At Penguicon this year I focused on attending as much of writing panels as I could and I received TONS of great tips from what I heard. This is the second blog post about the writing tips, check out the first on Productivity Tips. For this post I’m going to share the tips and tricks offered for Self-Publishing in 2018. I’d researched this myself back in 2011, but never got my butt into gear and published the short stories I had been working on. Here I am, 7 years later, with those short stories still unpublished. That’s a lesson learned worth writing about in another post, however, the importance of sharing and showing your work, and the loop of perfectionism and procrastination. Here, instead, I’d like to talk about how the tools of self-publishing have changed, which is pretty much been for the better!
Self-Publishing in 2018:
There are more tools available now than ever, and less stigma than before. As the quality of the tools has gone up, the stigma has gone down. Now you can self publish a very professional looking book quite easily! The upfront cost to the author keeps going down, well, except for illustrations in books. But more on that down below.
Formatting:
- InDesign-Lots of YouTube tutorials to learn how to use ($)
- Vellum – for both print and e-books (Mac only) ($)
- Amazon Create Space – free software for formatting and self publishing books, ebooks, CDs, DVDs, and video. Also distributes.
- Calibre-a free cross-platform, open-source suite of e-book software. For organizing existing e-books into virtual libraries, and displaying, editing, creating, and conversion of ebooks. (ebooks only)
- Apache Open Office-Free Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base, and Math software. Great for including illustrations. Import the pictures, then anchor them to the paragraph and not the page so they won’t move around as you edit. (Linux only)
- Lulu – free formatting software for ebooks and print books.
- Copyright-You don’t need to register a copyright. Just put the copyright symbol on the book. Do a monthly search and have a take down letter ready to send.
Covers:
- Fiverr– Hire freelance digital designers. “pro_ebookcovers” recommended
- Stock photo sites-Check out this list of Free Quality Stock Photo Websites.
- Free Templates-just search for it! Check out Canva, Adobe, PosterMyWall, CreateSpace, InDesign, DIYBookCovers, Template.net.
- Find YouTube tutorials on making your own
Advertising:
- Facebook promotion groups by genre
- Newsletter list swaps with other authors.
- **Do a monthly newsletter and start early!**Speak to the people who specifically want to hear from you! When is the next book coming out? Keep it light, news, maybe some memes and cat photos.
- Give away free ebook copies, or promote on sale prices. Get reviews and offer sign up for you author newsletter. Good free promotion, gets more people reading your work. Ebook Soda, Ereader News Today, Freebooksy, Instafreebie.
- Bookbub-Much harder to get featured on. It’s curated but author’s also pay to be listed in email blast.
- Amazon-Need 50 reviews on Amazon before they will start suggesting it to customers
- Publisher’s Weekly Reviews-SCAM! Not worth the money for a book blurb from them.
- Reviews by popular booktubers and “influencers.” Send a solicit/pitch letter.
- Book trailers not really being done anymore.
- Find book podcasts that review/feature similar kinds of books to yours. Send a Podcast Pitch/Solicit letter to those book podcasts for author interviews or a podcast review or feature of your book.
- Find book bloggers who read similar work to your book and send them a Solicit/Pitch Letter for reviews.
- Author Website-Keep it simple, pages for book blurb, author blurb, links, blog, and a cat pic!
Distributors:
- Amazon Create Space-Takes a percentage, but no upfront cost. Does not distribute to bookstores, despite what they may say. Will not suggest your novel until it has 50 reviews.
- IngrumSpark-Small up front fee, will distribute to bookstores and print in hardback, paperback and ebooks. Print only the number you need with print on demand, print in color or black and white. Sign up for their newsletter to get coupons, check around Nanowrimo time for great coupons! (NOTE: If you have current publishing agreements with Amazon Kindle over the last 12 months, you cannot include IngramSpark e-book distribution without clicking the opt-out clause.) (Also NOTE: IngrumSpark is more of a one-stop-shop for publishers to access distribution, not a one-stop-shop for self-published authors.)
- Lulu-Paperback, hardback, ebooks, black and white, or color, photobook or calendar. Free formatting software, but does not distribute to bookstores.
Editors:
First, what types of editing are available?
Types of editing:
Content-Plot, character
Copy-Grammar
Proof-Typos
- DO spend money on a good editor. Know what you’re paying for beforehand though. Copyediting, proofreading, content editing?
- How do you find a good editor? Word of mouth, testimonials, referrals, reviews.
- How do you know it’s going to be a good fit? Send a few pages to them first and see what they can do with it. Some edit the first 5-10, or even 30 pages, for free!
- How much should you expect to pay? Depends on what kind of editing you’re looking to get. For a book, for 2 rounds of copyediting and 1 light proof read (3 passes total) expect to pay around $1000.
- Editomat-editing software for fiction, for prose, dialog, and configurable.
- Hemingway Editor-copyediting software, not for editing content.
I hope this all way helpful! It certainly was for me. There are so many more tools (especially for formatting and cover design) now than when I was looking in 2011, it seems so much easier now!
If you know of any other helpful tools or sites, please comment below with them!
