Indie Endeavors, Part 10: Marketing – Building a Platform

This is my last post in this series! But I’ve decided to make Indie Publishing a category on my blog and add to it often. If you missed any posts in this original series, here are all the others…

• Part 1: My Eight-Year Journey
• Part 2: Tradtional vs. Self-Publishing
• Part 3: A Word About Editing
• Part 4: Cover Images
• Part 5: What the Heck is an ISBN?
• Part 6: Publishing ebooks on Kindle
• Part 7: Why Publish ebooks on Smashwords?
• Part 8: Should I Create a Paperback?
• Part 9: Blurbs

You’ve probably heard it before: Authors today need a platform from which to sell their books. I would agree with this. Even traditional publishers expect more from their authors than they once did. Nowadays, authors have to push their own work and create their own fan base, especially if they’re self-published. Fortunately, there are a variety of ways to do this. I’m going to touch on some of the most important ones and give a few tips about what to do and not to do.

Create a Website

I’ll start with the foundation. If you want people to see your work, you need someplace to display it. This means you need a website or a blog or, ideally, both. If I had to go with just one, I’d start with a blog. It’s interactive and dynamic and offers much greater potential for drawing people because you can use it to offer something rather than just putting something out there for sale.

To be the most effective, your blog should have a specific focus that’s related to the product you wish to sell. For example, if you have written a book about growing vegetables from seed, it would make sense to create a gardening blog featuring tips, posts on soil quality, or reviews about specialized products. By offering a wide variety of content, you’re serving your audience. Encourage responses, reply, interact with people, and post often. In response, you’ll draw readers and probably generate interest in your book. Blogs are user-friendly and free. The two biggest hosts would be WordPress and BlogSpot. I can’t offer a comparison because I’ve only used WordPress, but I can say I’ve been very happy with it.

A central website featuring all your books, information and links can also be very beneficial, and it’s possible to set one up very cheaply with no experience or techie skills. It’s even kind of fun. Try Yola. Or run a google search for free webhosts. I only switched to a paid site because I wanted a specific domain name (www.michelleisenhoff.com – I’ve actually started the cogs rolling to make it match my blog).

Go Where the People Are

Social media also offers lots of possibilities for connecting with people. Keep in mind, however, that you do not want to alienate yourself from them by becoming obnoxious. That means go easy on actually pushing your work. You’ll definitely want to share important news, excellent reviews, story updates, and new releases, but balance that by offering something, namely friendship. Be nice, respond to invitations, follow back, answer questions, ask questions, and initiate conversations. In short, be approachable and friendly and take an interest in others. This does take time, and it probably means your list of followers will grow slowly. And of course you can’t get to know everyone well. But these follows will be based on contact, and that’s worth something. In the meantime, have links to your websites that people can click on if they choose to.

The two biggest websites I’d recommend interacting on are Twitter and Facebook. I’m not a huge fan of Twitter because the format feels very abbreviated and superficial to this novel writer. But I’m on there, and I use it, because it has tremendous potential. One tweet with a corresponding link can be retweeted endlessly, thereby reaching an audience exponentially greater than your own. And I’ve met WAY more people there than on any other site besides my blog. If you do make an important connection, it’s possible to exchange information and communicate through other media, like email. And one nice thing about the concise format is the impossibility of wasting a lot of time on any one tweet. Keep in mind, however, that if you want others to promote and retweet you, you should be generous in promoting and retweeting others. (Promise, my Twitter friends, I’ll get better at that when I finish this manuscript or the school year, whichever comes first!)  If you’re new to Twitter, there are lots of helps available. Google “how to use twitter.” I got two BILLION hits.

Facebook is another way to reach a huge audience. You can use it two ways, as yourself or as a page. As yourself, you can “friend” an unlimited number of people and interact with them, post videos, share photos, message, etc. It’s a great way to interact with people. However, your “friends” have access to your personal photos, to your other friends’ accounts, to all your wall conversations. You may wish, as I do, to reserve these privileges for people you actually know and not for fans. Then the solution is the creation of a page (see mine). A page is a professional yet approachable way to display yourself and your work to others. You still have the opportunity to connect with a wide range of people, but it needn’t be so personal. Fans can “like” you, and when you’re logged on as your page you can “like” others, and you have the same ability to converse. Here’s a link for setting up your own Facebook page.

Some other great social sites, which I won’t detail on this post, are LinkedIn, Google+, Digg, StumbleUpon, and a lot more. Also, if you’re an author, get yourself on Goodreads, Shelfari, and/or LibraryThing. You can also meet and interact with people of common interests (teaching, gardening, book blogging…) on forums. Finding one you like just takes a little research.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

Your fan base will not materialize in a week or even a year; it is an ongoing task. It’s not even possible to master everything at once, nor is it necessary to be on all these sites. Try one or two things at a time and learn them then add something new later. I began book blogging a year ago. I created a Facebook page a few months later. And I only started using Twitter at the end of the last year. Building your platform is a slow process, one that requires time and effort, but one that’s full of potential. So take a lesson from the tortoise: Make a start somewhere and keep on keeping on.

