Tag Archive: How To Self Publish step by step


Do It Your Self Publishing, a distinction in self publishing

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October 8, 2012
Do It Yourself Self Publishing

The Four Wise Budgies of Self Publishing suggest you consider Do It Your Self Publishing.

As I continue to write about How To Self Publish A Book, I’ve realized that I need to add some more definitions to the term “self publishing.”

Most of the sites that come up under a search for self publishing advice are companies that can help an author self publish a book, for a price.

Many of them are good companies, and many authors are getting books out and ready to sell with their help…

but I’m doing something else as a self publisher… I’m doing it myself. So I’ve decided that we need a new term…

DIY Self Publishing, Do It Your Self Publishing.

This is a subculture of self publishing and invites anyone who has the skills to do it, or has no other choice (because they simply don’t have the money…)

Participation in this honorable new society will still cost some money in the form of a business license and buying ISBN numbers, and it means that we, as authors, will not be writing while we are engaged in the many hours of self publishing work. It also means that we, as working professionals, will not be doing whatever paid work we do while we are self publishing…. and that has to be weighed against the advantages of doing it ourselves. Even if you can do it yourself, it might make better economic sense to hire it out depending on your circumstances.

So that said, these posts are all about Do It Your Self Publishing. And in doing so, many of the actions are things you can do for free…. and that’s why it may be worth your time, because if your costs in producing the book are as low as possible, then you’ll have a better chance to make a profit when the book is out and selling. Assuming it does sell because you did spend what money you did have, wisely… like, on editing.

Evaluate your project by these four questions:

  • Is this a book well suited for Do It Your Self Publishing?
  • Do you have the time to produce it?
  • Should you consider submitting it to traditional publishers before you go ahead with self publishing?
  • Or do you have the money to buy help producing it… and reasonable plans for earning back that money in sales…?

And if it’s time to roll up your sleeves and do it yourself…. I’ve got some blogs you might enjoy..!

 

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Self Publishing Book Design – What To Consider

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September 17, 2012
More Than Twenty Tips for Self Publishing A Book

Book design is where we authors put all of our eggs in one basket… for a classy and cohesive presentation.

Book design is an important step in self publishing a book. It is the setting that showcases the polished jewel of your story. Designing your book is where you figure out what you want to do with each of the pages, headers, chapter breaks, and more.

Book design can be a great opportunity to express the message of your story in unique ways, or reinforce your message. So far, I don’t get too weird with my book design because I’m aiming for a polished and professional look… but I can literally do anything I want within the page margins of the book size I’ve selected and the content guidelines of the service I’m working with. But, what do I want to do? Where do I start?

I had no idea how to design my first book, and my friend Sue Waterman was a tremendous help. She did a lovely book design for “Just a Couple of Chickens”, and that was a huge boost. With her fundamental design in hand, I went to the library and checked out ten books, one each from my favorite authors. I lined them up and studied how they designed each of their pages. Then I decided how I would approach it. I also considered the fact that some of my favorite authors have fancy full-time book designers on staff, so their books look pretty swish. I opted for simplicity.

I found a wide variety of left page, right page, headers. Many books had the author’s name on the left and the book title on the right, with page numbers left and right with the header at the top. But some books had the book title on the left and then each applicable chapter title on the right. That takes either a lot of careful design or some fancy programming. It’s super helpful from a reader’s point of view, becasue I can tell right away what chapter I’m in, but it’s more than I want to take on right now from a designer’s point of view. I discovered that I prefer a page number on every page, although most books omit the page number from the first page of each chapter. Books that only listed the right hand page number were not popular with me. I don’t want to go looking for a page number. And I love book dedications, especially the creative ones. I discovered that many of the things I love as a reader, I don’t love as a publisher… like an index, for instance. Lotta work!

I’ll be posting in more depth on individutal book design elements over the next several weeks, and my soon-to-be available book series on How To Self Publish will have even more info, but in the meantime, using other books as a guideline is a great place to start.

Not every page is applicable to every book project, for instance, a fiction novel probably won’t have a bibliography. I feel that book design should always favor readability over fine art, but otherwise, it can be a powerful asset to the book when done well.

This, however, is an enormous amount of work… just when we thought we had “finished” our book!

 

 

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Self Publishing Steps: 3 Ways to Write It… !

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September 3, 2012
Self Publishing Advice Butterflies

The Three Butterflies of Writing Advice

As I build my series on Step by Step Self Publishing, I keep trying to start at the beginning… with Write The Book… but current life and topics keep popping up.
Because this is blogging.
It’s more spontaneous, closer to live action, more like real life.
Not disorganized. No way!

For authors, publishing starts after we think we are finished.
So for authors, self publishing advice includes the topic of writing the book. And my advice for authors considering self publishing is to write another book and publish it as well. Don’t stop with just one book – use the time, effort, and self education to put out more books! But first, we have to write it.

