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So you want to self publish. If you have everything together, it's as easy as visiting a self publishing site, entering some information, and hitting "publish." You still have to get everything together first though, and if you are new to self-publishing, the amount of detail, choices, and optimization available can be daunting.
Part of the simplicity of getting a traditional publisher is that they know what to do and when. When you self-publish you have to figure out what tasks to perform and what services you need and why you need them. In order to bring you up to speed so that you can acquire what you need, and not bother with the stuff that you don't, we have made this guide to preparing your book. You may not need everything here, but we will lay it out so you can make informed decisions.
So where do we start? Let's assume you already have a fully written, but still raw, manuscript (if you are not done writing, please check out our writing advice and tools).
So where do we start? Let's assume you already have a fully written, but still raw, manuscript (if you are not done writing, please check out our writing advice and tools).
Editing: The first thing you will want to take care of is editing. Even if you do not end up self-publishing, but want to pursue the traditional publishing route, some editing is recommended since competition for publisher's attention can be intense.
Before you have a professional editor put eyes on your work, there are a number of tools out there to help you improve your work yourself (list to the right). Once you have everything as polished as a single pair of eyes can manage, it's time to confer with an editor. Our editing consists of grammar, spelling, and sentence structure. Additionally you can request that the editor focus on specific areas, for example: plot, characterization, continuity and scene development. The editor will also suggest changes they feel you need and will work closely with you to polish your manuscript. At $0.015 a word, and with our quality of editing and customer care, we feel we're quite competitive, but feel free to check out our competition such as Editor World, Scribendi, and Create Space's own editing service. Once you have completed the editing of your manuscript it is time to acquire art for the cover. |
A List of Useful Editing Tools
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They say a picture is worth a thousand words and lots of readers love nice covers, even for ebooks. Despite not actually sitting on a shelf and only existing as a digital medium, people still buy ebooks online based on their thumbnail image.
There are many artists out there just waiting to be contacted to perform artwork for you. You can find them easily either through a google search or by placing or responding to ads on Craigslist. You will want an artist that has an attractive portfolio that demonstrates the style you desire for your cover. It is also best that the artist has prior experience with designing book covers, as otherwise it can become quite confusing for them to properly follow instructions concerning trim size, spine width, ISBN barcode placement, bleed, and other particulars of book cover layout. If the artist you find is familiar with book cover design and you like their portfolio you are good to go... once you have a contract. There can be many complications if you do not get a contract. Your contract needs to explicitly state many things, such as which rights are retained by the cover artist, and which are granted to the author. Can you change the art? Can you use it for marketing? Who owns the likeness of any characters depicted? What compensation is due the artist? These are some of the answers a contract will have to cover. Some of the time freelance artists will already have their own contracts, but even if they do it is best to have a lawyer double check. A fairly cheap source of legal advice and contract drafting is lawtrades.
If you want to cut to the chase and avoid the above hassles you can make your book stand out with our covers. We can provide a thumbnail image in JPG format (a universally accepted file type for images) with titling and author credit. The image will be formatted to be accepted at all major online distributors. As for paperback, we provide a print-ready PDF that can be used at most POD (print on demand) online distributors or traditional printers. If you can provide your own art or stock images, that's great. If you want original art by artists in a particular style, we can get that for you too.
There are many artists out there just waiting to be contacted to perform artwork for you. You can find them easily either through a google search or by placing or responding to ads on Craigslist. You will want an artist that has an attractive portfolio that demonstrates the style you desire for your cover. It is also best that the artist has prior experience with designing book covers, as otherwise it can become quite confusing for them to properly follow instructions concerning trim size, spine width, ISBN barcode placement, bleed, and other particulars of book cover layout. If the artist you find is familiar with book cover design and you like their portfolio you are good to go... once you have a contract. There can be many complications if you do not get a contract. Your contract needs to explicitly state many things, such as which rights are retained by the cover artist, and which are granted to the author. Can you change the art? Can you use it for marketing? Who owns the likeness of any characters depicted? What compensation is due the artist? These are some of the answers a contract will have to cover. Some of the time freelance artists will already have their own contracts, but even if they do it is best to have a lawyer double check. A fairly cheap source of legal advice and contract drafting is lawtrades.
If you want to cut to the chase and avoid the above hassles you can make your book stand out with our covers. We can provide a thumbnail image in JPG format (a universally accepted file type for images) with titling and author credit. The image will be formatted to be accepted at all major online distributors. As for paperback, we provide a print-ready PDF that can be used at most POD (print on demand) online distributors or traditional printers. If you can provide your own art or stock images, that's great. If you want original art by artists in a particular style, we can get that for you too.
File Formatting: Now just because you have your manuscript fully edited doesn't mean it is ready for publishing. With paperbacks the interior must be formatted so that it will fit with your book's dimensions. The margins must be set, copyright pages placed, table of contents inserted, page numbers included, as well as many other small details. Likewise with your ebook, each site that publishes ebooks has different criteria. One of the most useful is Smashwords, but if your ebook has certain unneeded formatting, such as too many non-printing characters, it can ruin the upload and conversion process. We can make sure your ebook is ready the first time around.