Indie Endeavors, Part 9: Blurbs

Next week my how-to series will wrap up! But I’ve decided to make Indie Publishing a category on my blog. I’ll add to it often. In the meantime, check out all my posts in this series…

• Part 1: My Eight-Year Journey
• Part 2: Tradtional vs. Self-Publishing
• Part 3: A Word About Editing
• Part 4: Cover Images
• Part 5: What the Heck is an ISBN?
• Part 6: Publishing ebooks on Kindle
• Part 7: Why Publish ebooks on Smashwords?
• Part 8: Should I Create a Paperback?

Your book is published in a variety of places. Now it’s time to write up some effective blurbs to help you sell them. Blurbs are short, catchy summaries and can range between one sentence and two or three paragraphs. After your cover, your blurb is the first place readers will look to check out your book, so make sure it’s snappy and effective. The trick is to capture interest in a short space. In this post, I’ll give you some examples of blurbs and blurb lengths and share some great places to use them.

Usually the site on which you publish your book will give you the opportunity to write a short synopsis that will appear next to your book listing. Take advantage!! The length of your blurb will depend on the amount of space you’re given. Here’s my Smashwords short blurb for my middle grade fantasy, The Quill Pen. In four sentences, it captures the story’s problem, piques interest, and creates a measure of suspense (at least I hope it does!):

If you owned a pen that wrote the future, would you use it? What if consequences spread like ripples in a pond? What if they raged out of control? What if the pen demanded tribute—in blood?

Smashwords also allows room for a longer summary, as does Amazon. You’ll want to be careful, however. It is possible to bore your reader or scare them off with too much text. And you don’t want to reveal too much information, either. The best blurbs give a little away and create interest by hinting at all the reader doesn’t yet know. Here’s an example:

If you found a pen that wrote the future, would you use it? What if consequences spread like ripples in a pond? What if they raged out of control? What if the pen demanded tribute…in blood?

Thirteen-year-old Micah has found such a pen. One that’s ensnared him in a curse dating back generations. One that’s devastated two families and now threatens his whole New England village. But how can Micah destroy the pen when it offers him his only chance at the future he dreams of?

Sometimes an even longer blurb may be in order, like on the back cover of your book, or when someone (like a reviewer or an editor) asks for a one-page synopsis. Since my Quill Pen back cover blurb is quite short (I used the one above), I’ll provide the one from my book The Color of Freedom as an example of a longer one. It gives the reader a very good idea of what will happen in the book but still leaves much unsaid. Notice how the conflict is clearly put forth:

Fourteen-year-old Meadow McKenzie hates the British. Turned off her Irish farm and forced to book passage to America as an indentured servant, Meadow understands why the rebels wish to throw off the yoke of King George’s rule. But is freedom worth the cost?

Then, forced to flee her master, Meadow disguises herself as a boy and takes up with a traveling tinker. While winding toward Boston to reunite with her father, she’s moved by the courage, pride and determination of the American patriots, but their Puritan roots run deep.

Before she can embrace the cause of her new homeland, Meadow must carefully consider a future amongst Puritan hatred for her Catholic beliefs. Would liberty apply to Irish, to Negroes, to Quakers, to Jews, to Catholics? Or would that slogan be cast aside when majority rule served the majority? Perhaps the colonists had simply invented a new kind of tyranny.

But war will not wait for Meadow’s decision.

It’s also wise to have a very concise summary of perhaps one or two sentences. You never know when you might have a quick opportunity to pitch your book. Fellow YA author Lois D. Brown (who wrote Cycles) and I decided to advertise in the back of each other’s books because our themes were so similar. We used very, very short blurbs because we figured our readers’ attention span was at an end. Here are both of them:

Mine: If you owned a pen that wrote the future, would you use it? What if the pen demanded tribute—in blood?

Hers: Thirteen-year-old Renee Beaumont is about to die . . . again.

So you can see that having a variety of blurbs is very beneficial. If you’re given the space, make sure you include them. (And make double sure your spelling and punctuation are correct.) With a little creativity, you’ll probably find many additional uses for them. I use mine each time I query a possible reviewer, and they’ve come in handy when I’ve been featured on author spotlight blogs. So take a little time to write some up.

Indie Endeavors, Part 8: Should I Create a Paperback?

So you’re thinking of self-publishing?  Jump into my how-to series…

• Part 1: My Eight-Year Journey
• Part 2: Tradtional vs. Self-Publishing
• Part 3: A Word About Editing
• Part 4: Cover Images
• Part 5: What the Heck is an ISBN?
• Part 6: Publishing ebooks on Kindle
• Part 7: Why Publish ebooks on Smashwords?

