Authors of the Flathead * October 2024 * Self-Publishing Panel!

Betty Kuffel

Self-Publishing / Indie-Publishing Overview

Details for self-publishing vary and your choice of end product helps determine how your approach this. Indie published books are typically paperback and you must determine the size, interior, front and back matter, including copyright, publisher, author page, index and possibly a list of questions in the back for potential use by book club discussions.

Editing: First things first. You are not ready to publish until the book is thoroughly edited and you have some blurbs to support it.

A. MS: must be edited by someone other than yourself.

a. Beta reader with editing comments. Give your beta reader a list of questions you need answered about the overview, readability, clarity, subplots, characters…… b. A content editor and a line editor. (Some of this can be accomplished within a dedicated critique group.)

c. A final MS with your changes and completions right down to the last period.

B. Choose a Title +/- Subtitle – Help with this can be found by Googling “Book title generator” for many options and genres. This can give you some ideas.

Note: Titles are not copyrighted, but it’s good to check and see if the title you have chosen is already in print. You might want to change if your chosen title is used, especially if there is direct competition within the same genre or if there is an obvious conflict that might negatively impact on your sales.

C. Book cover with front and back design: Cover art, font (note, many fonts are copyrighted), and a carefully worded short description of your book to encourage a reader to buy it, short bio and author photo.

Once you have completed all of the preliminary details you are ready to explore actual  printing options. 

There are so many options, it may be overwhelming. There are hundreds of small publishers who will publish your book and charge you thousands, but often provide no marketing support, only a trunk full of books you purchased outright and now must try to sell.

Talking about publishers in general is a huge topic. Some are charlatans, others may meet your needs. Be careful about upfront costs and losing the copyright of your work. There are many tutorials online specific to a particular publisher, but self-publishing is not an easy process. It requires attention to details and the willingness to redo things until they are as perfect as you can make them.

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I have published eight books since 2013, all of them initially online on Amazon using KDP, Kindle Direct publishing. Now there are many platforms to choose from. I thoroughly researched four and used three: Amazon, Draft 2 Digital, Smashwords (now owned and embedded with Draft2Digital) and Ingram Sparks.

The biggest bookstore in the world is Amazon, all the others compete for the marketplace and the distribution. From the initial eBook you can then go on to use their paperback template and formatting process. I find this straightforward process using their templates and tutorials.

If you are doing your own cover, making an E-book front cover is fairly easy to do yourself, but to implement a paperback cover, designing both front and back is tedious.

You must learn to develop, format, and overlay photos, plus choose non-copyright fonts or purchase the right to use one, and then size them to be readable as a thumbnail and fit the printing guidelines within the template.

There is a steep learning curve. If you would rather spend your time writing than learning a new skill, you can hire someone to design the cover, upload, and format the interior front and back matter. Canva.com is one such choice to contract with someone to do this for you. Canva is a collection of artists and specialists in varied fields. I have not used Canva but many in our group have. Both Amazon and D2D have a list of freelancers to do cover art.

I have used Kindlepreneur.com for many avenues of information on publishing, tools, cover concepts and even book description generation. Dave Chesson is the owner. I think he provides a thoughtful educational detailed approach to indie publishing and marketing.

DIY- Do It Yourself

If you do it yourself, you must be capable of uploading your print manuscript, determining the spine size based on the number of pages and what kind of paper you choose, turning your print to align along the spine with the correct size, and placing everything perfectly so nothing is too close to the edge and may be cut off in the printing process.

The interior pagination is important, for example starting each chapter on a right-hand page.

The cover is very important as it presents your work. If it is unprofessional, it could very well affect book sales.

When Draft to Digital became available for Indie publication, I decided to publish my books on D2D and utilize their wide distribution. This is a real advantage. By providing more visualization for sales on different distribution sites your sales may be wider. However, I wish I had only published my books on their eBook platform and not published any paperback format on D2D. (Other authors disagree and are happy with D2D).

All of my books were already published on Amazon. I put seven of them are also on D2D.

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What I dislike on D2D: Cost was higher for each final publication. I had to increase the price of all of my Amazon books in order to make a few cents on the D2Ds. Getting a proof paperback copy from D2D cost $30 and on Amazon it was the cost of printing and mailing, (much less). On D2D I found it more difficult to properly format the back cover using their process.

I like the interior publication designs available on D2D with simple artwork as section and/or chapter dividers.

Amazon requires identical sales point costs across distribution platforms, and I didn’t want to increase prices but had no choice.

Amazon has a broad distribution option but so does D2D and I believe the D2D list of options where your book will be available for purchase is significant. In the end, my decision for future publications is to publish e-books on both platforms with uniform prices and only publish paperbacks on Amazon.