Out of the millions of ways to write a book, I can think of three:

1)            Do something and write about it

2)            
Find someone who did something and write about them


3)            Make something up completely from scratch and write about it

I started with number one. I did something, and I wrote about it…  my memoir about raising poultry and a family in hard times, titled  “Just a Couple of Chickens”

Now I’m almost finished with my second book, using approach number 2. I’ve found someone who did something, and I’m writing about him. My grandfather, Col. C. J. Tippett, did several very interesting things in aviation history as well as being a fascinating person in an extraordinary time.

Number 3 seems the hardest. To make something up completely from scratch and write about it. I do have my secret manuscript just like every other writer, my blockbuster sci-fi space opera, bodice-ripper… (space-suit ripper?) but in the meantime, I’m going back to methods 1 and 2 and writing sequels to my first two books.

Because if Write It is the first step in self publishing, then Write a Sequel and Do It All Over Again is the last… that’s just good publishing advice.

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My Comparison Between the Chicago Manual of Style Online Or Hardcopy

Filed Under: Resources for Writing and Self Publishing by Corinne — Comments Off on My Comparison Between the Chicago Manual of Style Online Or Hardcopy
August 27, 2012
Self Publishing Winter View

This is the winter version of my favorite view from our New Mexico property. Because I am entering edits, and that is a cold, gray, vista of gray coldness.

This week, the “Self” in Self Publishing is pissing me off.

Because this week, I am entering the edits to my book about my grandfather’s aviation pioneering history which will not be titled “CJT, A Biography” due to the unanimous thumbs down from my editors.

Not that it was the title. It was a working title. I’m still working on a title.

This week I am crawling through my book, page by page, carefully capturing all the fixes that my editors have provided.
My editors are very very good, and don’t miss a thing.
But I am apparently utterly unable to properly capitalize or numerate or subject/verb match or punctuate.

I imagine that if I had a book deal with a traditional publisher that some intern would do this for me.
I suspect that I’d still be doing it myself… but in the meantime, let me dream.

I had a job doing this kind of work twenty years ago. I quit that job.

I got tired of searching manually for the proper capitalization of the word “embassy” in my copy of The Chicago Manual of Style.
I wondered how much easier it would be to search for it on the online version.

I’d already dissed the online version in favor of the hardcover version glaring at me on my desk.
So I went online and discovered…that they had a one time 30 day free trial of the online version…

Sign Me Up!

And, and, and …. I typed in my question and got…
The same reference as I get in the hardcover version.

The table of contents.
An invitation to click crawl, rather than page crawl, the chapter on capitalization.
The same note about Chicago’s “down style” as I had sitting on my desk.

Where’s my intern?
Now the all the words in “self publishing” are pissing me off.

I searched further and I did find one benefit of the online Chicago Manual of Style.
The forum.
This is where other terminally frustrated writers and editors have posted their questions and either other people or the Editorial Priesthood of The Manual have answered, and that was really quite helpful because I did pick up a side comment to a tangent to a reference to another question that finally mentioned….

American Embassy (capitalized) or people from the embassy (not capitalized)

So, before I go back to my book and uncapitalize every instance of lieutenant colonel, except for those that should be capitalized… which means that I can’t just do a find and replace… let me summarize my comparison between the hardcover printed copy of The Chicago Manual of Style and the online version:

  1. They both contain the same nit picky, wickedly-confusing, non-obvious, trip wires of English usage rules organized in the same way
  2. Keyword searches really only bring you to suggestions for the right chapter, unless you luck out in the forum
  3. The forum is worth a lot
  4. But clicking through the chapter submenus using the forward button is a lot slower than running your finger down the printed page, because the website page refresh (on my computer) is slow
  5. The hardcover book is a pay once, page crawl forever, situation. Online is a pay yearly, click forever, version

My conclusion is:

Get an intern, give her the hardcopy book, and make HER enter the edits.

 

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Another way to Write The Book

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August 16, 2012

 

Black and White Self Publishing Advice

Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method makes writing light as a feather. Or at least lays it out in black and white.

Writing the book, and writing the next book, can so easily get lost in the process of self publishing. I am constantly trying to stay current in the writing world, and one piece of advice I gleaned from a teaching author was to continue to study my craft. Keep learning about writing. So I joined Willamette Writers and was delighted to listen to Randy Ingermanson at one of the Willamette Writers meetings in 2011.

Randy Ingermanson wrote Writing Fiction for Dummies, among other books, and he was talking about his patented Snowflake Method. I’d never heard of the Snowflake Method before and it hit me ‘tween the eyes like a well-received plank of brilliant break-through. I’d just rolled up my sleeves and resurrected the Outline…  effective, yet somewhat grueling.

Randy’s Snowflake Method is better. It’s a way of approaching story design, planning, forethought – working it out true to the rules of storytelling (beginning middle end, characters who live and breathe, scenes that make sense) while at the same time accomplishing the things that a book must have (one sentence summary, one paragraph summary, a plan…) and it’s a step by step, encouraging, hand-holding method.

He made some software and I bought it and I’m using it. Plus Randy’s website is fun to navigate and FULL of resources.

I made my publisher pay for the software and the Willamette Writer dues.
Which was pretty satisfying until I remembered that my publisher was me.