Creating a paperback version of your book is a bit more complicated than creating an ebook. However, there is something very gratifying about holding, smelling and flipping through the pages of your very own hard copy. They also look fabulous sitting on the coffee table! But more importantly, perhaps, are the millions of folks who haven’t switched over to digital. If you don’t provide your book as a paperback, you’re missing a huge potential audience.

Not long ago, self-publishing a physical book involved a costly print run and perhaps five hundred or a thousand books in your basement that you were solely responsible for storing, distributing, and selling. Not anymore. If you are a brand new author, print-on-demand (POD) publishing is the only way to go. Here’s how it works: You upload your files digitally to the publishing company’s database where they are stored. (Making changes simply involves uploading a new file, even after publication.) Then, whenever someone purchases your book online, those files are used to print as few as one copy, which is sent to the purchaser. Amazing! And very cost effective, because as an author, you don’t put money in; you simply take out your cut of the profits.

My Experience with Two POD Companies

So where should you print your books? That depends on your needs. My first experience was through Lulu.com, as it was pretty established and the only one I had heard of before. I was extremely happy with the results. Their website was user-friendly, with step-by-step instructions and a great help forum. I could upload my files in doc format, the cover creator was a breeze, and the final product was extremely professional. I highly, highly recommend Lulu if you want only a few copies for yourself or close friends. However, I wanted to make my books available to a wide audience at a reasonable price, and I found that placing my books for sale on Amazon involved some legwork and a lot of fees. To make just seventy cents per copy, I had to price my 165-page novel at a ridiculous fifteen dollars.

Then I discovered CreateSpace, a POD publisher which is owned by Amazon. Suddenly, I could place my novel for ten dollars, make three dollars profit, and not have to give a thought to the logistics of distribution. Perfect! I must say Lulu produced a slightly higher quality book, but I am still quite satisfied with CreateSpace. Ease of production was very comparable. CreateSpace’s cover creator was user-friendly, the help forum super, and they also allow the uploading of Word docs. And as an added bonus, price per book for author copies was substantially lower than Lulu’s.

Formatting Basics

So you want to proceed? Keep in mind that creating a paperback is a different ball game than creating a document for ereaders. Each page is stationary, not free-flowing, so some formatting must be in place to make it look nice. It’s more of a building project, but since PDF is the industry standard, you actually build it in your favorite word processing program and then convert (or upload to your publisher’s converter). I use Word, and many of the sites even offer Word templates, which eliminates much of the following work.

Here are several things to think about when creating a POD paperback:

General formatting. First, you must choose your book’s size based on the options offered at your particular publisher. There are many, many sizes, and these vary by company, but several standards will be found at most of them. Once you choose your size, you must format your Word doc in the same size. You can do this in the “Page Layout” menu. Next, set your margins and gutters, the area where a two-page spread meets in the middle. Your publisher will have suggested guidelines available. And finally, add in any headers or footers you might want on each page, such as page numbers and the book title or chapter titles.

Since I do not usually name my chapters, I do not start new chapters on new pages. But if you would like to, you can make very effective use of page breaks. The section break feature is also very handy if you don’t want your headers or footers included on every page (like the front or end pages). You can break your manuscript into individual sections with their own unique formatting. Both page and section breaks are found in Word’s “Insert” menu.

Front and end pages. Paperbacks have important pages and information at the front of the book (some of which is required by law) that may differ from an ebook, such as a title page, copyright page, dedication, and table of contents. Your publisher will have specific instructions available about what is required and what to include on each page. Likewise, you may wish to include information at the end of your book, such as a bibliography, note from the author or glossary.

Images. When I added maps to one of my novels, I encountered some problems when uploading to CreateSpace. I learned that Word saves images in a low resolution to reduce file size, which would have resulted in a grainy printed image. To fix this, I had to covert my finished manuscript to PDF before saving as a Word doc instead of using the automatic converter. (See below.)

Converting to PDF. Since learning how easy it is to convert a Word doc to PDF, I now prefer to do it myself every time, whether I have images or not. It can be as easy as choosing the PDF file format from the “save as” drop down menu. This method, however, will not protect image resolution, so I choose to download the free PrimoPDF conversion software.

Primo is actually a virtual printer. To convert to PDF from a Word doc and maintain image resolution, DO NOT save the document after inserting your images. (Don’t move or enlarge the pictures, either. Insert them exactly as you want them to appear.) Instead, choose “print” from the “File” menu and then select the Primo printer from the drop down menu. Your document will be saved as a PDF with high quality images.

Producing a paperback can be a bit trickier and more time consuming than creating an ebook, but hard copies have advantages all their own. You just might want to consider diving in.

Read Part 9: Blurbs

Indie Endeavors, Part 7: Why Publish ebooks on Smashwords?

