Tag Archive: self publishing advice


Should I Register My Copyright On My Book?

Filed Under: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions, Blogs @ How to Self Publish by Corinne — Comments Off on Should I Register My Copyright On My Book?
November 12, 2012

Sometime after writers stopped using quills as ink pens, our copyright laws came into being. The law assigns copyright when a work is created – you don’t have to register. But it’s a good idea, especially since today’s quill is a computer and the paper is online.

Copyright on a creative work exists as soon as the work is put to paper. The author doesn’t have to formally register the work with the US Copyright office, but it’s a good idea to do it before self publishing a book, or submitting for traditional publication.

An author does have to register the copyright before claiming a case of copyright infringement, and having registered the work long before there is any question of infringement can help your case.

I see it as a professional approach to my creative work, a finishing touch.

The creative work does not have to be published before registration, and in fact, due to recent changes by the US Copyright Office, if the work is unpublished, it can be uploaded electronically for the registration process – which is a change from having to mail a hard copy. (Mailing a hard copy is part of the Library of Congress Control Number process, which happens after the work is published – including self published…)

I recently went through the copyright process with the finished draft of my grandfather’s aviation history biography, and I have some tips.

  • Prepare an electronic copy of the manuscript that is smaller than 11.3 MB, because that is the single file upload limit and a full length manuscript is almost certainly bigger than that. Make a compressed PDF or split the document into several files… the upload process does allow one project in multiple files (up to six). So getting that ready in advance will help.
  • Choose a time when you can do the whole process in one session, so that you don’t risk stopping part way. It will take about an hour, depending on the copyright office’s online response time.
  • It will cost $35, (as of 2012) payable online at the time of registration, so having a credit or debit card ready is a good idea.
  • At www.copyright.gov, you first establish a profile and choose a user name and password. You’ll use this same profile for every work you register for copyright.
  • The first step isn’t very obvious, despite the care given to try and make the process more streamlined. It’s called Register A New Claim… and from there, you go step by step.

You will have to click a confirmation button at the very end of the process, and it isn’t complete until you do, so don’t leave the process until you’ve clicked that button. It’s not a very obvious button… the Staples Easy Button is a better design, but you’ll find it.

It’s not required to register – copyright is yours once you create a work – but it’s a good idea to do it when you’ve finished your book, before you self publish, or before you submit your book for publication. Add a copy of your work to our Library of Congress!

 

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Author versus Publisher Arguments Are Different For Self Publishers

Filed Under: Blogs @ How to Self Publish by Corinne — Comments Off on Author versus Publisher Arguments Are Different For Self Publishers
October 29, 2012
Self Publisher Author versus Self Publisher

Full moon nights are a bad time for board meetings at www.TheWestchesterPress.com, because we are a self publisher.

I am a writer. That’s how I think of myself. I am an author.

But because I am a self publisher… and more specifically, a Do It Your Self Publisher… I have some odd conversations with myself.

I had to become a publisher in order to self publish. And when I became a publisher, I began to think like a publisher… and that’s where I came into conflict with my author. Who is also myself.

As an author, I don’t want to be bothered by things like:

  • deadlines
  • page counts
  • copyright issues on photos I really want to include
  • marketability
  • distribution channels and their sensibilities

I’m an artist, see, and words are my palette. But my publisher keeps pushing red-lined columns of numbers under my nose, which is annoying.

I’m a publisher, see, and this is a business. But my arty smarty author doesn’t want to take a stroll in reality and see that a 300,000 word manuscript is very expensive to print but can only command the same cover price as a 100,000 word book. Less is more, less is more!

Before I started self publishing, I had a dream that if, one day, I had a book deal with a traditional publisher, then I wouldn’t ever have to worry about publisher things, and could write anything I pleased. But I’ve been reading the blogs of the traditionally published authors I revere, and I’m beginning to see that they still have to write inside the lines, market their own work, and stick to marketable book subjects. Well, actually, it wasn’t ME who figured that out, it was my self publisher… she kept bringing those things to my attention.

Both of us, author and self publisher, as well as the rest of us… the department heads of sales and marketing and shipping and finance, all try to work together to produce a book that will sell and sell. And some days, particularly around the full moon, it’s better to just crack open a bottle (box) of wine and settle down with somebody else’s good book.

 

 

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How do I get paid as a self publisher? How does it actually work?

Filed Under: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions, Blogs @ How to Self Publish by Corinne — Comments Off on How do I get paid as a self publisher? How does it actually work?
October 22, 2012
How do I get paid as a self publisher

I reveal the payment mysteries of self publishing in this rockin’ post.

How do I get paid for my self published book? How does the money actually arrive in my bank account?

Well, it depends on how you are selling your book. I’ll focus on the online and credit card sales, because if you are selling your book at a table or out of the trunk of your car, it’s more obvious how you get paid… the online sales are the mystery to most of us.

If you are selling through a print-on-demand service like CreateSpace, then every time a book sells through Amazon.com, you get a royalty. The amount of that royalty is determined by the size and cover price of your book. You would know in advance how much that will be as you go through the set up process. There are at least three different royalty amounts, based on how what sales channel the buyer purchased your book.

The following CreateSpace details were current as of September, 2012, and since things change rapidly… take them with a grain of salt:

  • You get the highest royalty if the buyer buys from your CreateSpace author page, which is a page nobody will find unless you email them the direct link.
  • The “normal” royalty comes through sales directly from Amazon.com, and you have to rely on Amazon.com to report how many of those sales took place. There can be a lag between the buying and the reporting.
  • The least amount of royalty comes through Amazon.com expanded distribution, which is a channel you have to pay to sign up for, but enables your book to be available on request (not on the shelf) in every bookstore in the world.