What do I need for a book cover?

For your eBook: a JPEG at 1600x2400, a tall rectangle with title and author name. Carefully follow the guidelines at each publisher. Be sure the photo and font are clear of copyright. You can purchase the use of a particular photo from many online sources, plus there are a number of free sites like Unsplash.com, but be sure to read the fine print. Some photos and fonts say free but the details show they are free for blogs and websites, but not for publication use.

For print, Draft2Digital generates a wraparound cover based on your eBook art (AKA front cover art) and customized spine text and back cover text editing. In my experience, this is a solid color and makes it difficult to get an accurate cut line when printing. Or you can use a professional cover and insert it into the template.

Barcode discussion – use publisher or buy your own from

https://www.bowkerbarcode.com/ 

Draft2Digital and Amazon will assign and place one of their free barcodes on your back cover. Your submitted template must leave a white designated are where they will place the barcode for you. If you purchase a barcode at Bowker, you must submit that in the designated location.

Kindlepreneur – Not part of Amazon. Provides numerous options on their website: such as how to title a book, setup for Amazon Author Central Account.

You Tube Tutorials

Amazon: https://kdp.amazon.com 

(Beware of look-a-like websites that may want to sell you something.)

Ingram Spark – large publisher and distributor. Very popular. Detailed easy instructions for DIY. I didn’t use this service after reading page after page (about 20 of them) of indemnification requirements. Making the author financially liable for many things you have no control over. https://www.Ingramspark.com

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Marie Martin

I started self-publishing from a simple question to myself. Why won’t an agent or publisher pay attention to my query letters? I figured the short answer was simple. No one had ever heard of a Montana woman, named Marie Martin. I asked around among other writers and they asked me, “Why don’t you self-publish?”

Good question.

I mulled that over for a while, then started asking other self-published authors how they got started. Number one thing I learned was to have your manuscript complete and error free. I then asked around and found a gal who did reasonably priced proofreading, so I hired her. We worked on sentence structure and plotting. My perfect story, what I thought was perfect, became readable.

I took the plunge and uploaded it to Amazon. I sat looking at the author's page so pleased, then realized no one would ever see it. I then learned about self-promotion. After many disappointments, I graduated to a writer with books on Amazon. Kindle downloads gradually happened and now I have over a half a million readers who read my stories.

I hope this helps young writers not to be discouraged. Just keep trying as I did. Sincerely,

Marie F Martin

www.mariefmartin.com

https://www.facebook.com/mariefmartinauthor

I haven't done any promotion for a couple of years, but I’ve used these sites. Book Bub

Ereader News today

Many books

Kindle Nation Daily

The Kindle Book Review

Get Free Ebooks

Author Marketing Club

Obooko

Book Daily

Bargain eBook Hunter

Book Goodies

Awesome Gang

The Independent Author Network

Kindle Book Promos

Book Tweeting Service

GoodKindles

Daily Free eBooks

The women's nest

Storyfinds

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Book Deal Hunter

Kufads

Zwoodle Books.

Jess E. Owen

www.jessowen.com

www.authorjessicakara.com

Jane Friedman, her whole site. Specifically, this section on self-publishing. She keeps all her information up-to-date, like...quarterly. It's impressive: https://janefriedman.com/category/self publishing/

The Creative Penn: https://www.thecreativepenn.com/how-to-self-publish-a-print-book/ 

Kickstarter. Even if you aren't planning to crowdfund your novel, their Creator Resources section is packed with articles and blogs in support of independent creatives doing their thing.

For craft: K.M Weiland offers a trove of articles, youtube videos, and books with great deep-dive craft stuff: https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/

Abbie Emmons of course, specifically her series on structure. On her channel, it's a playlist called "How to Write a Novel With 3-Act Structure." She also has a playlist on How to Indie Publish your Novel!

Kathy Dunnehoff

These are the two questions I ask folks who are wondering what to do with their finished manuscripts:

1. What have you got?

You’d think this would be an easy question to answer, but it’s not.

Here are two things that can help you figure it out if you don’t know:

What is your word count? Not page count because that varies depending on font/spacing etc… Word count is everything. At the bottom of a word document, you’ll see the word count.

Here’s a nice resource for fiction: https://www.storyplanner.app/blog/post-146/how-many words-in-a-novel/

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Here’s a nice resource for non-fiction: https://theinkfluence.com/mastering-the-magic number-ideal-word-counts-for-nonfiction-genres/ 

What books are like yours? This is where you scout out comparison titles. And from these, you can see how they are categorized, including the inside page where they list how the library shelves it.