So you’re thinking of self-publishing?  Jump into my how-to series…

• Part 1: My Eight-Year Journey
• Part 2: Tradtional vs. Self-Publishing
• Part 3: A Word About Editing
• Part 4: Cover Images
• Part 5: What the Heck is an ISBN?
• Part 6: Publishing ebooks on Kindle

Though Amazon (Kindle) is the busiest market for ebooks, it is not the only one.  I’ve found Smashwords to be a very handy site, one well worth investigating.  It’s an up-and-coming company that few have yet heard of outside the publishing world.  Therefore, I make very little money there.  However, Smashwords will convert your ebook into a variety of file format (to accommodate many types of readers), and it gives authors the opportunity to offer free downloads.  (Amazon, if you recall, will not allow a price to be set below .99.)

Why would I want to price my book free? you may be asking.  One reason.  Promotion!  If you’re reading this, most likely you aren’t someone with a household name.  To help spread the word about yourself and your work, you may consider giving your stories away for a limited time.  Readers who would never purchase from an unknown author will often read for free.  If they like what they see, they may come back for more.  This strategy is especially useful if you have additional books available.  Every time I’ve tried it, the sales for my not-free books have jumped.  Also, by setting the first book of a series to free, you may draw readers to your second volume and beyond.  Short stories are another great way to draw attention to your work.  They don’t take long to write, so throwing them out there as freebies makes great sense.  You can do this through the Smashwords website.

But maybe, instead of offering your book free to anyone, you’d like to give it away to only certain readers.  Reviewers, for instance.  For this, Smashwords has a very useful coupon feature.  You can keep your price set at whatever figure you like for the masses.  In the meantime, you can create coupons which may be passed out selectively.  The discount price can be set to anything you like, and you control the expiration date.  Your readers simply punch in the code at checkout and download their book. (You might also consider 30% or 60% off coupons for select groups, like the readers of a blog on which you’ve been featured.)

Another reason to publish on Smashwords, and I’d say the most important reason, is that the Amazon web-bot roams to and fro throughout the virtual world sniffing out bargains.  If it finds your book at a price lower than Amazon’s, many times it will match it.  Twice I’ve set my books to free on Smashwords only to have Kindle pick it up about two weeks later.  Talk about exposure!  Each time, my downloads topped 10,000 in the space of a week or ten days.  Needless to say, my other books did very well, too.  And this boost lasted even after I changed my price back.

Publishing on Smashwords is even easier than publishing on Kindle, because you can upload Word documents (only in the .doc format, not .docx).  The Smashwords “meatgrinder” will convert to several other formats for you.  However, for your document to convert to all these successfully, there are some specific formatting rules to follow.  I hit on most of them in last week’s Publishing on Kindle post, particularly the instructions for creating a free-flowing document, wiping out all of Word’s formatting, and swapping tabs out for automatic indentations.  If you’re brand new to Smashwords, I’d also recommend reading through the Smashwords style guide.  It’s a very comprehensive resource for all things formatting, including the creation of hyperlinked tables of context and the inclusion of pictures.

One last benefit of publishing on Smashwords is that your work will be distributed to a variety of other ebook retailers (if you choose), such as Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Stanza, Diesel, Apple, Aldiko and Sony.  Granted, I’ve never made any sales from these retailers, but it doesn’t hurt to spread oneself around.  You never know what might happen. (Last year, Smashwords was the only way to place your work on the Barnes and Noble Nook, but B&N now offers its own publishing program.)

So go sign up for a free account on the Smashwords website and you’ll be publishing in no time at all.

Part 8: Should I Create a Paperback?

For more information about Smashwords, check out my older posts:

How to Self-Publish on Smashwords 

How to Download ebooks from Smashwords and How to Use Smashwords Coupons

Reading ebooks on your Personal Computer – PDF, EPUB, MOBI and JavaScript (Some of the file formats offered by Smashwords)

Indie Endeavors, part 6 – Publishing ebooks on Kindle

So you’re thinking of self-publishing?  Jump into my how-to series…

• Part 1: My Eight-Year Journey
• Part 2: Tradtional vs. Self-Publishing
• Part 3: A Word About Editing
• Part 4: Cover Images
• Part 5: What the Heck is an ISBN?

Your manuscript is clean, you have a cover image, you know all about ISBNs, it’s finally time for the big post, the one you’ve all been waiting for – I feel a drum roll would be in order here – how to publish on Kindle!

Amazon Kindle sales make up 95 percent of my total sales.  It’s where the people are, where your work will be discovered and picked up.  If you publish nowhere else, publish on Kindle.  The process is extremely easy, as you will soon see.  The writing is the hard part, and by this point, that’s all done!