 

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How To Choose A Title For A Book

Filed Under: Blogs @ "Colonel C. J. Tippett", Blogs @ "Just a Couple of Chickens", How To Series... Step By Step by Corinne — Comments Off on How To Choose A Title For A Book
August 10, 2012
Cloyce Joseph Tippett Wendelins Basketball Team

Maybe somewhere in the photos lurks inspiration for the title. Like… why isn’t my grandfather dressed out? “The Aviator Who Didn’t Dress Out…” hmmmm

As a self publisher, I have the delightful burden of choosing a title for my book.

If I had a book deal with a traditional publisher, this would probably be out of my hands, and also out of my control. Usually, the idea that such an important issue for my book would be out of my control makes me glad to be a self publisher. But not this time. Choosing a title for a book can be a hard slog.

The title for my first book, Just a Couple of Chickens, came easily. It was a family catch phrase during the whole time we were struggling with over 101 infant poultry that arrived from my online catalog order.

“I thought you said you’d ordered just a couple of chickens,” my husband kept saying.

The sequel to that book, which is currently underway, has also come easily.

“Just a couple more?” asked Andrew. “Just a couple more what? Not chickens, right?”

But for my grandfather’s aviation history biography, I’m stumped. It’s got a working title of “CJT, A Biography” because my grandfather is Cloyce Joseph Tippett and it’s a biography. Riveting start. He was such a pioneer in the history of aviation, I must be able to do better than that.

I’ve compiled a list of book title building tips from my research here-there-and-everywhere, and I’ll post again once I’ve successfully found out how to choose a title for my book.

 Here is what the experts suggest to help me choose a title for my book, and I’m going to try each approach:

  •  Write down everything I can think of and everything everyone suggests
  •  Search the genre in amazon and see what other titles there are for other similar books
  •  Sum up my book in one sentence. Write several of these sentences.
  •  Choose a detail of the book and name the book after that detail.
  •  Check out Google keywords on the topic and zero in on the best keywords
  •  Make a list of nouns and verbs that reflect the book topic, then cut them up and line them up in different combinations
  •  Have a 92 character limit, so that it’ll fit in the  Books In Print catalog
  •  List my chapter titles, maybe the title is lurking there
  • Read the book and write down any sentences or paragraphs that capture your title imagination
  •  Sleep on it. Literally, have the title list under my pillow and sleep on it.

(That last tip suits me best. If there’s something I’m good at, it’s sleeping!)  I’ll keep you posted!

 

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Fessin’ Up… Disclosure On The Work Involved in Self Publishing

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August 8, 2012
Self Publishing Advice shoots for the moon

Self Publishing isn’t as hard as putting a man on the moon… but it’s still a LOT of work.

Arrite….

Here’s the plain truth. Self publishing is a LOT of work.

And the rewards can be as big as you can imagine, but are more often just under the rewards of traditional publishing…. who are all claiming to be on the brink of going-out-of-business.

As long as an author keeps the ISBN number in his or her own name, it is still Self Publishing, even if the author hires out all the editing, book design, cover, upload and marketing. But hiring it out can cost more than the book will reasonably earn… unless the author hits the big jackpot we all dream of.

And this is why I keep coming back to the suggestion of putting out more than one book, or a series, or a sequel, or a lifetime of book after book. Because doing it once is the biggest effort. Doing it again uses all of the prior work. Doing it yet again begins to make it worth it.

Once I have my first book design, I can use that as a template for the next book. Once I’ve learned the process of ISBN, Copyright, LCCN, Books In Print… I can do it again. Once I have a website, I can make a page for my new book. I can repeat my marketing efforts.

Producing a book on our own is big work if we are going to try hard to combat the main critique of self publishing, which is that self published books are poorly produced. But it can pay off. People are doing it.

But it doesn’t make money very fast, and the whole-lot-of-work doing it means that I am not writing my book when I am busy self publishing it. I think this needs to be said, needs to be taken into consideration, in any discussion of self publishing.

These are the elements of DIY self publishing that will take time, work, and sometimes – whenever there is no alternative – money:

  • Establishing a business (this isn’t hard or complicated, but it does have to be legally done. Sole proprietorship, licensed, with a name… don’t use your own name so you have flexibility…)
  • Editing, Designing, Producing a finished book
  • Paying for or DIY creating a cover and title and cover text
  • Uploading and/or printing an inventory of books
  • Marketing, getting reviews, getting distribution
  • Learning wordpress and creating a website… and set up your keywords properly… and make sure you are set up to catch passive income off your website..
  • Following through… (ebooks… make it into an ebook or start with an ebook…)
  • Writing the next book and doing it all over again

So which parts are you going to do yourself, and which are you going to hire out?
Do you have a choice?
If you have more ideas than you have money, then you are probably destined to do-it-yourself, and self publish in every sense of the word.

And this is a LOT of work, but it is not impossible. The how-to information is all out there on the web, and the costs involved for true DIY are less than a week of groceries… (depending on your culinary habits). (um, not including a short print run…)

I’m fessin’ up here… it’s a big effort. But I’m encouraging too… it’s not impossible. You can do it. Step by step and don’t give up… and write really good books.
Voila!

 

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