Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Old Wine, New Bottle by Mark Troy

My first novel, Pilikia Is My Business, has just been released in ebook format and soon in trade paperback.

Pilikia was originally published by LTDBooks as an ebook followed by trade paperback in 2001. LTDB was in the vanguard of ebook publishing when ebooks were a miniscule segment of the market and the only device was the Rocket ebook reader. I have to give LTDB credit for foreseeing the future. Unfortunately, the company didn't survive to see their vision become reality. When the  company went out of business in 2005, all of the rights returned to me. I did publish it in the Kindle store, but held off doing any big release until the time was right. Now that the iPad is here, I believe the time for a re-release is now.

The cover needed an update. I wanted something that would stand out among all the little thumbnails in the iBookstore, so I contacted David Shackelford, a comic book artist. Shackelford was easy to work with and reasonably priced. Okay, his bid was far and away lower than the other graphic artists I contacted. So, if you are looking for a cover artist, I highly recommend David. You can check out his work here: http://www.idrawbooks.com/

Pilikia is currently available in the Smashwords store http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/25474. I hope to have it in the iBookstore and Kindle store soon. After that, it will be published in trade paperback.

This new edition is published by Ilium Books.

Here's a tip for those of you making your own covers. To make a barcode for your ISBN, go to http://wolframalpha.com and enter "ISBN barcode" followed by your ISBN into the search window. Wolfram will produce a gif of the barcode instantly.

Mark Troy
Hawaiian Eye Blog
My website: http://www.marktroy.net

8 comments:

Kevin R. Tipple said...

Back in the day, LTD was great about sending me print books for review though they never sent yours, Mark. I was surprised they didn't survive and thrive.

Mark Troy said...

They closed shop because the publisher and driving force, Terry Shiels (the T in LTD) passed away and his wife, Dee (the D) was very ill. Their daughter, Laura (the L) needed to take care of her mother and didn't have time after that to manage the company. Such is the problem with family-owned businesses.

Jean Henry Mead said...

I enjoyed reading the book, Mark, and hope it does well in it's new format. When's the next book in the series coming out?

Mark Troy said...

Thanks, Jean. It is currently being considered by a publisher, which I won't name for fear of jinxing the deal.

Lillie Ammann said...

Mark,

Are you getting into the ipad store through Smashwords or are you going direct?

Mark Troy said...

I'm trying to get in through Smashwords.

Morgan Mandel said...

It's great that this book is not going to waste. It's a marvelous age for writers these days.
Morgan Mandel

Kevin R. Tipple said...

Oh....I did not know that, Mark.

They sent me a dear reviewer/customer form letter that announced they were shutting down and that was it.