I think I mentioned this before, but I'm a self-published author. This means a few things:
-I don't have to have a manuscript accepted by a publisher
-Without a publisher, I have to arrange my own cover, editing, translations etc.
-I have to market my own work, unassisted, by myself
Now, the main point of this blog post is to highlight services and tips I find useful, since I started working on Welcome to DROL in October. I'll break them down into sections. Here's my contents:
1) Writing your book
2) Editing, covers, and finalisations
3) Getting your book on the market
4) Marketing your book
1) Writing your book:
Writng a book or short story you know will be self-published, you know you will not get a professional editor (unless you know people and want to cough up the cash, which I'm not talking about). You also know that your cover, unless you pay, is not done by a professional artist. Again, this tutorial assumes you have a budget of zero.
This stuff is worth keeping in mind as you write, even though it isn't important until Part 2. It is pretty much hypocrisy (no other way to put it) to assume someone high up will find your book, decide it's a diamond in the rough, and get you properly published the old-fashioned way. That's unrealistic. You hear about it all the time, like bestselling authors, but both are minority groups and counting on getting into either, or both, is hazardous.
For Welcome to DROL, I did a lot of self-editing. Because my self-editing at one point turned into a rewrite, it is relevant. Self-editing is a great skill, because it helps outline flaws in your plot you don't want people seeing, or get rid of silly mistakes that are just embarrassing. During my rewrites, I have found a plot element I forgot about, and then had to go through a fix a lot of things. It is hard work, but it's necessary.
The only way I know to be rejected in self-publishing is inappropriate content. Now, this means whatever crappy story you come up with is in the wild without being tamed and told by a publisher it's terrible. High standards are essential. A novice writer like myself can't always (possibly ever if I'm unlucky) achieve the high standards of bestselling, published competition. My best hope, and yours too, is to dump something that smells, and move on. Have say, a OneNote file full of categorised ideas you can come back to decide what you want to do next. If a story smells bad but you think you can improve it, try, but not too many times. I have DOZENS of unfinished, horrendously awful manuscripts on my hard disk.
Listening to myself in my head, I might sound a bit commanding. But, to be fair, you are not being stopped by anything, so it is imperative you self-edit, you consider quality, and you don't plan for the best. It's a painful way to a painful end.
2) Editing, covers, and finalisations
So your book is done, right? Do a proofread. Read it out loud, take all the time you want. My first proofread (copyedit) took over a week, maybe two. This is key. Before you find someone to edit, make sure it's something YOU would pick, buy, and read. That's what I do.
An editor can be hard to find. Well, not really, but one who does the job well. Family is not always the best idea, but sometimes (for me) it works, if someone is prepared to stamp the word 'crap' on your manuscript. When I finished proofreading Welcome to DROL, I got a least a dozen people to edit it. Not everyone has the time, or remembers, or ever gives you feedback, but someone hopefully will. Don't jump of the fastest of your editors (if you get lucky and have multiple) because I can tell you now it gets confusing.
Your book needs a good title, and a good cover. Titles should come first. It has to make someone do a double-take if they see it in the Kindle Store, like Welcome to DROL, which is confusing, because your reader won't yet know what the heck DROL is, or Mean, Median, Mode and Murder, which is odd because I swapped 'range' with 'murder'. I don't know much about the quality of my titles, but they are at least quirky. Yours should be too.
Once you have a cool title, you need a cover to match. I happened to have previoustly bought an Adobe package with Fireworks, so I had pro software to do both covers with. However, if you don't have that sort of budget for a £200 Student licence for Adobe Web Premium, try Paint.NET. It's awesome and it's free. When making a cover, I recommend using a stylus on a touchscreen device. When I did my covers, I did them on an All-in-One PC with no stylus, and used my mouse, but on my current tablet I do have a s stylus, and it's really useful.
I wouldn't worry about a back cover. This tutorial is really for ePublishing, and I haven't seen anything much about back covers. So don't worry.
Getting your book translated is something that is very hard. I am a fairtly fluent multilingual, but my French and my Bulgarian couldn't even cover me for Mean, Median, Mode and Murder. If English is your second language, you may find it easier. You may need a Languages degree to do a quality translation of a novel, and that's a lot of effort, and money. A pro translator is cheaper.
3) Getting your book on the market
In this section, I'll discuss services I know of that can help with the self-publishing of an eBook. Here are a few:
-Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) - if nothing, start here. Kindle is the biggest eBook store in the world, and the service is easy to use, and has a crazy amount of tutorial pages. Depending on pricing, you can get a 35% or even 70% stake on each sale, and that's a good deal. KDP is no-fuss and offers DRM.
-B&N PubIt - This only applies to Americans, but Barnes & Noble's service could be for you, if have a US tax ID, US citizenship, a US address and a heck of a load of other US [insert text here].
-iBooks - This is another one I don't qualify for (I live in London). You need a tax ID, and if you don't do everything by Apple's damned book, you're in an exclusive, which sucks. Otherwise, the (stupid for buying them) iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch users can read your book at an elevated price, because this is Apple.
-Kobo Writing Life - At last, something I qualify for. Kobo Writing Life is as easy and no-fuss as KDP, but you get paid every 6 months. At least the statistics available with ease are good.
Now let me throw something out there that isn't for eBooks:
Amazon CreateSpace is a POD (Print on Demand) trade paperback self-publishing service. Because it's on paper, it's fiddlier, and there's no specified royalty. Whatever it is, it's not much. It's a great way to get paper books out, but's a lot of fuss.
4) Marketing your books
I have a blog (as you well know) and a Twitter. This is all for publicity. The idea is someone finds me on Twitter, or sees my blog, and then they find and buy my books (when they're out). I've started way early to make sure I can cover ground, and you should too. I may only have 4 followers on Twitter, but at least I have them now, and they know who I am and what I do (if they aren't creepy zombie accounts) and so may buy my books.
Advertising requires money. A Google Site, Twitter, Facebook, and a Blogger don't. So do social networking instead.
Another trick, which I haven't tried much yet, is talking to people and getting the word out. Basically, it's an overglorified way of saying 'tour', do signings (if you have paper books), and do talks and public readings to attract attention. It's also a great way to meet your fans (if you get any).
So yeah, my lengthy tutorial on self-publishing. Thanks for reading.
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