2. What is your goal for this book?

Some options to consider…

a. Printed to give to family/friends?

b. Available on Amazon in print or ebook for anyone to download? (and available for you to get into a bookstore or two yourself)

c. Traditional route that would be published more broadly?

From answering those two questions, you can get a bead on what work is ahead.

If it’s a short story or stories or a novella, a 20,000 word family story, a poetry collection, a children’s book that you want to illustrate yourself, you’ll likely need to self-publish. Or if you’ve got a full-sized novel or memoir that you don’t want to wait for several years to get

published and decide to do it yourself, you can decide how much to really do yourself and how much to hire out.

If you’ve got a piece that fits a traditional category that agents and editors would be interested in, and you’re not in a hurry, you can proceed to traditional publishing with resources about query letters to agents etc… Jane Friedman is a great resource: https://janefriedman.com/query-letters/ 

Resources I’ve used and recommend in self-publishing:

Kindle Direct Publishing – Amazon. For print and e-books https://kdp.amazon.com 

Fiverr - www.fiverr.com 

Fiverr is a platform for freelancers of all kinds. You can find anything you could possibly need here. For example, I searched for Logo Design and found 130,000 results. Print book formatting? 18,000. Ebook romance cover design? 4,800 results. Upload my book to Kindle Direct Publishing? 2,600 results.

A couple of things that I really love about the help I’ve found on Fiverr:

1. Everything goes through the platform. You don’t have the freelancers email & they don’t have yours.

2. Pay also goes through the platform. You trust Fiverr. You don’t have to trust the person you haven’t met who is doing the work for you.

3. Every freelancer (and you) will get reviewed. You can find a freelancer who has had thousands of jobs and know exactly how the customers felt about the process. 4. These freelancers are speedy. And I mean speedy! I’ve had covers designed and books formatting in mere days.

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5. Many of these freelancers are very, very, very inexpensive. If you feel too guilty about how the low the prices are, you can add a tip at the end of the process to make the pay more reasonable for them.

Here in the Flathead, if you’ve got a self-published book out, I can’t say enough good about Stephanie at The Book Shelf in Kalispell! Do an event. It’s fun.

Barbara Schiffman - author, editor, self-publisher:

Five phases of self-publishing (some overlap)

1) Writing & Editing the book

editing via support group &/or with hired editor

2) Polishing Book for Print &/or Ebook uploading

proofing final files, creating cover(s), meeting upload/print requirements

3) Getting Authors Copies (ebook &/or print) & Proofing

ordering author or review copies and final proofing/fixes

ordering more authors copies for live or BOR sales at signings/speaking events (inc. shipping in retail price)

4) Promoting & Selling (and promoting and promoting and.......) promotion avenues -- online, in person, book signings, podcast guesting, book club or blog tours, etc etc etc

promotion tools -- bookmarks, postcards, tote bags, chapter excerpts, reviews, video trailer publicity -- hire publicist or DIY or collaborative

give book as xmas gifts - to family & friends (+ they buy for their F&Fs)

discounts - via daily deals services, to friends/family, quantity discounts, etc

5) Other Ways to Monetize Self-Published Books - Subsidiary Rights foreign publishers (for English versions outside USA, for translated editions) audio publishers (they license book for audio and do all the publish/distrib work, pay you advance + royalties)

subscription services (add your book and pay you as it gets reads - Everand, other) film/TV/media rights licensing (Hollywood options your book for film/TV adaptation)

Newsletters / Webinars / Sites useful for self-publishers:

IndieReader.com - book biz news by & for authors/self-publishers - https://indiereader.com - inc. bestseller lists compiled via USA Today and Amazon of small press, hybrid and self-pub books

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Pipeline Artists online webinars for authors, publishers, scriptwriters

- symposium.pipelineartists.com/ 

Shelf Awareness newsletters - for authors/self-publishers - https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ Independent Book Publishers Assn (IBPA.com)

Screencraft.com - has Book to Film contests and resources for authors

Book Life Newsletter -- via pubwkly.com (indie authors news from Publishers Weekly) VistaPrint.com -- for postcards (book promo), bookmarks, tote bags, mugs, etc

Reedsy.com -- freelance editors, book uploaders, publicists, cover designers & other resources for indie authors: https://reedsy.com/about 

SnowfallPress.com - on demand printing, for publishers/authors, no minimum orders, good quality:

https://www.snowfallpress.com/

RadioGuestList.com - get notices of podcasts seeking guests, including authors or experts on specific subjects (free and paid subscriptions to newsletter)

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