Alien Dimensions Science Fiction Short Stories Anthology Series Shock!

Now available in print

My goal with Alien Dimensions Issue #16 was to release it in time for the 2nd anniversary. Of course, that was more of a marketing decision than anything else.

I was able to submit the final version of issue #16 for print checks this week. I also got confirmation this week that it was good to go. However, I had planned to release it next week, and wasn’t going to press the release button until the optimal day for publishing a print book (Tuesday).

A few days later I got an email from CreateSpace telling me that their system will be shut down in a few weeks and that everything would move to Amazon.

What?

Of course, I had known this would happen, ever since Amazon bought Createspace back in 2005. There has been a long term plan behind the development of ebooks, KDP and Createspace over the past 13 years, and I’ve been paying close attention since 2008. This is the next step and it will make things a lot easier for self publishers who prefer not to go wide.

(As a side note, I celebrate 20 years as a customer of Amazon this year, so you could say I’m one of its greatest fans!)

Even so, the idea that they are going to move everything from Createspace to Amazon print in a few weeks, whether I want it or not, was a bit of a surprise. My main concern was a huge amount of books with specifically-sized covers that weren’t compatible with the Amazon print system. The other concern was that the date hadn’t been set for my migration. If it happened on Tuesday, then it would cause a problem for the whole launch process of Alien Dimensions #16.

I couldn’t take that risk.

As Createspace says that it would take 3-5 days to appear on Amazon, I thought I’d post it at 12:30am LA time on the 1st of September. Rather than wait until Tuesday and hope it would have the 4th as a publication date, I posted it today and relied on the ‘business days’ situation to sort things out. It also meant I could sleep easy knowing that the launch could not in any way be delayed, as I’d already launched it.

Makes sense. Right?

I had no idea that, because of the merger, rather than everything being delayed, everything was actually being fast-tracked. Within an hour of the printed version being confirmed, it had become available on Amazon. Within three hours sales had started to come through.

Thank you to everyone buying copies. I’m shocked and quite appreciative that the issue has been discovered before I made any official announcements. A nice surprise.

So, if you read this and wonder why you haven’t received an email telling you the print version is now available, it’s because I am going to wait until the ebook becomes available too.

The ebook version is a different beast. There is a slight problem with KDP in submitting for approval, and the dates. If I submit it on the 1st, one of the operators will list it as the 30th or 29th of the previous month. If I publish it on the 3rd, I’ve got a better chance of scoring a ‘1st of September’ listing. I want early September rather than late August as early month dates within that month sell better than late month dates. (Yes, I’ve been crunching the numbers!) A number of times I’ve submitted Alien Dimensions late on the 2nd of a month, and had it listed on the last day of the previous month. I would then politely email customer service and have the date changed. I’d prefer not to have to worry about that, so I’ll submit it on the 4th, and see how things go!

So, if you’re looking for the printed version of Alien Dimensions Science Fiction Short Stories Issue #16, click here

If you’re looking for the ebook version, subscribe to the irregular mailing list newsletter here, and I’ll send out an email the moment it becomes available.

Many thanks for reading.

Neil A.