Ebook files
Your ebook will be formatted for proper ebook submission to popular online distributors. If this is not done right it can lead to accidental blank pages, sudden font changes and images that are split in half.
We'll send you a properly formatted ebook DOC file, which is the file format most accepted at self-publishing sites.We can also get you PDF, EPUB, and MOBI files as requested. This will allow you to place your ebook on all major distributors. Table of contents are meaningless in most other e-formats.
Paperback interiors
Your paperback book will need to be formatted in order to print perfectly with whatever printing company you chose.
We will provide you a formatted PDF that will enable you, should you choose, to include non-standard fonts that otherwise get removed by most printers if working with DOC files.
Ebook files
Your ebook will be formatted for proper ebook submission to popular online distributors. If this is not done right it can lead to accidental blank pages, sudden font changes and images that are split in half.
We'll send you a properly formatted ebook DOC file, which is the file format most accepted at self-publishing sites.We can also get you PDF, EPUB, and MOBI files as requested. This will allow you to place your ebook on all major distributors. Table of contents are meaningless in most other e-formats.
Paperback interiors
Your paperback book will need to be formatted in order to print perfectly with whatever printing company you chose.
We will provide you a formatted PDF that will enable you, should you choose, to include non-standard fonts that otherwise get removed by most printers if working with DOC files.
You now have your art in both thumbnail and PDF paperback cover. You also have your edited manuscript in the properly formatted files. There is still the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) to get for your book.
ISBNs
You will need an ISBN to distribute to books stores and some ebook platforms. ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number and is used for bar codes and systems used to keep track of books for inventory purposes. Bowker is a service used to buy and register ISBNs, however they can be very expensive to buy one or two at a time. As we buy them in bulk we can pass savings on to you. Now many services are out there that can provide you free or cheap ISBNs. However these ISBNs will in almost all cases be unsupported and not be registered at Bowker - all you get is a number that has no data linked to it. They will also be associated with the distinct branding of the company that sold them to you when looked up by potential book buyers. Registration at Bowker allows distributors and stores to see information about your book and consider buying it. When we register your ISBN we do so under the 'Independent Author' imprint of MQuills Publishing to help you sell and market your work. All paperback books need ISBNs, but not all ebooks do. If you'd like to submit your ebook to iTunes, Kobo and a few other services, then you will need to purchase an ISBN for your ebook version. However, most ebook distributing platforms do not require you to get an ISBN. We can for an additional small fee, also register your ISBN at Nielsen, which is the British equivalent of Bowker.
You will need an ISBN to distribute to books stores and some ebook platforms. ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number and is used for bar codes and systems used to keep track of books for inventory purposes. Bowker is a service used to buy and register ISBNs, however they can be very expensive to buy one or two at a time. As we buy them in bulk we can pass savings on to you. Now many services are out there that can provide you free or cheap ISBNs. However these ISBNs will in almost all cases be unsupported and not be registered at Bowker - all you get is a number that has no data linked to it. They will also be associated with the distinct branding of the company that sold them to you when looked up by potential book buyers. Registration at Bowker allows distributors and stores to see information about your book and consider buying it. When we register your ISBN we do so under the 'Independent Author' imprint of MQuills Publishing to help you sell and market your work. All paperback books need ISBNs, but not all ebooks do. If you'd like to submit your ebook to iTunes, Kobo and a few other services, then you will need to purchase an ISBN for your ebook version. However, most ebook distributing platforms do not require you to get an ISBN. We can for an additional small fee, also register your ISBN at Nielsen, which is the British equivalent of Bowker.
Once you have all of the elements of a complete book, you just need to bring them all together. In most cases this is easy and various vendors will just walk you through uploading your files. However, in the case of paperbacks your ISBN and it's barcode need to be placed on the back cover. You can acquire barcodes for your ISBN from Bowker (or preferably us), and after you have these it is a simple task for your cover designer to place the barcode onto the back cover. When you purchase a paperback cover from us, we always place the ISBN barcode on the back cover whenever it is available.
Distribution: Where will you sell your books from? There are many choices out there, including Nook Press, iBooks, Kobo, Lulu and Google Play Books to name a few. However, from our point of view, in order to maximize distribution, the quickest and most effective ebook vendors you need to concentrate on are Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and Smashwords. As for vendors for your paperback, your top priorities should be getting on Create Space and Ingram Spark. KDP and Create Space will each directly send your work for sale on Amazon, which of course holds the lion's share of online book sales. Smashwords is invaluable to quickly distribute nearly everywhere else, as they are an aggregator that will ship to iTunes, Kobo and several other small vendors. They will of course take a tiny percentage of profit from sales at the sites they ship to, but for efficiency of distribution and keeping track of sales it can be well worth it. Lastly there is Ingram Spark, which enables you to get your books into real brick and mortar stores (that is, provided the book's ISBN is correctly registered, see above). Once you have your book on these four vendors (KDP, Smashwords, Create Space and Ingram Spark) you can then experiment with other vendors such as some of those previously mentioned.
Marketing: Unfortunately the line "if you build it, they will come" from the movie Field of Dreams is blatantly untrue. You must generate demand for your story, there are simply too many stories out there to just sit back and hope your cover alone does the job. We have gathered some resources to help you market. Happy marketing!
