The more I read, the more I feel lost. [moved from e-publishing]

I wouldn't exactly say it is easy, more like it is doable if you are willing to learn and not rush the process. I think many self-published authors try to race through the process of learning how to format and don't research what the best price point and strategy for marketing their work should be. These things are equally as important as writing a good book. You can have a good book on Amazon that no one ever reads if the other areas of self-publishing aren't tended to, as well.

I presume you are talking about self-publishing an ebook. This is probably more suited to the self-pub threads. Epublishing can be easier for those who have a publisher dealing with all the stuff like editing, formatting and marketing.

I think anyone who says self-publishing is easy probably has quite a bit of experience in certain aspects of the process. Self-publishing poorly and disappearing into oblivion is very easy. Self publishing something you want to stand over and be able to say it's the best it can be is harder. Even then there are no guarantees.

Take your time and you will get there.

Yep it's scary but if I may I'd like to offer a couple of general pieces of advice. I won't offer and specifics because frankly there are plenty of people here who can do it better.

1) Decision Time. Putting your work out into the big wide world is a big step no matter which way you cut it aaand it is very easy to put off making that step. I'll do another edit, you say to yourself, tweak chapter five, get another person to look over it, etc, etc. Now plenty of people will tell you to take the time to make it as good as you can, and don't get me wrong, they are right. But there comes a point when you have to decide whether you are going to DO or merely dream of publishing. No one has ever become even a small publishing success by keeping their manuscript in their desk draw.

2) Get everything as 'right' as you can. Read around this site and those recommended. There are pitfalls but they can be avoided with a little care.

3) Brace for failure. I know that sounds like a really terrible thing to say but the odds are you've come across the Self Publishing success stories on the net. What you don't hear so much about is the failure stories. Now as some will be quick to point out is that there is a lot of rubbish out there that deserves to fail. But there is also quality that for whatever reason sinks without a trace. So what I'm saying is go in with realistic expectations, because whatever else at least you had the balls/ovaries/backbone to try.

4) Celebrate small success. So you've published and week one ends with six sales. Well Woo-who! You have persuaded six people (or possibly five people and your Mum) to part company with some of their hard earned money for YOUR BOOK. Celebrate each little success, you can be blasé later.

5) Accept reviews: Easy with positive one not so much with negative ones, particularly when it is obviously from some... individual who wants to tear down someone else to make themselves feel good. Well come to the net. Grit your teeth if you have to but for your own sake don't respond.

That's my advice based on my own experience to date. Obviously this advice is worth exactly as much as you paid me for it*.




* exactly zero.

Overthinking can kill the enthusiasm - you get yourself all worked up over the unknown. Once you decide to act and get into the process you'll feel more confident.



I self published. It's not exactly a walk in the park - more like a hike in new territory. Remember to be patient with yourself and the process - that's all you need.

I have written an article on ebook file formats with some tips to use while writing that make epublishing easier.

There may be other resources on the site http://writelydone.com that will help.

My Dad used to always say "If you never try, you'll never know."
Anybody can format a Kindle book themselves if they take their time and follow the directions on Amazon. Believe me, if I can do it, so can you!

I have had several nonfiction books in print for years. About 14 years ago I wrote a mystery, and then just sat on it, because I didn''t have the self-confidence to publish it. Finally, the end of May, I remembered my Dad's words, and decided to give it a try. As of tonight, my mystery, Big Lake, is #271 in the Paid Kindle store, and #35 for all Amazon mysteries, with 2196 sales so far this month. So my old man was right (again). I tried, and now I know. Go for it, my friend!

Awesome, Nick! Your dad was right!

Alitriona said:

I presume you are talking about self-publishing an ebook. This is probably more suited to the self-pub threads.

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I'm thinking it would fit in either spot. I always assumed self publishing was intended for printed books. Of course, I've been wrong before

StoneWheller, it really isn't hard at all. My advice to you is to go to www.smashwords.com and download their formatting guide. I'm learning that if you follow that guide, it works well for Amazon as well.

