The quickest route to self-publishing
Book packagers such as Kindle Direct and Book Baby are set up to knock down all of the hurdles between your book and your audience. Bar codes? Copyright page? Printing and distribution? Bam, bam, bam! Most self-publishing facilitators offer various service packages to meet your needs. You may not even have to ask the myriad questions you have about getting published. Each service that packagers provide answers one of them.
Aside from the minutiae, you will have to make some decisions. Hard cover, soft cover, big inventory, or print-on-demand? It’s likely that price or any special event related to your book will help you make the right choice there. A complete production package typically includes binding, printing, and distribution.
For one-stop shopping, you’ll want necessary add-ons like a great cover and interior book design. You might find better quality or pricing by contracting these separately from a company that specializes in them. A computer search will yield many options. But book packagers are catching up with the competition. Take a look at their portfolios or get a consultation to compare quality and value.
Book packagers also offer editing and proofreading to authors who have not finalized their manuscripts. Danger lurks here. Your book text is a living thing until it is digitally typeset, bound, and printed. But packagers’ profits rely on a static revision process. The longer it takes, the less money they make. You can’t count on the kind of back-and-forth interaction you’ll get with an experienced editor whose goal is to make your work the best it can be.
Our advice (naturally!) is to hire an independent editor with a long track record in book prep. Revision should be inherently customized, and proofreading by the same editor who knows the material will lend your book cohesion. So, take advantage of what packagers can do best—and leave the literary side to an expert.
You only get one chance at this
New writers ask: which comes first, the title or the book? Considering how crucial a title is to selling your book, the answer is: take the time it takes to get it right. You literally get just one chance at this first impression. Some writers start with a title and work forward from there, thinking that it puts them in the driver’s seat. But we advise letting your book name itself whenever possible. And your book can’t do that until it is, well, a complete book.
Your title must reflect your content. A book about dogs called All About Chimps will probably not find its target readers. How can you know what all you will include in a book until you have written a rough draft? And how can you know what you will keep in that draft until you revise it? Often, a turn of phrase will move from your fingertips to the page and reveal itself to be The One that says it all about your work. Many times, that doesn’t occur until late in the writing process.
Feel free to create a working title before writing or as you go along. Then compile other good prospects as you write. Let them hang out in the back of your mind. You’ll have plenty of time—and greater clarity—to make a judicious choice after you finish revising the book.
Once you have some good ideas, do some review and market research. Does the title tease or spell out the "nut" of your message? Check library or online databases to see if the title is in use and by what type of book. Note that titles can't be copyrighted; you can duplicate a title if your use will aptly reflect your work.
Your book title is a literal or cryptic summary of your book’s substance. And since your cover must reflect the substance, a book title is really your most important marketing tool. Readers decide whether to investigate in a split second, when they read or hear your title and see your cover. That’s it. You’ll only get that one chance. So, don’t rush! There's no deadline. Give your choice of book title the attention it deserves.
Your work is protected the instant you commit it to the page
Paranoid about your copyright? Don't worry about submitting your MS to an editor. Under U.S. intellectual property law, copyright is automatic once you have a written record of your creation. To be more formal about it, you can draw or type © (or spell out "Copyright"), followed by your name and the year.
To be more formal still, you can register the copyright to a specific work with the U.S. Copyright Office of the Library of Congress. If you publish through a traditional publishing house, you will own your book's copyright. So, rest easy. You can share your work with a professional.
Correct MS Format = Instant Pro
8-1/2 x 11 page size (Do NOT write in a book-sized format, such as 6 x 9)
12 pt. serifed font
Double-spaced text
First-line automatic indent (Set this up via Layout; do NOT insert manual tab indents)
Why this format? First, a larger page and serifed font (with the little feet, like Times New Roman) allows you to compose logically and to easily reread your work. Second, double-spacing literally opens up space to think creatively----as opposed to the cramped confines of single-spaced text. And third, your work will look polished to editors and readers, and pour into book publishing formats without a hitch.
If you plan to submit work to agents, publishers, or for self-publishing, the standard format is MICROSOFT WORD. Using a noncompatible program like Pages or an online platform’s “editing” program will only create more work for you. It’s not easy to reformat to MS Word from those proprietary programs; you may wind up having to manually change indents or spacing on every single line of your work.
Word has everything a writer needs to compose in correct manuscript format. If you need a computer program to help you get organized, you’re not ready for long-form work. Read up on how to write an outline and structure a book before you begin. And save your time or money by composing directly in Word. You’ll be glad you did.
What you can do on your own
Should you hire a publicist, a press agent, or a marketing company to promote your self-published book? If you have a big budget, go for it. They may be able to take you swiftly from Nowheresville to stardom … if your work is stellar, your appeal is strong, and your luck holds. But those same variables will exist whether or not you get outside help.
You may want to do some of the heavy lifting yourself first. First, a reader has to know your book is out there. Then they must be persuaded to buy it, open it, and read it. Then they can do some of the promo work for you by telling others.
So, build into your publishing budget either the time or money investment in a good website and some social-media support. One feeds the other. A blurb on Instagram can lead eyeballs to your website. A riveting description of your book there can lead wallets to the book store.
Put together your website as your completed manuscript enters production, so it will be there to receive readers when your book is released. A simple website with your book cover image and blurbs, a bio, and a link to sales outlets can get you started.
Next, focus on getting individual reviews. These are the holy grail! Set your sales price low for an introductory period or give books away to people you know and request an Amazon review. Prospective buyers may not know you, but they will believe what a majority says about your book. For self-publishers, word of mouth is the slow and steady push that will win the sales race.
Your experience may differ….
These two routes to book publishing are mirror images of one another. Conventional publishers like the Big Five (including Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, and Hachette) do it all for authors, from book production to promotion. Self-publishing is the opposite—you do it all yourself, or you hire a book packager on your dime to take care of all the steps.
Catching the eye of a big publishing house makes the conventional route difficult for most authors. If you’ve never been published, you have no track record to make you stand out among the sea of manuscripts received each week. Agents can be even more difficult to snag. A matching service such as Publishersmarketplace.com will guide you through the query and submission process. But your success here may depend on your confidence level. Can you handle multiple rejections by publishing houses, sometimes for years on end?
If a miracle happens and a publisher does offer a contract, know that the lead time to your book hitting the shelves averages a year or two. If you don’t enjoy playing Russian roulette and don’t want to spend years getting noticed or waiting through the production schedule, self-publishing is the “quick” option. But note that it’s quick to publish—but slower to build a loyal audience than the conventional way. That’s because the big publishing houses back new authors with initial promotion—it’s in their interest to start selling your books.
Big publishers have lots of fish to fry, though. After their first push, they may drop your book like a hot potato and move on to works by the other authors in their stable. So, your sales may jump and then plateau or dip. Self-publishing sales show an inverse graph. You may sell single copies at a time, little by little gaining speed as good reviews prompt other readers to buy your book. It can take years to amass reviews in the hundreds, but that reader base will reproduce over time.
The trade-off? Quick notoriety followed by up-and-down sales, or a slow burn with sales that may grow exponentially. Either way, luck plays a huge role in your success. Will news of your book go viral? Or wither on the vine? Whichever route you choose for your book, be prepared to do all you can to secure good reviews from readers. Satisfied customers will validate your publishing decisions.
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