Why I am delaying the launch of Retaliation

In just over 1 week my new book 'Retaliation' was due to hit stores and become the 1st proper fiction novel I have ever written (under my own name) and be released to the wider world as a whole. But today I put the brakes on that dream.

What did I do?

My new novel 'Retaliation', the first in a series of stories following the endeavours of the Earth Reclamation Force, was due to be released on Friday 6th May, on paperback, e-book and audiobook. Today I contacted Nielsen along with my major suppliers to postpone the launch date by four months.

Why did I do it?

I am a massive advocate for free publishing (or at least very cheap publishing) because I believe that it is important that everyone who has a story to tell should get the opportunity to see that story in print or on an e-book and have others read it. Does it matter if it's any good? Not really because someone took the time to write it. Personally I like to go over my work several times to ensure that I let people have value for money with what I write, but that isn't the point of this. The point is that I don't want the decisions on what people read to be made by Literary agents alone, they are the gatekeepers to the promised land for writers and sometimes they are remarkably tough to get past, so self-publishing e-books and createspace are great ways to avoid running that gauntlet, even if this means reducing the likelihood of gaining a vast readership.

With Retaliation however I wanted to do things differently, so I put together a launch budget (not a massive one I'll grant you), a marketing plan, advanced information, a supplier/retailer/wholesaler list and set off with the goal of doing my first BIG launch event. I gave myself 6 months to handle the marketing to drum up support/interest in the book, but unfortunately a number of things have went wrong.

1. Viral Video - Didn't go viral, a large part of this is due to the quality of the finished product, I showed my graphic designer what I wanted and told him my budget, unfortunately what he delivered left a lot to be desired. See video below.

 

 

2. Editing took too long - The limitation with being a self-publisher is that you do most of the work yourself, unfortunately that meant with the constraints of work, life, family and lots of editing, I didn't get my review/promotional copies ready early enough. Also most major wholesalers and retailers require a finished copy of the book to see before decisions are made about stocking, that normally requires a minimum of 6 weeks to 3 months, I got my copies in 2 weeks ago.

 

3. Malware - My computer became infected the day after I sent my proof to the printers, leaving me with only a PDF version of the book and not an editable one. I know what you think, lucky eh! Not so much, because this was the promotional print and as such the books have no release date so I cannot use this PDF for the main print run, the layout also does not work properly for the Amazon Kindle page layout and without an editable copy my chapters would start all over the place. Also the work I had completed on the Audio version has been deleted, leaving me without many good options.

 

 

So what happens now?

 

I have issued a new publishing date of  Saturday 3rd September 2016 to coincide with Sci-Fi Con 2016 in Milton Keynes which I will now use a the primary launch event of the novel, in the meantime I will sort out transferring the novel back to an editable copy, re-doing the audio book, sending my available copies out to reviewers and retailers and work on beefing up the marketing campaign to deal with the failure of the viral video.

 

 

 

I can't say I am happy about this decision as I was massively looking forward to releasing the book and helping it find it's way to the general public, I also know that there are magazines both on-line and off-line who will be running promotion for the novel which will now be too early, but I need to be properly prepared and I want to do it well. So here is looking forward to Sci-Fi Con MK 2016 - The official birthplace of 'Retaliation'.

 

Sci-Fi Con MK 2016

 

 

Written by Martin Wallace