I published The Virus on Amazon as an ebook.
You can get your copy here.
The plan was to offer pre-orders on it for three days before the official release, to build up the sales that would all count in the first day it’s released. When I went to schedule the pre-sale, though, the earlier I could start it was a day after I wanted the actual release to be.
See, I wanted the release day to be October 31, Halloween.
It fit the theme. Fear and gratitude. Halloween and Thanksgiving.
I’d also told a few friends it would post on Halloween, and I didn’t want to back out of that.
Instead, I went ahead anyway.
When you publish an ebook on Amazon, it says it will take up to 72 hours for it to go live. Talking with a friend who’s done this before and Googling around, it seemed like I’d be safe as long as I hit publish at least 24 hours before I wanted it to go live.
It still seemed like I risk, but I went for it. I actually waited until about 12 hours before I wanted it to release. Then I hit publish.
Eight or nine stressful hours passed. On the one hand, I didn’t want it to be late. I’d scheduled a Facebook Live release event that I didn’t want to miss. On the other hand, I didn’t want it to be early either. That would mess up the whole, Halloween release date.
What added to the tension was the realization, after I hit the button to send the novel in for review for publication, that part of the deal with Amazon meant that the book was supposed to be exclusive to Amazon. I didn’t plan on cross selling on Barnes & Noble or any other online site, so I took Amazon up on their deal. As it was being reviewed, I realized I might be infringing on that with all the chapters posted here
As it turned out, the listing ended up saying it was published on October 29. I’m still not sure how that worked out.
I’m still counting it as a Halloween launch date, even if it technically was available online before that.
I sent out an email to everyone who subscribes to Marshallogue and a few others I asked personally. Actually, I sent a few emails, followed by some posts on Facebook, that Facebook Live event I mentioned already, and yeah…
That’s how I got my first novel, The Virus, out into the world beyond this blog.