You never have to handle the book or the shipping, and you don’t get the direct information about the buyer. Your royalties add up and when you’ve met the required minimum balance ($25 most recently), then CreateSpace will direct deposit the money to the bank account you’ve listed. They can send you a check instead, but it’ll cost you.

If you are selling your book through PayPal, directly from your own website, then PayPal will hold the full amount you charged for the book, less their fee, until you tell them to deposit it to your bank account (free), or request a check (which will cost you). You will package up the book, which you’ve already had printed somehow, and ship it to the seller. This way you get the buyer information, but you also have to handle the book and have an inventory to ship from, which you have already paid for.

If you set up your website to accept credit cards by getting a merchant account or gateway account, then the money you process from the sales of your books gets deposited to your bank account, less the fees for the merchant account. Depending on how you have it set up, you may instead have a lump sum fee withdrawal come out of your account once a month.

All of these methods require you to allow these companies  access to your bank account, to make the deposits, and so it is very wise to set up a totally separate account for these business activities. And make sure your bank offers good fraud protection. I don’t find it entirely comfortable either, but it’s the reality of true self publishing… you are a publisher, you are a business, and these are the conditions for normal modern business.

I promise you that it all feels much better than this post makes it sound when the money from book sales is flowing in…

 

 

 

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Do It Your Self Publishing, a distinction in self publishing

Filed Under: Blogs @ How to Self Publish by Corinne — Comments Off on Do It Your Self Publishing, a distinction in self publishing
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

Filed Under: Blogs @ How to Self Publish, How To Series... Step By Step by Corinne — Comments Off on Self Publishing Book Design – What To Consider
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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My review of… Lulu.com

Filed Under: Blogs @ "Just a Couple of Chickens", My Reviews! by Corinne — Comments Off on My review of… Lulu.com
September 5, 2012
how to self publish a book using lulu

A feather of self publishing advice regarding Lulu.com

I recently printed a draft of my soon-to-be-available step by step “how-to” manual on self publishing through Lulu.com to see how Lulu compares other services I’ve tried.

www.Lulu.com is one of many online companies that offers a range of publishing solutions to anyone with a project.

To start, before I sign up for any online company, I do a “suck search” to see if anyone has gotten angry enough at that company to rant off about it. I found a really huge number of people who were pissed off at Lulu.com. Almost as many as are pissed off at PayPal.

So I was cautious and read all the fine print and submitted a live email query to lulu.com’s customer support to test the system. It took a week for customer support to respond, but when they did, it was a live person and the answer was relevant to my question, and I was satisfied. So I got busy setting up an account and putting my project together.

I liked the fact that I could make a project that was “private” for viewing right from the start. And that I could change that setting later. Private publishing. Taking self publishing to a whole new level; the self reading level.

Lulu is free. That was good, because the other services I’ve tried are also free to get started. The only charge I paid was when I was ready to order a copy of my book to proof it. Then I paid for my book and the shipping. The book fee was based on the size and page count, and the shipping was both reasonably priced, and fast. The book fee was reasonable too.

I would have to pay Lulu.com fees once I was ready to publish my book, but if I stayed in this new world of totally private publishing, I’d only ever pay when I wanted a copy of my book. Self audience!

I was able to make a cover for free, which is a service also available on other services. While I seriously recommend you hire a professional to make your final cover, it is handy to use the free service to make a draft cover. Lulu had fewer options than other services I’ve used, but I need fewer options on something like that. I’ve lost too many hours playing with covers that should never see the light of day.

When I was ready to order a proof, I did not have to put in my ISBN number. Nor did Lulu require me to take one of theirs. They would require the ISBN number when I was ready to publish, but not to order a proof, and I liked that very much.

Lulu’s system was pretty easy to use… the only troubles I had were specific to my formatting, and so overall, I was satisfied, but when I came to the steps involved with actually publishing my book with Lulu, I was no longer satisfied. The costs and process of self-publishing through Lulu were a no-go for me. Their fee to get my book on Amazon.com and beyond, and how they structure their royalties and pricing put me off. It is cheaper and easier to control on other services.  CreateSpace, where I self published “Just a Couple of Chickens”,  will put my self-published book on Amazon.com with no fee. They only charge once I start to access expanded distribution. (…disclosure….I have an affiliate link to CreateSpace on my sidebar because I am pleased with their service, but no link in the text of this post…. and I would affilate lulu.com because of their ease of printing a book, but not for their publishing portion…)

In summary, Lulu.com is very useful for printing a proof or a casual copy of a book I don’t intent to market.

It’s easy to use and the service was good. The print and cover quality was fine. I can use Lulu to print a proof of my project, or I can pay them to produce my whole book, or I can use my own ISBN number and self-publish my book through their company. But I wouldn’t. And many of these publishing issues were the root of the rantations I found in my search.

I would use CreateSpace over Lulu for self publishing… although I haven’t yet tried Lightning Source or Blurb.com. (Have you?)

Lulu’s proof printing ease makes it pretty fun to whip up book versions of some of my projects-in-waiting. To see them in book form instead of in manuscript form or only on screen. Lulu.com is great for that purpose. I’ve got so many projects that I could take self publishing to the ultimate of ultimate level… self library!

 

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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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