The paperback release date is on track for May 15th. The troubling thing about Amazon's new paperback publishing process, however, is that you can't specify a specific release date for these books. You can only do it for the ebooks.
There used to be a different process through their Createspace subsidiary which they phased out last year. Now they've rolled both publication formats into their KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) brand and process.
You might not care about all that but I'm letting you know the situation. The precise paperback availability day & time is in Amazon's hands now. Fortunately, they are consistently conservative on their publicized time frames in their publishing process. Worst case, 72 hours from my submittal will be the morning of the 15th.
This assumes their QC (Quality Check) process won't find any issues or changes required by me. But their QC and author review process before this last step is very thorough and effective in my experience. This is the 3rd book I've published on Amazon so I don't anticipate any delays.
There have been some challenges and frustrations this past week with last-minute content and formatting goals. And my iPhone became a brick on Tuesday. That wasn't very convenient timing! But I refused to let these setbacks postpone the release of the book. (I can't claim to be an effective project manager if I can't hold to my own cost, schedule, and scope right?)
Last quick point - you'll see above that the initial price of the paperback is set to $37.50. Saturday morning (just before I wrote this email) I spent more time doing a survey of other books on Amazon for pricing comparisons.
Books on commercial drones range from $10 - $30 with 100-200 pages. Books on civil engineering & construction range from $40 - $90 with 150 - 400 pages. They include a lot of textbooks and exam prep guides. There is an authoritative book on underwater UAVs that sells for $205 and is 368 pages.
My book falls in the middle range, at 239 pages. I would say it's content-level is also in-between a mass market drone book and a civil engineering textbook. It's for people who are serious about raising their career and their drone activities up to a higher professional level.
For all of these reasons, I was planning to set the price in the $45 - $49 range. I still may move it up to there after we see how the initial sales and reviews go.
I hope you'll be one person to give me honest feedback and advice about the book after you read it, Friend. My passionate goal is for the book to pay you back many times over with the time, money, and stress that you save (and money you make) from reading the book.
And if you missed my note the last time, there are exclusive discounts for drone-related products in the ADDITIONAL RESOURCES section. Must-have items like storage and transportation cases, prop guards & safety accessories, emergency recovery systems. You need all those things to protect your commercial investment and have a safe, legal, and profitable operation over the long term.
Just one purchase of those items using the discount code in the book can make the book price back for you - plus more. So I hope you are as excited as I am to get your own copy into your hands.
Let me know if you have any questions. I'd love to hear from you after you purchase the book too.
Upward and onward!
Brett cell (back online after a replacement struggle): 210-753-0843 (PST)
P.S. Here again is that easy-to-remember shortcut link for the Amazon page. Look for both the ebook and paperback to be available on the 15th! http://bit.ly/drones4AEC
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