Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Diving Series.
The Kickstarter provided the funding. But I needed to find the time to do the work. No easy task these days.
The challenge with hardcovers is that I am currently the only one who can do them. They require professional-level proficiency in InDesign. Even still, I’d only done two other hardcovers before (both the regular and signed/limited editions of Protectors by Kris Nelscott), so I’m still in a bit of a learning curve myself.
I started this new round of hardcovers with The Renegat, which published September 17. Then, I moved on to the signed/limited edition of The Renegat, which is in the process of being signed by Kris and shipped back to us for delivery to those Kickstarter supporters who chose that reward.
Then, I moved on to the rest of the series. Some of these books haven’t had their front and back matters updated in a while, so I had to touch most of the interiors as well as create new dust jacket covers for the novels and case laminate covers for the novellas (dust jackets aren’t available in the 5×8 size we use for our novellas, as we discovered).
And then, there’s the promo files I needed to create for Ingram Spark. We already have a promo file for each book that we use for KDP Print, but Ingram requires much more information. It’s all really useful information, and it’s all information we had already, but it needs to be in one place for efficiency when you upload a new title on Ingram Spark. [Note for you indie publishers out there: I’ve included some hopefully helpful tips for doing hardcovers on Ingram Spark at the very bottom of this blog.]
So, all that, times 13 for the Diving Series.
Like I said, I’ve been busy. It took working through some weekends, but I really wanted to be able to get these books on sale (and delivered to those Kickstarter supporters) by early December for the holiday shopping season.
And they will be. I’ll update you again once they’re live.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.
Note: For you indie publishers out there, I highly recommend the following: Create your hardcover interior file first (you should be able to use the paperback interior and just swap out the ISBNs with the ones for the hardcover edition) and export it per Ingram Spark’s requirements (totally different than KDP Print). Next, give yourself a good chunk of time to create that promo file and the listing on Ingram Spark first (the page count and ISBN are needed here) so you have a template to use for other books. Then, when you get to the final screen that would allow you to upload the interior and cover files, click on Help on the left menu bar instead and use their cover generator tool to design the hardcover. You’re going to need to basically redesign much of it (but do use the same art and typography) from the paperback. Hope that helps!