Fantasy Novel TARNISH Now in Paperback!

Is anyone else as excited about this as I am?  I seriously doubt it, 'cuz I am pretty darn excited.  The first five copies of my novel to ever exist in paperback arrived today!  These were the "proofs," the test models for me to approve before going forward.  And, man, do I approve!

*hyperlink here*

They look great!  And holy crap are they HEAVY.  And dense.  It's difficult to tell just how big this book is from these pictures but trust me, it borders on tome.

What makes it so big?  Well, I formatted this to be a 6" x 9" book and barely shy of 400 pages, and that was condensing it.  Formatted differently this could have easily been over 500 pages.  (Word count-wise, it's 128,000 words--your average novel is 80K to 100K, so it's kind of a novel and a half.)

Why would I want to condense it?  Well, to be honest, I'd rather have had the slightly smaller, but 100 pages thicker version.  It would just feel meatier in my hands and maybe even look more impressive.  But there's the cost to consider.  The basic cost of printing each book comes down to page count.  The fewer pages, the less expensive to produce, thus I can charge less for for it and still get a little sliver of pie for myself.  (I am, after all, an independent author -- I lack the giant printing and distribution mechanisms of the big-time publishing world.)

But even at 400 pages, its weight is way more impressive than just about any of the books on my shelves.  It's cool!

It will take a couple days for it to come up on Amazon.com, but any interested party can buy it from my CreateSpace eStore.  (Incidentally, the authors get a bigger slice if you buy from their own CreateSpace eStores -- the price you pay is the same, we just have to share less of it with Amazon, who, frankly, isn't hurting for funds.)

So if you're like me and you prefer books you can hold in your hands rather than those you get from a screen, now's your chance!