Recently, a young author who I had worked with contacted me for some advice on getting his second book published. His first publisher had gone out of business and now he was trying to figure out how to release his second book.
Luckily for him, I had stopped him from contracting with an
unscrupulous self-publisher (there are a lot of sharks out there, folks!), but
now—here he was with no publisher and the second book in a series. So, he asked
me, “What do I do?” As far as self-publishing, which is the route of most
authors nowadays, he had a very limited budget to invest.
My response. Do-it-yourself. What you can’t do yourself,
contract out to professionals.
This young writer’s eyes glazed over. His face went white
with fear.
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| http://amzn.to/1UN3nGi |
Really, the advantages of publishing your own books far
outweigh the expense and risks of contracting with a self-publishing company.
- You have more control over quality—because you
are the boss.
- Less expensive. Even if you have to contract out
each step in the process, you can easily publish a quality book with a
professional looking cover for less than a thousand dollars. All you have to do
is shop around.
I
know what you’re thinking—and probably saying. Seriously? Me! Publishing a
whole book that can compete with books published by Random House? I don’t think
so.
That’s
because you are standing back looking at the process of publishing a book as a
huge task. Take a deep breath. Sit down and think about it. Here, you’ve
written a whole book. Beginning to
end. That in itself is a huge task. So, we can assume you can tackle huge
things.
Now,
we’re going to tackle the publishing side of getting this book out there.
Remember when you were in school—whether it be high school or college? Most
likely, you’ve had to write a research paper at some point in your life.
What
goes into putting together a finished research paper?
1) Cover
2) Opening Pages (title pages. If you were like me,
you had a template that you copied from. It’s the same with books!)
3) Table of Contents (if your book is non-fiction,
you need this. Optional for fiction)
4) Body of the Paper. (You already got that!)
5) Author Bio.
(Piece of cake! You know who you are!)
6) Index (Optional. See Table of Contents)
Now,
what were the steps you went through in putting this research paper together?
1) Determining the subject matter. (Done that!)
2) Research (Done!)
3) Writing the Paper. (Completed!)
4) Reviewed in draft form by professor or friends. (In book publishing, this is called a beta read or editorial review. You may or may not have completed this step.)
5) Rewrite based on comments from review.
6) Editing. (I believe you are your own worst editor. Best to have this done by someone else—preferably a professional.)
7) Formatting. (This is the step where you painstakingly lay out your paper in the proper format to present to the professor. At this point you attach the cover to your paper)
8) Proofread for mistakes.
9) Correct mistakes discovered during proofreading process.
10) Present to your professor. (In book publishing, this is the point where you release your book to the world.
1) Determining the subject matter. (Done that!)
2) Research (Done!)
3) Writing the Paper. (Completed!)
4) Reviewed in draft form by professor or friends. (In book publishing, this is called a beta read or editorial review. You may or may not have completed this step.)
5) Rewrite based on comments from review.
6) Editing. (I believe you are your own worst editor. Best to have this done by someone else—preferably a professional.)
7) Formatting. (This is the step where you painstakingly lay out your paper in the proper format to present to the professor. At this point you attach the cover to your paper)
8) Proofread for mistakes.
9) Correct mistakes discovered during proofreading process.
10) Present to your professor. (In book publishing, this is the point where you release your book to the world.
But
wait! I can hear you scream. This is a whole book. That involves copyrights and
ISBNs and other stuff!
These
legal registration steps are all small things that you can tackle yourself for
little or no expense, depending on where you publish your book. Most
do-it-0yourself publishers will supply you with an ISBN for free.
I
recommend setting up your own account at Bowkers, which is free. Set up a name
for your book line. If you are writing a series, then use a name that will make
your readers immediately connect that name with your books. For example, Cindy
McDonald, a romantic suspense author, uses the name McWriter Books, a variation
of her name. Her books are listed on Amazon with the publisher’s name listed as
McWriter Books. Yet, the only books published by McWriter Books are Cindy
McDonald’s romantic suspense.
CreateSpace
offers a variety of options for authors to purchase a customized ISBN under
their own name without having to go through Bowkers. Each option is affordable.
