Where to Self-Publish

Despite my intent to slow down my blog posting frequency, I did decide to pop back on after a long day of more formatting hell when I realized I've never really gone into the wheres and hows of self-publishing. First off, if you haven't read my post on Formatting you'll need to go through it and make sure that's squared away. Uploading is not a quick process and you'll quickly run into hitches in the review and vetting process if you're not tight as a whistle here. 

If your formatting is absolutely wretched due to Word's butchering of copy-pasted material, one quick way to fix this is to drop everything you want cleaned up into TextEdit, Notepad, one of those default text programs that came with your computer. It will strip all of the funky formatting garbage Word is confused about. You can then safely copy-paste it into Word or your program of choice and not worry about the mess it makes of text that just will not adhere to your manual changes.

Without further ado, I'm going to make this as simple and free as possible. One of the reasons for this is because, if you're as determined as I am to do everything yourself, then you're already dumping massive amounts of time and energy and I just want to give you the least complicated, least costly, stellar services possible.

CREATESPACE/KDP:

I used to use CreateSpace. At one point, it had the better options for print. KDP Print now tops that, offering both expanded distribution and a ton of industry standard size options. You DO NOT need to commit to Amazon with KDP Select and unless you're already banking on your name, I'd even suggest you don't. I'll come to why later. First and foremost, you'll at least want to take advantage of printing through KDP Print. I love, love, love the smallest print size, but between the 5x8 and 6x9, there is no printing cost difference between them. Most people I've surveyed like the smaller sizes for paperbacks. The best part is that if you do want to go ahead and get the book right to Kindle, it can easily take your print files and convert them for you. They offer templates (but please use the exact measurements unless your page count is EXACTLY on the mark, 300, 310, and so on. Yes, the reviewer does reject your PDF if you're a tiny bit off. I've left feedback requesting an autostretch option to save us time on the minute difference). You will need two separate PDFs for the book file and the cover, but it's pretty simple to find and follow the requirements. When I started out, reviews could take as long as 72 hours, but since I've been around a while, I rarely wait longer than 6-12 hours to get the approval. So start with KDP Print for your print paperback option. Author copies are only the printing cost and shipping so it's a great way to load up for conventions or signings.

SMASHWORDS:

Before I found this one, I used Pronoun, but they had to close suddenly. I was floored that I might have to distribute to each retailer I wanted individually. Not so. Smashwords is a terrific place to get the widest distribution options on digital. Kobo, Apple, Google Play, Nook and a lot of prestigious services that handle international distribution. Very simple to use-- you'll need an ebook cover file and a regular .doc (not .docx) file. If you are up to par and your review clears, you'll make it to their Premium status which automatically sends your work everywhere possible (if you don't, then your book is limited to their site, so it's worth it to clean it up). Charge what you want or let your fans choose, and you can even make it free. The Dashboard is easy to use when you need to check the status or issues that come up. The Publish link is where you start. Very clean interface and you won't have issues navigating it. Smashwords can be a little slow, sometimes taking a week before being cleared for Premium, but it's another site that does all the conversion and distribution for you. One other thing, after submitting, hop over to the ISBN manager and set that up. If you don't it, will remind you, but I like to beat the reminder.

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Hardcover options aren't going to be free but IngramSpark/Lightning Source are pretty cheap. I think the baseline is $35. I don't currently offer a hardcover option so I can't vouch for it, but the consensus seems to be for it. I know you see some pretty fancy print options coming out of publishers, but it's also through their topsellers. Self-pub is a great way to get your work out there and you're perfectly able to shop for trad-pub options if you'd rather leave those details to someone else. Self-pubbing is a lot of work, a lot of creative decisions, and... a lot of marketing. Even though I don't do much of that yet. I know, I know-- I should get on that. I will. For now, I'm just happy to be writing my stories.

I don't mind helping out new authors in the troubleshooting process with SW and KDP. I'm pretty sure I've been through it all by now and I'm happy to share.