Kindle requires your document in HTML format, but before you convert, you will need to make sure it looks exactly as you want it to appear on an ereader.  That means no headers, no footers, no page numbering, no page breaks.  An ebook is a free-flowing document, so get rid of all that stuff.  Next, check your font sizes.  Because ereaders usually have medium to small screens, it’s a good idea to keep your fonts between 12 and 16 points.  Next, make sure you have your title, author name, copyright date and cover image credits centered at the beginning of your document, and add any content you want included at the end, like contact info, links and teasers for your next great work.  (Back of the book content could be a post all its own!)

One last step I take before converting is to delete all my formatting and start over with a clean slate.  This is not absolutely necessary, but it’s wise, especially if you’ve created your document in Word, which is notorious for troublesome automatic formatting.  These changes Word makes in your document usually go undetected, but they can lead to skipped spaces, odd spacing, and all sorts of weird issues once your manuscript hits an ereader.  These are hard to track down (I’m speaking here from experience!).  To save lots of headaches later, I always start fresh.  The whole process takes me about half an hour, and it assures me a much higher quality product when I’m done.

Optional:  To delete your formatting, copy your entire document (Ctrl + A) and paste it into a plain text program such as Microsoft Notepad, then re-paste it into a new Word document.  (All my instruction will assume a Word document, because that’s all I’ve ever worked in.)  Then you can go back through and add chapter headings, bolds, centers, italics, and any other necessary tweaks.  

This is also a good time to get rid of tabs and replace them with automatic indentations.  This is not necessary for Kindle, so you may skip it if you’d like, but if you plan to also make your ebook available on Smashwords, you’ll end up having to do it anyway, and this is the best time.  (Lots more about Smashwords next week.)  If you do choose to replace tabs, you’ll want to do it before you tweak your centered text, because the indentation will override it and you’ll have to center again.

Optional:  The easiest way to delete tabs is to use the “replace” tool in the “editing” toolbar.  Type ^t into the “find” line (the carrot symbol is above the 6) and leave the “replace” line blank.  This will delete all your tabs instantly.  Now to indent automatically, highlight your entire document (ctrl+A) and open the “paragraph” toolbar.  Under the “indents and spacing” subheading, look for the “indentations” section and find the drop box below “special.”  Choose “first line.”  You’ll notice a 0.5 appears in the “by” drop box next door.  You can set this for as deep or shallow an indentation as you’d like.  I like to use 0.3.  Every first line of every paragraph is now indented.  

Your manuscript is now ready to convert to HTML.  First, save your manuscript for good measure.  Next, save it again using “save as” and chose HTML (or “Web Page”) from the “Save as type” drop down box (located under the “File name” box).  Voila!  You have an HTML document ready to upload to Kindle.

Now the fun part.  Head over to the Kindle Direct Publishing website, set up an account, and follow the easy-to-follow instruction.  Keep in mind your cover image will need to be ready in JPEG or TIFF format.  And your royalty rate will depend on the price you choose for your ebook.  (This is another topic worthy of a whole separate post, but the facts in short are:  You cannot price below .99.  Any book priced between .99 and 2.98 will only gain you 35% royalties.  Books priced from 2.99 and up will get you a 70% royalty rate.)

You’re ready!  Go for it!  Your new ebook will usually appear on Amazon’s website within twelve hours.  Congratulations, new author!!

Read Part 7: Why Publish on Smashwords?

Indie Endeavors, Part 5 – What the Heck is an ISBN?

So you’re thinking of self-publishing?  Jump into my how-to series…

• Part 1: My Eight-Year Journey
• Part 2: Tradtional vs. Self-Publishing
• Part 3: A Word About Editing
• Part 4: Cover Images

Next week we can begin diving into some of the publishing sites on the web, but before I do, a short discussion of ISBNs may be in order.  One of the first questions you will be asked before you begin publication is if you want to provide your own ISBN or not.  That begs the question, what the heck is an ISBN, anyway?

An International Standard Book Number is a unique 13-digit number given to every newly-published book and used for identification and cataloguing purposes around the world.  (Books dated before 2007 will have 9- or 10-digit numbers.)  Each country has its own distributor.  In America, that distributor is the Bowker Agency.  Anyone can purchase and register an ISBN through the Bowker website; however, if you purchase only one, it isn’t cheap.  Prices drop considerably when you buy additional numbers.  If you are interested in purchasing your own ISBN and you plan to write more than one book, you may want to consider purchasing ten numbers instead of just one, because it won’t cost much more, and the numbers are good forever.

Most digital publishers, however, purchase ISBNs in bulk and offer them freely to authors who publish through them.  AND they take care of any paperwork.  Is there a catch?  Yes, a small one.  The number issued by a company will point to that company.  In short, that means in within the cataloguing details, it will be easily deduced that you are a self-published author.

