When self publishing, there are a lot of things that you can affect ( editing, cover art, pricing), but there are also things you cannot affect. And sometimes, what you can affect is hit by factors out of your control.

For much of 2014, the dollar was at 7.70 SEK ( there was dips, but more or less.)  Which means that if editor’s fee was 500 dollar*, I paid 3700 SEK. During the last 6 months or so, things have changed. Now the dollar is at 8.90 SEK.  Which means that suddenly I am paying 5000 SEK, despite the fact that the editor’s fee is unchanged.

And this is for one round of edits. For one novella.  And when you take into account that I earn 1000 dollar after tax. ( Dad supports me, too, so things isn’t that dire)  The situation is  unsustainable

What does this mean? It means I will been looking at Patreon and Kickstarter, to cover part of my costs.Will I do it for The Cauldron Bound? Maybe. I haven’t made up my mind yet.  I am definitely doing it for Daughter of the Dark.

*the numbers is fictious, but not entirely unrealistic.

Ever since I published Exile I have wanted to publish Exile on Amazon  but I thought I needed to get either an EIN or an ITIN to do that.  Today I logged in to KDP and poked around. I was delighted to discover that one of the options were “foreign tax number”. This means I should be able to use my swedish FA-skatt number at Amazon.  I don’t have an FA-skatt number yet, but it is on my to do list.  In fact, I have a partially finished application, but I haven’t completed it since I wanted to know my sales at Kobo and Overdrive. We all know how well that worked.

I will not give a solid date when Exile will be available, but it will be before Easter. Now, if you excuse me, I have edits to finish.

I am not going to many cons, due to time and money, but since I just booked the hotel room, I can announce that I’ll  be at Archipelacon in Mariehamn, June 25th-28th.   I think it will be a fun con. I don’t expect to be at the programme, but I look forward to visit Mariehamn. 🙂

Which cons are you looking forward to this year?

It took awhile, but Exile finally passed through Ibooks validation filter. ( Turns out that the cover image in the book was too large. Oops.) Click the cover to buy it!

Part of me is hoping that fixing the cover will make it available at Amazon and BN too. I doubt that will happen, though. But it would be really, really nice.

Know something else that is really nice?  Exile has been available for two months at Kobo and it has been stable between 3620-3645. Sure, it is a very humble ranking, but considering that Kobo has 41000 titles in the Fantasy Category, I am happy.  I know it isn’t just because Exile is such a great story ( which it is!), but a bit part is because Kobo forgot to remove the old, free editions.

Both of this was fixed fast, once I remembered to e-mail Publit.  It also reminded me of why I decided to use Publit.  I can focus on  the books, they handle everything else.

Last week I gave the subscribers to my newsletter a sneak peek at the  cover for The Cauldron Bound.  Today I am revealing it to the rest of the world.  Isn’t it pretty?! Just like with Exile I designed the cover myself. Mainly because if you search for ancient warriors on Depositphotos, there are a very limited number of stock photos that shows ancient warriors. I thought about it and decided I did not want to pay for a cover this time around.  In the end, this was the stockphoto that best fit the story, even if it isn’t 100 percent accurate.

While Exile has been available at Kobo for a while, it hasn’t been available in more places. I have checked Omnilit regularly, to see if Exile was listed. And today I found the listing.  Woot! I know that Omnilit is an itty bitty store( even if I like it), but the important part is that Overdrive distributes to them. So since Exile is available there,  it  should appear in more stores soon.  Like BN and (hopefully) Amazon.  Once Exile is available at more places I will add buy links to my webpage. And send out a newsletter. My first! 🙂

Normally I don’t post about clothes, but I just read about this in on Expressen’s webpage, and it boggled my mind a bit.
To sum it up: Kappahl, a Scandinavian clothing chain just announced that they are launching a lingerie collection inspired by the 50 shades trilogy. The details are scant, but I expect they will reveal more closer to the launch in November.

I’ll admit that I am a bit surprised. Oh, not that it happened, since it is a part of the trend that clothing stores are collaborating with designers and celebrities. But this is a first, there haven’t been anything based on a bestselling Erotic romance novel before. ( At least not that I am aware of.) On the other hand, 50 Shades are a phenomena and it isn’t surprising that Kappahl wants a piece of the cake.   But I am still scratching my head.  Why of all the chains, why did they agreed to let Kappahl do it?   It would have made much more sense if a bigger brand had done it. I mean, Kappahl is well-known in Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries but it isn’t a  big European chain, and it doesn’t have a US presence. But maybe the bigger chains doesn’t need to do something like this.

Still, reading about this made me wonder if this is the start of another trend.  After all, Sylvia Day’s Crossfire series have also been very successful. Maybe we will see something similar based on that series.  ( Even if I honestly don’t think so.)

What do you think?

I am still on hiatus for another week, but I thought I would poke my head up and talk about Social Media.
First, I am on Blog Lovin now.

Second, I am on twitter as @mikaela_l, and have been for awhile. I mostly babble about books, and reading and writing.