Thursday, January 27, 2022

homeschooling book: main part finished

I've finished the main text of my homeschooling book. It all came pouring out, like a desperate-but-inspired last-minute research paper, over the past few days. The organization for the book into chapters happened months ago, and I saw no reason to change it (well, I did tweak things a little). I now need to comb through the text for errors, but also to add insights gleaned from a few different interviews I did with people who've homeschooled (I have no kids, so the closest I've come to actual homeschooling is private tutoring, which is a way-easier task). I also need to create front matter, write a bio and acknowledgments, maybe include a glossary of pedagogical terms, design a cover for the book, figure out how to use Amazon CreateSpace to get the manuscript into an acceptable e-book format, then upload the whole thing so that it's officially for sale.*

I hope $1.99 isn't too steep a price point for 25 pages of A4-sized paper (on a cell-phone Kindle app, I expect the book to be 50-75 "pages"**; on regular Kindle, I have no idea what to expect). Long ago, one author contended you don't really need to go above $0.99 no matter how big your book is, but no one abides by that guideline, based on what I've seen. Big authors like Stephen King charge big bucks for their novels in e-book form (King's Fairy Tale, Kindle version, is a whopping $16.99... for buying something as physical as air). When I put out my movie-review book (1,000+ pages), I'll pick a higher price point, like $6.99 or something. Or, hey, maybe $10.00.

Anyway, I'm on the cusp. I think my little e-book on homeschooling will be out sometime next month. Buy it, write reviews, react to me directly. More announcements to come.

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*And before I forget: I have to purchase a brace of ISBN numbers for my books. 

**When I set the page to A5 size (5.8" x 8.3" or 148 mm x 210 mm), the book's length shoots up to 54 pages. This is not including the front matter, bio, and acknowledgment pages.



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