Phew, this day went quick, but it's cleansing to pack it up on this note. Don't hesitate to ask though-- I see it as a good opportunity to add it to previous teaching posts and do what I can to build a solid database of helpful posts.

Reformatting Can Be a Nightmare

For the conclusion of deciding to reformat my first three books for some design cohesion (took out the pain in the ass illustrations and went for text-only-- I'm going to publish the images on other platforms instead of in the books), I've thoroughly decided I'll more carefully consider what platform I ever do print illustrations again. KDP's interface is just not self-pub friendly for that. I might looked into it for any comic publishing, but honestly, I'd rather trad-pub comics and let some formatting masochist do what they do best and stick to the creative there.

In case you do want some basic tips on formatting (the easier text-only kind), you can always check out my Formatting 101 post. It uses Word and I'm on a Mac but the options should be pretty similar on any word processor. If not, drop me a line on the difference and I'll edit the post with your discovery. Please provide screenshots if this is something I can't test with my software. If I add it, I want it to be repeatable for anyone else. (I have not yet tried to publish outside of using Scrivener for my current WIP, but if I run into hiccups there, I will do a future post on what to look out for).

So, what was a nightmare with KDP? That's what I wanted to get into. First off, I had to get into the original .docx (saved as PDF once final) and remove pictures, update table of contents, etc. At first, I attempted to just set the image to Bleed and repaste the pictures. Word is kind of a pain for that and the change in size from 6x9 to 5x8 meant it totaled my page count for any resizing of fonts, making realigning page breaks and pictures a chore not worth doing. It also meant I had to redesign/resize the covers once I got the new page count regardless of whether I kept the images or not. Here's the thing-- the templates are kind of crap for covers. I downloaded the appropriate cover template for the page count and almost every single time, it gave me shit about the 1/8 of an inch in length I was off. I would much rather that each template (kind of throwing you in a ten page RANGE, not exact) would also give you the exact spine measurements to adjust the template. I do believe you can find the calculations, but it's not direct linked to the reviewer so more digging. Really, the system could auto-stretch it, let me decide if I'm okay with that (I would be-- it never distorts it when I do it manually) and we'd be good. Why? Because the page reviewer is a necessary step in approval and both uploading content and the page reviewer is SO SLOW.

So redoing all three books took the better part of two days and I'm awaiting review to make sure it actually took. Sometimes they create a new problem like 'hey, this is already on CreateSpace' or 'did you mean to change a few things?' and I have to verify all that before it's good to go. So If I decide to go the image route in the future, I'm going to pore through their pages, ask a shit-ton of questions and make sure I have the right measurements from the onset so I'm not uploading 30+ images to Photoshop to file through the Action menu and do batch resizing like a mo-fo. I'm pretty damn tech-savvy but some of the things that are supposed to be 'easier' tend to just make the user redo things that would have better been done with a simple sizing table. Because I can do that too. I can do things pretty damn well with just simple measurements from scratch. You don't get into digital design if you're not good at math and visual problem-solving.

I did manage to get some doodling done while waiting for that process. Playing around with the design for my alien dude. Realizing I made his suit a bit complex, but he's not going to be sporting it very long. I mean, he is going to have to 'blend in' on Earth so unless he's planning on milling around cosplay cons, raves, or Halloween parties, he's SOL in space gear. It'll make his appearance in the first episode cooler though. You have to get people in with a draw, not just to your style, but your effort. I've always wanted to do an alien story though, so should be fun. And yes, I've already been researching where I plan to publish and looking at templates. So before I do ANY actual drawing for it, I will know what it's going to do to my images! Right now, I'm just on concept. I'm supposed to be 'relaxing' anyway, but I clearly don't understand how that works. I always end up poking at something. Sorry, but relaxing, in all the ways I try it, just creates boredom, which is not a fun concept for me at all. Anyways---

Format. Is so. Important.