Last spring, I didn’t really understand how this all worked, so I undertook the expense and hassle of purchasing a set of three ISBNs.  And to make matters worse, I purchased through a reseller.  I did get a fair price, which included digital bar codes, but I have since come to regret my decision.  First, registering the numbers through this particular reseller was a pain, and my first attempt didn’t even go through.  Second, I found out that most publishers will generate a bar code anyway, so that part of my purchase was unnecessary.  Third, I found out that every edition of a book (hardcover, softcover and every ebook format) requires a separate ISBN, which gets expensive in a hurry!  And finally, I came to realize that the only ones who really look through the numbers are mostly bookstore people and librarians – not my primary market.  Joe Schmo who purchases my book off Amazon couldn’t care less what my ISBN is, let alone who issued it.

So I was out a hundred and forty buck with little to show for it.  I never even used the third number.  Since my early blunder, I happily accept whatever free ISBN is offered.  It’s made absolutely no difference, and it’s MUCH cheaper and easier.  If you want to pursue the placement of your book in libraries and bookstores, you may want to research this further, but it’s pretty tough for an indie to get inside brick-and-mortar.  So my advice would be, go for the freebie.

Part 6: Publishing ebooks on Kindle

Indie Endeavors, Part 4 – Cover Images

So you’re thinking of self-publishing?  Jump into my how-to series…

• Part 1: My Eight-Year Journey
• Part 2: Tradtional vs. Self-Publishing
• Part 3: A Word About Editing

Before you publish your manuscript, you must design a cover.  Even an ebook has a cover image associated with it.  It’s the first thing your potential readers will see, and you know what they say about first impressions.  Make it count!   Whether or not a person chooses to purchase your book is often directly related to the quality of your cover.

So what makes a great cover image?  It should be professional, appealing and uncluttered.  The title should be clearly readable even when the picture is reduced to the size of a thumbnail.  The author’s name is usually smaller and less important, unless you’re Steven King, but it should still be visible.  And the cover may or may not feature a snappy quote from a review.  Finally, the finished product should be saved in at least 300 dpi (dots per inch) to prevent a grainy image.

Sound like a tall order?  You can hire this done if you’d like.  Word-of-mouth recommendation are easy to come by on sites like Goodreads, Shelfari, or LibraryThing where lots of authors hang out.  There, you can “shop around” for covers you like.  If you find one, simply ask the author who designed it.  Or you can ask for recommendations on a forum like BookBlogs.  Here’s an example of one such comment thread.

But designing your own cover is cheaper, and it’s actually kind of fun.  All you need is image-editing software and images, and both are pretty easy to find.  You can use your own pictures, but if you’re no photographer, there are millions to choose from on the web.  But remember, copyrights pay a large role here.  Don’t just assume everything is freely available for your use.  Many sites on the web stock images you can purchase and use, but if you know where to look, you can find lots of great pictures for free.

Public domain images may be used by anyone in any way they wish.  For the most part, these include pictures taken before 1923, photographs of historical artworks, and government photos.  These can be found on sites run by state libraries, historical commissions, museums, universities and the Library of Congress.  There are even search engines to help you locate what you need.  Try everystockphoto.com.

Creative Commons provides another great way to find free photos.  Under a CC license, the copyright holder maintains only some of their rights.  The most generous terms allow a user free rein, but they must credit the copyright holder.  This is called attribution.  There are several levels of CC terms, however, so make certain you know which one an image is licensed under before using it.  I’ve found most of my CC images on Flickr and Photobucket.  (For a fuller explanation of both public domain and Creative Commons copyrights, visit http://www.pdimages.com/.)

Once you find an image you like, you need software.  Photoshop is the first program that comes to mind, but free downloadable programs do exist.  PaintNet is the one I use.  It’s been fairly easy to figure out, though I admit I’m still a novice.  There are plenty of plug-ins and features I haven’t even tried yet.  I’ve also heard decent things about Gimp, and there were many more options when I googled “photo software”.  Keep in mind that it may take some time and practice (and maybe some on-line tutorials) to learn the ins and outs of your program, so have patience, but once you’ve got the basics down, you can begin to choose fonts, colors and image effects to create exactly the cover image you desire.  Cut out sections of a picture, fade others, shrink them, move them, or even layer multiple images to create a collage.  The possibilities are endless.

In conclusion, a cover image seems like a huge obstacle at first, but it can be solved without too much pain.  Because I didn’t want to invest a great deal of money into self-publishing projects that may or may not pay for themselves, I chose to create my own cover images.  You can see them in the right hand column of my blog. Not the best ever, I freely admit, but I think they make a decent first impression.  And my books are earning a profit, not paying off a debt.  I’ll consider hiring an artist down the road.

Go to Part 5: What the Heck is an ISBN?