If you need to be talked through stuff, I can converse with you over the phone (assuming you are in the United States), just send me a private message here and I'll give you my number.

I think an entire book could be written on this topic. There have been others written, but a book with how to format in the various word processing programs would be nice.

The smashwords guide uses Microsoft Word, but there are a lot of people who use Word Perfect or Open Office. I've heard Word Perfect is a nightmare to work with because it adds a lot of junk to files, but I have not confirmed this.

For what it's worth, I use Open Office and save as a ".doc" file with no problems uploading to Amazon, B&N, or Smashwords. The Smashwords guide is excellent. I was intimidated by it at first (70 some pages of techno babble) but it really isn't that bad. I think the best way to do it is to use a piece of short fiction first, simply because the files will be smaller, the upload times shorter, and it isn't the novel you've been busting your tail on forever! Best of luck!

PeteDutcher said:

I'm thinking it would fit in either spot. I always assumed self publishing was intended for printed books. Of course, I've been wrong before

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Curious, why would you assume that? E-publishing can be self-published or not. Whereas Self-published is self-published regardless of format.

The reason I suggested it better suited to self-publish is the concerns connected to e-publishing by a publishers where the writer doesn't have as much control can be different to the concerns about self-publishing for the first time, ie. dealing with a cover artist, formatting, editing, promotion. Depending on the publisher, of course.

Now that is inspiring, Nick! Glad I took a break to scan AW for some epub/ebook wisdom. Did you also format your mystery for other non-Kindle devices? If so, how?

Nick Russell said:

My Dad used to always say "If you never try, you'll never know."
Anybody can format a Kindle book themselves if they take their time and follow the directions on Amazon. Believe me, if I can do it, so can you!

I have had several nonfiction books in print for years. About 14 years ago I wrote a mystery, and then just sat on it, because I didn''t have the self-confidence to publish it. Finally, the end of May, I remembered my Dad's words, and decided to give it a try. As of tonight, my mystery, Big Lake, is #271 in the Paid Kindle store, and #35 for all Amazon mysteries, with 2196 sales so far this month. So my old man was right (again). I tried, and now I know. Go for it, my friend!

Click to expand...

@ StoneWheller, to give credit where it is due, Dean Wesley Smith also reccomends practicing on short stories, I've followed his model more or less to the letter for the last 9-10 months. Other advantages I've found to practicing on short stories is there is no need for a Table of Contents, and thanks to the shorter time needed to finish them, you get lots and lots of practice.

If you don't want to pay a profesional artist for practice runs, I reccomend Paint.Net as a free image editor. It provides most of the functionality of Photoshop and there is a lot of online support that walks you through doing more complex things. You can also make quick covers from a few free clip art files. DWS uses powerpoint for his covers but my powerpoint skills aren't up to making covers I like.

Sorry if I'm hijacking the thread. Feel free to message me if you have any questions and I'll do my best to answer them.

StoneWheller, it's not easy, but it's not difficult either. It takes time to learn how to do things and experience at doing them (and undoing early mistakes - believe me, you'll make some).

I waited months, maybe a year or more before diving into self-epublishing. My track record's not great, but I'm making a few sales. I need to do more marketing of my own work - and that might be the self-epiblisher's biggest bugaboo. Just slinging something up to Amazon for the Kindle isn't enough. You'll have to learn to market yourself as well.

I count myself lucky. I've self-published and desktop published before and I had a backlog of material I could push out. I'm nearing the end of that now, but finding my productivity increasing slowly.

Do not quit your day job to self-epublish. Unless you're a big name or really strike a lucky vein you likely will not see huge initial profits. Have a plan going in. Decide what it is you really want out of your publishing adventure. Do you have more books and stories in you or is this a one-shot? There's no shame in a one-shot, btw. Me, I put together a 5-year plan and I'm nearing the end of the first year, but I know where I want to be in 4 more years.

Not everyone's going to go to that much detail, but that's where the devil is as they say.

