I’ve finally published my first ebook on Smashwords and it’s selling better than I’d dared to hope.

Finding Home is a revised and updated edition of a romantic thriller about a surrogate mother, written under my pen name Elizabeth Sage, originally published in the U.S. in 2002 by Five Star  as part of their First Edition Women’s Fiction Series.

I might never have attempted publishing an ebook were it not for YA writer Arthur Slade. I’d like to thank him for his informative and inspiring blog posts about his ebook adventures. He made it all seem so possible. And lucrative!

There were many steps to the process, but taken separately, most were easy enough. Just, you know, time-sucking. Some people publish their work in digital format in under two hours. It took me over two months.

It was the thought of instant and insane cash that kept me going. I just knew I’d be a millionaire overnight with my ebook. I comissioned a new cover – many thanks to photographer Michael Galan and designer Sarah Schneider – and had the ms formatted according to the Smashwords Style Guide.

But by the time I was finally ready to upload the book, I was struck by that writer’s panic thing – I just knew my book wouldn’t sell. Not. One. Single. Copy.

Why had I bothered? Why had I wasted weeks of good writing time? Why had I spent money on a project that wasn’t even going to cover my costs? I was making myself poorer, not richer.

I revised my goal and decided I’d be happy to break my record for print sales. Even though family and friends had said that they loved Finding Home when it was first published, with no promo whatsoever (my fault – I didn’t know any better) and no independent reviews either, the hard cover sold a total of 82 copies. I didn’t earn out my advance and the book was immediately remaindered.

But here’s the thing. All rights reverted to me, and now I’m well on my way to financial success with the ebook. Because guess what? Once I’d uploaded it, someone bought a copy within the hour! Really. How cool is that? I’ve already netted $3.03!!!

Will keep you posted on how it goes. If I do make a million, I guess I can live with that. But for now, I’m glad that Finding Home has found a home. You can see it here:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/103176

Finding Home is only $2.99, plus you can sample the first 20% for free. You don’t need an eReader – just download HTML for online reading. Reviews – gushing, glowing, gobsmacked or godawful – are most welcome.

As of May 2012, Kindle edition is here.

And here’s the trailer, produced by the awesome Andie Rosenbaum of Airbookvideos:

 [youtube]TnFjnMoJ6TM&feature=plcp [/youtube]