Indie Endeavors, part 3 – A Word About Editing

So you’re thinking of self-publishing?  Jump into my how-to series…

• Part 1: My Eight-Year Journey
• Part 2: Traditional vs. Self-Publishing

In my first post, I shared the path that led to my own decision to self-publish.  In my second, I briefly compared traditional and self publishing.  Now it’s time to get to the nitty-gritty.  How do you get your story out there for the rest of the world to read?

Okay, you have a polished manuscript that’s seen suggestions and revisions.  You’re ready to publish, right?  Don’t even think about it until your manuscript has been thoroughly edited.  I know, I know, even professionally prepared books sometimes contain errors.  But indie books have gathered a notoriously bad reputation in this department, and for good reason.  Many of the ones I’ve read have been so poorly edited that I hesitate to purchase them without previewing first.  And this coming from a self-published author!

It’s a good idea to hire a professional editor.  They’re simple enough to find through a Google search, but with fees charged per word, it can get costly in a hurry.  (Self-published author and blogger Lindsay Buroker recently posted a nice summary of three degrees of professional editing and their price tags.)  So I chose a non-professional option:

After the completion of my manuscript, I set it aside for a few weeks to let some of the details sift from my memory.  Then I read it again, twice, purely to search for errors.  After that, I sent it off to three fellow writers.  None of us proofread for a living, but we all have spell check and an excellent grasp of grammar.  I couldn’t believe how many errors I missed!  After making corrections, I went ahead and published my books…only to find they still weren’t ready!  My first few reviewers picked up on another ten or twelve typos and homophones (ie. sees/seas) in each book.

You’ll recall that my first several titles were published about the same time, so this process overlapped in a three-book mess.  One of my early titles, because it is the second in a series, didn’t receive quite the same amount of proofreading given to the others.  (Everyone wanted to read the first one.)  To my utter embarrassment, when I reread it several months after publication, I found dozens of errors.  I was horrified!  It has since received the attention that should have been lavished on it immediately.  Fortunately, digital publishing makes the correction of errors a fairly simple matter.  It cannot, however, erase the impression readers received when they purchased my unprofessional book.

So what have I learned?  Editing requires time and meticulous care.  And more eyes is definitely better.  A dozen typos isn’t horrible in a 50,000-word novel, but that’s still way more than I want.  (Dozens is unacceptable.)  For my next novel, I will repeat all the steps I mentioned above.  Then I’ll label my book as an ARC (advanced readers copy) and send it out to a much wider group of proofreaders, including some of the reviewers I’ve been fortunate to meet this past year.  Only after these come back and additional corrections are made will I launch my book.

I made a mess of my first attempts, and I do NOT want to repeat those mistakes.  Readers deserve a quality product immedietly (not to mention your reputation).  Take the time to give it to them.

**I’ll be without my laptop for a few days, so bear with me when I don’t reply to comments immediately. 

Go to Part 4: Cover Images

Indie Endeavors, part 2 – Traditional vs. Self-Publishing

So you’re thinking of self-publishing?  Jump into my how-to series… 

Read part 1: My Eight-Year Journey.

Before I get into the nuts and bolts of self-publishing, I’ll take a week to lay the process alongside traditional publishing and see how it stacks up.  Having never been published by the mainstream industry, I admit I’m no authority.  But I’ve been poking around the business long enough to pick up on a few things.

In my opinion, the  biggest advantage to self-publishing is total control, which walks hand-in-hand with total profits.  I don’t have to agree to changes in my manuscript.  I don’t have to submit to a horrible cover.  I don’t have to worry about contracts, rights or permissions.  The book is mine alone, to do as little or as much with as I’d like, in any format, at any time.  And I do not have to settle for a royalty equal to pennies on the dollar.

But total control comes with total responsibility, and that’s the biggest disadvantage to going it alone.  I jumped in without really knowing what I was doing, and I’ve had no one to teach me but experience.  I need to make sure my manuscript is absolutely top quality, create a cover image, and produce and market my own product.  Let me repeat that last bit, because it’s the toughest one for me.  I need to market my own product.  Once my book is “out there,” I’ve just begun.

I tried off and on for several years to snag a contract.  Because of my inexperience, I wanted a team behind me.  But the big publishing houses receive thousands of submissions each month and their lists only have so much room.  The competition is fierce, and your material has to match their needs.  I never made the cut.  Now, I’m so glad I’m not tied to any prior commitments.  And I’m glad I don’t have to wait on a publisher’s time table.

It takes months or (in my case) years of submitting  before a manuscript is accepted, and then it takes months or years longer to produce a book.  And nowadays, authors are responsibIe for promoting their own work to a great extent, especially newbies who haven’t yet made a name for themselves.  I don’t begrudge the time I “wasted,” because rejection forced me to become a much better writer.  But now that I’m pleased with the work I’m producing, indie is my obvious choice.

Now let’s talk some figures.  Six percent is an average royalty for a traditionally-published paperback, which might sell for ten dollars.  Net profit?  Sixty cents.  Hardcovers pull a ten percent royalty and are priced a little higher.  On a twenty dollar hardcover?  Two dollars.  In comparison, let’s take some actual figures from my self-published books.

