My Self Publishing Journey Part 1

 

In the US Bronze is on a countdown promotion starting Sunday 14th September at $0.99 for the eBook, rising to $1.99 on the 17th September before reverting to the full price of $2.99 on the 20th September.  All promotions commence at 8:00 am PDT on the stated days.

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I've been self publishing since 2011 and was absolutely self-taught.  I'm sure I Googled a lot back then, used the how-to guides provided by Amazon and Smashwords but I don't know if there were any YouTube guides back then, almost certainly are now, but if I used them I've forgotten entirely.

I do remember it being a steep learning curve, probably helped by my having three novels - one a  relative behemoth at 115k words - sitting on my hard drive, so once I'd worked out what to do for one I was able to apply that learning and reinforce it on the following two.

I even blogged about the process (links below).  A quick perusal of that content fourteen years later shows it was more about the general process I'd learnt and less about what button to press and when in which piece of software.  Probably useful for someone starting out and almost certainly outdated in parts now.

How to self publish Part 1

How to self publish part 2

How to self publish part 3

How to self publish part 4

How to self publish part 5

The bit that might stick out like a sore thumb if you're reading those blog posts today is that there's no mention of print editions.  I think Amazon were spreading rumours about print on demand coming and if memory serves it was the US market that got POD first, but it just wasn't an option at that point.  Today most authors would want a print option for their readers, even though the profit margin is generally lower.  Actually that isn't accurate, you can price your eBooks and print books at any price you want within certain constraints, but most authors will be trying to make the print version as affordable as possible, and that usually means the lower priced eBook returns more in royalties.

Now all ten of my books are available in eBook and print versions.  The last couple are available in both paperback and hardback versions although I doubt I'll ever sell any hardback ones.  I created them because the only extra cost is my time and if I (or someone else) really wanted to provide a special gift of one of my books, then the hardback version would be a nice upgrade.

In addition to the ten books listed at the bottom of this blog I also was heavily involved in the production of the four (to date) Newsbiscuit compilations that exist to supplement our meagre income.  They were created by a small team of editors including myself and I was the person who did all the preparation, formatting and setting up in our NewsBiscuit KDP login for eBook and print versions.  Again, there are both paperback and hardback versions available.  We've actually sold 23 hardback copies, which at around £20 a book isn't bad.

  

The challenge for these books was similar to all the other books - setting up the prelim pages, setting the page and section breaks so the prelim section used roman numerals (apart from the leading pages that had none) and the main section had Arabic.  Like all print books I had to be aware of orphans and widows - chapters ending on the first couple of lines on a new page, for example.  Usually solved by careful selection of font and font size, but also by very fine editing if the story supports it.  One advantage of these books is that on any given page there are usually between two and four short stories and shuffling them around the chapter often resulted in a more efficient use of page space.  That technique generally doesn't work in a long-form novel!

Other challenges with print that you don't have concern yourself with for the eBook version is page size, page colour and margin sizes.  I initially used the default 9 x 6 format Amazon suggests.  Apparently it's a popular book format in the US but looks large for a piece of UK fiction.  Fine for textbooks and I set a large page size for the Newsbiscuit anthologies, however for my more recent print books in my range I've gone for a more traditional UK 8 x 5.  Obviously smaller pages mean more pages and with POD every page raises the unit cost, but equally smaller page sizes reduces the individual page cost.  I knew that maths degree would come in useful one day.

So these fourteen books have given me a grounding in preparing books for publication in eBook and print format, skills that have been acquired through hard work and more than  a little perspiration. I'm sure I will be setting up an eleventh Ray Sullivan novel at some point in the near future and we're way overdue a fifth NewsBiscuit anthology, but it turns out I've had the opportunity to use my skills to help other authors produce their books.  I'll be discussing who I've helped and in what ways in the next part of this story.

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In the US Bronze is on a countdown promotion starting Sunday 14th September at $0.99 for the eBook, rising to $1.99 on the 17th September before reverting to the full price of $2.99 on the 20th September.  All promotions commence at 8:00 am PDT on the stated days.

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Follow me on Twitter: @RayASullivan

email me at raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com

Check out my comedic ramblings as Throngsman on www.newsbiscuit.com

     

   

 

Hotel California available in hardback

 

Hotel California, as the heading suggests, is now available in hardback.

I was reviewing my KDP dashboard the other week when I noticed that the part of the book listings that I use to manage the eBook and paperback versions had a new section for hardback books.  It turns out it's a beta version and Amazon don't seem to have beaten many drums about it, but it spiked my curiosity.

I used the opportunity to update the cover of the book while preparing a hardcover manuscript - I've chosen a larger page size for the new version and submitted the manuscript.   A day or so later it was approved by Amazon and I ordered a copy to look at.  Amazon have arranged for hardbacks to be printed in at least four EU countries - France, Germany, Italy and Spain plus the US.  The UK currently isn't on the list of hardback printers which I'm putting down to Brexit, but maybe they are going to roll out the capability some time in the future.  Who knows?

The book looks and feels great, the quality is superb and, of course, the story is great fun.  I'd sold all the paperback copies I ordered when I released Hotel California nearly three years ago and haven't re-read the story since, so over the last couple of nights I've been enjoying reading the book again.  I'd actually forgotten some of the twists and turns and found myself smiling at some of the dark humour jokes I slipped into the otherwise fast paced adventure.

If you haven't read Hotel California then the hardback version might just tempt you.  It also might just be the Christmas present you've been searching for - it's a high quality stocking filler to be sure.  Of course you may want to receive a copy, in which case leave this blog post open when your other half is floating around.  I'm sure he or she will take the hint.

Hotel California

Changes At Amazon Direct Publishing and Smashwords

Smashwords has announced a change to its dashboard, which it admits it hasn't tinkered with since it was launched several years ago.  Mark Coker has flagged that this overhaul is long overdue for some months and he has been building up his software team and deploying them on the new dashboard design recently.  Apparently it is going live sometime today (17 December 2013 for those reading this blog entry on Dave).

The existing dashboard has been sluggish in recent months, probably due to the increase in authors self publishing - if we're all pinging the server constantly to see how we did or didn't do in the last week, day, hour (inversely proportional activities based on how long you've been self publishing - once the reality sets in most make it at most a daily routine and I'm contemplating just diarising a monthly check).

The old dashboard is clunky, it takes a while to gather stats and always feels like one click too many, so hopefully the new dashboard is an improvement.  When it goes live, if it works (too many years involved in software launches, unfortunately) I'll update on it.

Amazon, not to be outdone, have announced that they're changing their payment methods for authors who have elected for electronic funds transfer.  Up until now authors had to accrue a minimum amount of royalties ($10, £10, Euros10 etc) before payment was made.  Now, apart from Brazil royalties, which retain a threshold, all royalties will be paid 60 days after the month the royalties were earned in.  The email suggests that any accrued royalties will have been transferred on the 16 December however I haven't checked my bank account.  What with Christmas around the corner I can't take much more excitement.

It may present a small problem for UK authors who have small amounts lodged with Amazon in their US region as the royalties will be paid less US tax unless they've jumped through the myriad hoops the US tax authorities make us jump through to take advantage of the tax arrangements between our countries - if that's how they treat friends, I'd hate to be on the wrong side of them generally.  The paperwork is so tortuous I've deferred all my payments from Smashwords for the time being as they treat all sales, regardless of where they occur, as being in the US.  One day I'll file that return, because I expect the UK government will expect me to pay tax on that income when I get it.

So if you publish on Amazon and Snashwords (which you should to gain access to Apple store sales) then check your dashboard and your bank account sometime today.  Hopefully they'll both make you smile.

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