Hi Everyone,
I’m writing you with a quick update on Roving Pack. Last week I sucked up my own nervousness and listened to the advice I was being given by a few close friends and became transparent about just how important the pre-ordeing of Roving Pack is to me financially. Thanks to all of your sharing of information about the book the number of pre-orders I have received has literally doubled in the last week! I am humbled and grateful for all of the support that you as my community have and continue to give to me and this novel.
Pre-orders will only be open for another couple of weeks, and I hope that you’ll continue to pre-order, share this message on your facebook/twitter/tumblr/fetlife, tell your buddies at the coffee shop/bar and forward this email to anyone you think would be interested in a book like Roving Pack. Your willingness to share information about the pre-order online and to friends is *THE* main way people are learning about this book and making the decision to pre-order. I can’t stress enough how helpful every facebook status/share and tweet that goes out from you has been.
Set in an underground world of homeless queer teens Roving Pack’ the debute novel by award winning queer author Sassafras Lowrey (editor of Kicked Out) brings readers into the daily life of Click, a straight-edge transgender kid searching for community, identity, and connection amidst chaos. As the stories unfold, we meet a pack of newly sober gender rebels creating art, families and drama in dilapidated punk houses across Portland, Oregon circa 2002. Roving Pack offers fast-paced in-your-face accounts of leather, sex, hormones, house parties, and protests. But, when gender fluidity takes an unexpected turn, the pack is sent reeling. Some of biggest names in queer literature – Bear Bergman, Mattilda Bernstine Sycamore, Zoe Whittall, Charles Rice-Gonzalez, Cristy Road and more have written endorsement blurbs for Roving Pack check out what they think and pre-order your copy today http://www.rovingpack.com/blurbs/
Authors, especially indie queer authors don’t make a lot of money from the books that we write. Once Roving Pack hits Amazon and other outlets, the amount of money per-book I make will be minimal. That’s a big part of why the pre-orders are so important. When I made the decision to publish Roving Pack out of our own imprint instead of going through a traditional publisher as I did with my first book I also made the decision to go out of pocket to do so.
I made the decision out of a commitment to do right by Roving Pack, to not allow it to be fundamentally altered by publishers who wanted me to tone down the leather/gender content. Part of doing it right also meant putting out a professional product. I might be a strong writer, but I knew there were many things I couldn’t do. I was committed to hiring the best artists/editors etc. in the community that I could find to work with me on this book. I had an editorial team of beta readers, a editor who pushed me hard me through the entire writing process, a pro copyeditor, an artist who created the art for the cover, a layout person etc. It was important to me to hire queers in our community and to actually pay them for their services.
If you’re planning to purchase a copy of Roving Pack for yourself, as a gift for the cute queer you’re crushed out on, your best friend, your ex, your old GSA or punkhouse (the possibilities are endless) I’m asking for you to do it now directly from me, at www.RovingPack.com because these pre-orders are my opportunity to recoup the money that I put into publishing the book.
When you purchase books as part of the pre-orders not only are you going to be supporting me as an indie author you’ll be getting a signed copy of Roving Pack delivered to you before it hits the bookstore shelves, and special release edition one inch buttons based on the cover art by KD Diamond!!!
xoxo
Sassafras