I pay $10, for CreateSpace to acquire the ISBN for me under my own Bowkers
account. For $10, they do all the work for me. All I have to do is supply my
publisher’s name, which is me.
Of
course, CreateSpace is the print version of your book. Maybe you only want to
do ebook. No problem! You don’t need an ISBN for the ebook version. KDP Kindle
will give it its own identifier number for no cost—in other words FREE!
So,
what are the steps necessary to publish your own book? Same as the steps you
took in school for your fifteen-page research paper. Only now you have many
more pages!
1) Cover: A friend of mine had a fabulous
cover at an affordable price from CreateSpace. There are also a few websites
online where you can design your own cover in a step-by-step process. If you
are going to contract this out, then be sure to allow enough time for the
artist to get it done. Graphic designers are artists and some have problems
working on deadlines. I suggest you start looking as soon as you are certain
that you are going to publish this book.
2) Editorial Review. Many refer to this as a
Beta Read. Every professional author, one who is selling books and getting
great reviews, has their book read after they have completed writing it and
before it goes to the editor. As the
writer, you are too close to the project to see mistakes like loose ends, plot
holes, etc. Don’t ask your spouse or mother or BFF who has never read a book to
beta read your book for you. Your beta reader needs to be someone who:
a.
Reads and knows books—in particular your genre
b.
Is not afraid to hurt your feelings
c.
Someone you will listen to
3) Rewrite based on Editorial Review. Now
don’t feel like you have to do everything that your beta reader tells you to
do. Remember, it is your book. But, I can say that 100% of the time, I do a
rewrite based on an editorial review.
4) Send
off to the editor.
5) Go over the edits after it comes back from
the editor. Don’t just go through and accept (or reject!) everything your
editor changes without looking at it. Also, don’t only go through the edits and
not look at everything else. At this point, you have probably not seen your
book for weeks. Take advantage of it being fresh again. As you go through the
editor’s marks, read through the book one more time. It is a fact that editors are human. This
means, they make mistakes. They miss things. I have worked with many editors
and not one has been perfect. So before your book is formatted for publication,
go through it yourself to look for errors that your editor missed.
6) Formatting.
You can try doing the lay out/formatting the book yourself. CreateSpace even
has a template for doing it with MS Word and other formatting programs. You can
find a ton of resources on the Internet to help you format your book both for
print and ebook publishing. If you are computer savvy, you can do this
yourself. If not, then you may want to contract this out. CreateSpace will do
the formatting starting at $199 and, for an additional fee, do the ebook
version as well. (Well worth the cost if
you tend to want to throw your laptop out the window when dealing with headers
and footers.)
7) Proofread.
This is not the same as editing! Some writers think they can save money by
contracting with an editor to “proofread” their manuscript—before it has been
formatted. We are talking about two
different things. Proofreading is going through the book after it has been
formatted to look for grammar and punctuation errors that may or may not have
been missed by the editor. Checking page numbering. Etc. I recommend that you
either pay an editor to do this for you or ask a friend to do it. Studies have
proven that if you look at something enough times, then your brain will
automatically correct it. It’s sort of like your Internet browser automatically
loading up a website that you regularly visit without updating the site with
recent changes. In this case, you need to clear the cache. The fact is, by the
time you get your proof, most likely you can’t see the mistakes in it. You need
someone with fresh eyes (a clear cache) to read it. Note: This is not the time to rewrite the book! You are simply looking
for mistakes—that’s it.
8) Correct
Mistakes.
9) Release
Your Book
10) Celebrate!
You are now an author!
Lauren Carr is the international best-selling author of the Mac Faraday, Lovers in Crime, and Thorny Rose Mysteries. The twelfth installment in the Mac Faraday Mystery series, Candidate for Murder will be released June 2016.
Lauren is a popular speaker who has made appearances at schools, youth groups, and on author panels at conventions. She lives with her husband, son, and four dogs (including the real Gnarly) on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV.
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2 Comments
Thank you so much, Writers and Authors, for inviting me to your site today! Here's wishing all of your followers luck in the giveaway!
ReplyDeleteThe $10 ISBN option is no longer available...as of June 22, 2016.
ReplyDeleteI love to hear from you. So feel free to comment, but keep in mind the basics of blog etiquette — no spam, no profanity, no slander, etc.
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