Nerdology 101: Big Dreams

Hey loves! Welcome back to Nerdology 101. The blog where I, Maria Levato, Nerdiest Overlord of Hel, guide you to a greater understanding of the Nerd Culture. Mwuah-haha-haha!

Anyway, this week I’m going to expand on a concept I’ve mentioned quite a few times in recent blog posts: Wanting to get an agent and move toward traditional publishing with my new series because my vision for it is not compatible with my position as an indie author. So, let’s get into some Nerdology!

What the statement actually means?

What does it mean for a series not to be compatible with my position as an indie author? Simple: What I want isn’t something I can accomplish by myself or with the help of the people I currently work with. It has nothing to do with how good my team is and it doesn’t mean I’m doing poorly; it just means that if I had a publisher, I wouldn’t have to pay the thousands of dollars I spend to produce a book and I could focus my own funds on realizing other aspects of my vision. Using totally made up numbers here, if one party invests 10,000 into a book and another party invests 10,000 more, there’s more money than if only one party invested 10,000 and that’s all they could do. And yes, trad publishing is free to the author, but that doesn’t mean the author spends no money. It means they spend no money on the creation of the book. Plenty of authors still invest in the book in other ways and it can be the difference between the book flunking and getting launched into the stratosphere. Would it be nice if I landed a deal that came with all the marketing money I could dream of and I never spent a dime? Sure. But I’m not putting all my chips in that basket because that’s rarely the case. If I get lucky, wonderful, but if not, I’m perfectly content to have a strong publishing partner who can just take the required production investment off the table so I could focus on bank rolling the extra stuff.

So, what is it you want to do that’ll cost so much?

EVERYTHINGGGGGGGGG! I have so many ideas here. Realistically, most of them won’t work out even with a publisher, or will take a while to become doable, but some it will be perfectly attainable if I’m not spending money on 1000 non-negotiables.

1. I don’t just want one special edition; I want FOUR for each book in the series. Why? Because this is very much a series where readers are going to want to pick their team. Pretty much, in each book, four gods from various pantheons will be competing to represent their pantheon in the FMC’s harem. To me, every character has colors and vibes that represent them. I want to design special editions based on each of the competitors so readers can choose based on their favorites. I’m talking different covers, edges, and internal art for based on their favorite. Maybe even different playlists. While it’s not an affordable idea, it’s a fun one and I think it’ll be worth doing.

2. I want character sheets/guides. Obviously, because competitors for each book will be from the same pantheon, they often have established relationships, various titles and powers, etc. I’d love to include character sheets with pretty artwork and a basic breakdown of who each character is.

3. Book tour. Loves, I do events as an indie. I do them in as many places as I can because I want to reach my audience. The travel costs me big time though. If I had some loose change, I could come to a lot more of my audience and do it a lot more frequently than I can without help. I know you’re going to want all those custom special editions signed and I want to be able to come to you so you can get them signed.

4. Spin-offs and side stories. Obviously, not everyone’s favorite will be chosen by the FMC. I’d love to be able to do spin-offs to follow up on some of the crowd favorites. The base series will be five books though. Just in ISBNs for a regular paperback and ebook, not even counting spin-offs or special editions, that’s over $200. To do the special editions and the spin-offs, that’d be over $1000 in just ISBNs.

5. Merch. To put it simply, this one isn’t about money as much as it is negotiating power. Agents and publishers are in a far better position to find partners for merchandising than I am. If I did it, it would be about money because I’d have to pay for it. If they did it, it’d be about liscencing and likely wouldn’t cost me anything.

6. Reach. Obviously, all of this hinges on the book doing well from the gate. I’ve been busting my ass off for years and my Instagram has had 3k views in the last 30 days. That’s growth compared to where I started, or even where I was a few months ago, but once you factor in the view-to-sales conversion rate and whatnot, you realize that it’s still a far cry from the kind of reach that would finance something this huge. Publishers can help with that. Even a publisher that doesn’t help with it would be freeing up money so I could pay for more help with that (I will have slightly more starting in Nov because I was able to offer a bit more to my PA so she’d have more hours, but even that I can only do for a couple of months before we return to our norm).

There’s still more I could say here about what I want to be able to deliver to my audience and how trad publishing this series would help me accomplish that, but I think you get the gist. Ultimately, the things I want to give you all just require me to have a bit more help. So, stick with me and know that I’m considering all of this in every decision I make for this series. It's for you, dear reader. It’s always because I want to be able to give you more. Well, and the fact that I just find it so fun to do, but that’s besides the point. LMAO.

That’s about it for this week’s segment of Nerdology 101. Stop in next Friday for more. Also, keep in mind that Nerdology 101 will be having it’s 1 year blogaversary at the end of October and that I’m hoping to do something kind of special for it. Anyway, until next time, have a nerdy week!