The big ebook publishers have two royalty rates.  For .99 to 2.98 ebooks, payment is thirty-five percent; much higher than traditional rates.  And books priced 2.99 or higher pull in seventy percent!  That’s just over two dollars on a three dollar book!  Of course, the higher the price, the more you’ll make, but low cost is exactly why ebooks sell.  With a little marketing (okay, a lot of marketing), think of the potential!

Print-on-demand paperbacks involve much more cost in materials.  Prices are based on the size of a book, and they vary widely by publisher.  At CreateSpace, I can sell a 160-page paperback on Amazon for ten dollars and receive just over three dollars profit.  (If I purchased the books and sold them off my website, I could make substantially more.  However, my website receives approximately zero exposure, so it’s worth the cost to actually make sales.)  This boils down to about a thirty percent royalty on each book – significantly more than the traditional six.

In conclusion, self-publishing takes a lot of time and energy, but it’s exciting, it has significant potential, and I’m learning how to make it work.  I might not sell as many copies on my own, but my efforts are lining my own pockets, not a publishing company’s.  And who knows?  With time, effort and experience, I might surprise myself!  Either way, I’m published, and I’m in control, and I’d recommend that combination to anyone.

Go to Part 3: A Word About Editing

Indie Endeavors, part 1 – My Eight-Year Journey

Last year, I choose to become an independently-published author (affectionately dubbed an “Indie”).  This year, I’m going make an effort to share some of my experiences with others who may be considering the same route.  Today, as my first post in this series, I’ll describe the eight-year road that precluded my own decision.

Actually, I’ve been writing far longer than eight years.  I made up stories for fun as a kid, and in high school I managed a 50-page novella.  Another followed in college, then a trilogy of short, Christian, middle grade fiction.  None of these were publishable, but, as I’ve come to understand, they were all excellent practice.

Fresh out of college, I took to heart some general advice I read about breaking into the publishing world; I began playing with articles and short stories in an attempt to build up a portfolio.  I wrote dozens of stories for church programs and even managed to publish fifteen or so of my articles, but I quickly decided this was not for me.  My heart belonged to novels.

Because I taught in the public schools for several years, I ultimately chose to forego the Christian market.  I wanted to create stories like the wonderful literature I taught at school – fun, clean, quality reads for mainstream students to enjoy.  With this new focused goal, my writing suddenly went from hobby to serious pursuit.  That was the moment I said with certainty, “I WILL be published.”  I stopped teaching after the birth of my second child, and about a year later, my first novel, The Color of Freedom, was born.  And that marks the true beginning of this eight-year journey.

I’ve never been very good at pushing my work to publishing houses.  I gave it a half-hearted attempt, receiving back several rejection letters.  Before they even arrived, however, I was well into my second novel, The Quill Pen.  After a year and more rejections, I rewrote The Color of Freedom, doubling its length.  I then scrapped The Quill Pen completely and started over.  More rejections, further revisions, a third child, mommy duties, church duties, a little writing time stolen here, a little there, then the big decision to homeschool.  Eventually, The Candle Star took shape, followed by its sequel, Broken Ladders.  More time constraints and rejection, rejection, rejection…frustrating, but pushing me to become better and better.

And then the event that changed everything…

Last year, I received a Kindle from my husband for Christmas.  Before this, I had heard of self-publishing.  I thought it involved a small fortune and a basement full of books leftover from a print run.  My Kindle opened up a whole world of digital publishing: ebooks and print-on-demand paperbacks.  It was overwhelming and a little frightening, but I jumped in.  I was ripe for it.  For eight years I had called myself a writer.  I was ready to call myself an author.

I took out my old copy of The Color of Freedom.  I was appalled!  In the years since my last revision, I had indeed learned a great deal about the artistry of writing!  But my story was solid, so I took a few months to clean it up, and in the spring of 2011, I became a published author.  Over the course of the year, I dug out all four of my finished manuscripts and brought them to print.  Two more will debut this year, along with a series of classroom resources booklets to help teachers get the most mileage out of my books.

In the next few months, I hope to pass along some of the knowledge I’ve picked up: how and where to publish ebooks, how and where to publish paperbacks, using various file formats, self-publishing vs. traditional publishing, editing, ISBN numbers, marketing, creating cover art, making Amazon work for you, creating a platform for your work.

I’ve barely started in this endeavor, and I’m still learning a LOT.  I probably bit off more than I should have publishing FOUR books this year.  In fact, last month was the first I managed any kind of profit worth mentioning, but I finally know where I’m going, and my numbers are continuing to improve.  I hope these posts will help others debating whether or not to take those first self-publishing steps.

Go to Part 2: Traditional vs. Self-Publishing