Productivity can be a key point and that relates to backlog. Once you've finished a story set it aside for awhile while you work on another one. When you've got a few under your belt that you're happy with you can start self-epublishing them one a week or one a month or on a schedule you decide on. Meanwhile, write more stuff and learn everything you can about the process of epublishing so you can decide which of several avenues is best for you.

Post your work here down in whichever of the SYW fora is best suited for it. There are many here at AW who will try to assist you in creating clean and polished copy. Don't be afraid. We're here to help you, not steal from you.

Ask for advice. I know quite a bit, but there are others here at AW who know even more and are better at things than I could ever be.

Oh, get a beta reader too. A beta reader can also help you get clean and polished copy.

Finally, learn everything you can, ask for the advice you need, and keep on producing more stories. You'll get there with time and patient diligence.

JWNelson said:

Now that is inspiring, Nick! Glad I took a break to scan AW for some epub/ebook wisdom. Did you also format your mystery for other non-Kindle devices? If so, how?

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JW, I used Smashwords to format it for the Nook and other e-book readers. But the biggest majority of my sales are through Kindle. For November, I sold 4,283 copies on Kindle. Today I upload a new cover that another Kindle author, Dale Roberts, designed for me to replace the bland cover I started with. Check it out and let me know what you think of it. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00522RM48/?tag=absowrit-20

StoneWheller said:

E-publishing can be a self-published book just like a paper book can be self-published.

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Exactly.

While it's clear that you understand the difference, the reasons we tend to explain is because so many people come here, or lurk here, and DON'T know the difference. They assume that all ebooks are self published.

Epublishing has made self publishing much easier for the author. The costs are lower for a start, and it's much easier for the author to complete the process.

That said, there are some very good printing service, such as Create Space and Lulu where an author can self publish a print book for virtually no cost.

So, as you can see, the options for the self publisher are vast, and they are increasing all the time.

This is good for the self publisher from the point of view of accessibility, but also when considering how and when teh author is going to get thier product to a reader. In self publishing the author has much more control of timing - such as when to release their book, before christmas for example, or push it back to summer, where they wouldn't necessarily have that option with a traditional publisher.

Obviously self publishing has it's downsides as well. Primarily the loss of the support is huge - it's amazing what a publisher actually does, everything from covers, to formating, to organising printing and distribution, promotion, placement and the finance to support the book in these things. Most self publishers don't have the finance or the pool of resources behind them to achieve the same things as publisher.

This is part of the reason why a self published book is often of lower physical quality, if not the contents.

This isn't a slur on self published authors (hell, I am one). But when the writer is ultimately responsible for the book and it's contents, it can be hard to see things objectively. It can be hard to spot the typos when you have read the same page 20 times.

Having been on both sides of the fence, I can tell you first hand that self publishing is not really for me. I've tried it and it's exhausting. I just don't have the drive or the ability to really make it work for me. It takes so much more time and effort to get anywhere. Which is why I respect someone who manages to self publish successfully, because although it's easy to self publish these days, to self publish well is damn hard.

Nick Russell said:

JW, I used Smashwords to format it for the Nook and other e-book readers. But the biggest majority of my sales are through Kindle. For November, I sold 4,283 copies on Kindle. Today I upload a new cover that another Kindle author, Dale Roberts, designed for me to replace the bland cover I started with. Check it out and let me know what you think of it. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00522RM48/?tag=absowrit-20

Click to expand...

Wow, Nick, I don't know if it's the cover or the excellent reviews that pushed this e-book up the Amazon charts. Must say it is very inspiring. Did you query traditional agents/publishers before going this route?

Wow, Nick, I don't know if it's the cover or the excellent reviews that pushed this e-book up the Amazon charts. Must say it is very inspiring.

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I'd say it was both of these things plus a well written story, his blog, and his perseverance.

Very inspiring!!!

I've split the discussion about e-publishing vs. self-publishing into a new thread and am now going to move this to our self-publishing room, where I hope it'll feel more at home. Buckle up and brace yourselves....

Thanks, Old Hack! Now, is there a thread that talks about the basic nuts-and-bolts of converting a basic novel to the various e-book formats? Thanks!