Navigating the stormy waters of self-publishing

I am a published author! As I sit writing this, my first book has gone live and is available to buy on Amazon. It’s a huge occasion for me and I am equally excited and terrified as I wait to see what “normal” people think of it. Those are the ones who don’t know me, who are not invested in my life or career and don’t care about my feelings. My angst is not the subject of this blog, however.

The process of getting published took me two days, during which I was bashing my head on the table, cursing, and even shouting at my poor husband who only wanted to know how things were going. I consider myself computer literate and even a little tech savvy, but some of the process was beyond me – and judging from my internet searches, I am not alone. So, I thought I would document my experience in the hope that it may help someone else and ease the strain of self-publishing.

I do my writing in Scrivener, which I really like. I know I am not utilising it all, but what I know suits me well. However, when it comes to compiling, I am lost. I even bought a “Scrivener for Dummies” book in the hope that it would clarify things, but, unfortunately, even that is too technical. If someone can point me to a guide for complete idiots, I would be very grateful!

As a result, I end up compiling it to a Word document and spending ages trying to format it the way I wanted.

Getting my ebook up, was actually relatively simple. I had some good advice from a friend, although there are websites out there that walk you through the process. The main thing is formatting chapter headers to create a navigable table of contents so that readers can move about your book with ease. Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) lets you preview it to make sure it looks okay, and then you are good to go. I had it rejected due to one of my keywords (apparently you can’t claim to be a bestseller…) but after changing that one detail, it was accepted and ready for people to download. So far, so good…

Then came the pop-up window. Create a paperback version in easy steps. No problem, I thought. I can get this done, have a nice cup of coffee and wait for the royalties to flood in. Instead, my afternoon (and much of the following morning) ended up in the gutter. Literally.

The gutter is the part of the book on the inside pages that bind the book together. It has to be greater than the other margins so that the text isn’t obscured by the binding process. KDP have guides for margins as do many websites, but no matter what I did, the gutter was never big enough, and the book was rejected. I will put my hand up at this point and confess that some of my frustration was due to mixing up “inside” and “outside” margin measurements, which meant I was squashing the book further and further without fixing the main problem. However, once I realised my mistake and made sure to double-check my sizes, it actually didn’t make a difference.

The strange thing is, that it wasn’t the whole book that was a problem, just a dozen pages, which I still don’t understand. If the whole book is formatted the same way, why should there be rogue pages refusing to join the rest of the book? Several sites made suggestions, including looking at the page numbering. All that changed was the page numbers refusing to co-operate!

In the end, the solution was rather simple. KDP provide templates which you can download for all sizes of books. Once I had done that, and pasted my manuscript inside it, it was really easy to format. The computer accepted my submission without qualms, my rebellious pages were tamed, and my book was on its way to becoming the bestseller I had tagged it to be. Perhaps. I celebrated with a very large G&T.

I am a perfectionist, an introvert, and an optimistic pessimist. (I plan for the worst but hope for the best.) New situations send my anxiety levels soaring instead of exciting me, and if I have too much to do I start to panic. The whole process of getting my book ready was quite daunting, but I took my time and didn’t try to do too much at once. You may be fortunate and end up completing the process in mere minutes. Well done. I do suggest, however, that just in case, you put aside plenty of time to do it, as you want your book to look as good as possible. I uploaded many copies trying to get it the way I wanted, and even after my final submission, I went back and changed the font size once I saw the published article.

So, here is a step-by-step guide to a gentle and hopefully, stress-free process.

1. When the time came, I panicked, imagining all sorts of errors and problems with my manuscript. If you start to second guess yourself, have someone do a final proofread of your book. My fabulous friend and mentor, Becky, only found a handful of typos, but it’s better to catch them before publication.

2. Generate a keyword list. This is a string of words that people might use in the search box on Amazon when looking for something to read. My fellow writing buddy, Johnathan, was kind enough to put my choices through an analysis tool which helped me refine my choices. When you come to add them, do fill up the boxes with associated words rather than just putting one word in each box.

3. I created my front cover but had to alter it slightly after viewing it as a thumbnail. (60x90 pixels) Remember, this is the image people see when doing a search, so it needs to stand out. There are online tools that will convert your image for free.

4. Make sure you have added your copyright notice, dedication, table of contents, acknowledgements page, author info and, if appropriate, a teaser for your next book or advert for a previous one.

5. Write a back cover blurb. This will also be the description on the amazon site when people click on your book.

6. Create a KDP account. You will need to know the international codes for your bank when filling in the part about payment of royalties, as KDP is based in the US. (I found these easily when I logged into my account). They also want a tax number. We don’t have anything similar in the UK, but after another internet search I ended up putting in my NI number, which was accepted.

7. If you are adding your manuscript as an ebook, format for that first. It is fairly simple to do and doesn’t need as much work. Once submitted, Amazon say it will take 72hrs to go live, but mine was ready within 24hrs. If there are issues with your submission, you will get an email informing you so you can go back and alter things before resubmitting.

8. For paperbacks, download the KDP templates. I chose to go with a 5x8, which is the generic paperback size used in the UK.

9. When formatting your book, there are a few things I would suggest. First, instead of just page breaks, it is useful to use section breaks between the front info and back info, so that page numbering, headers and footers don’t appear on things like your title page or author bio.

After viewing the manuscript in the template, I used 1.15 line spacing and a font size of 9. Once I received a physical copy of the book, however, I changed it to 10. Don’t go lower than 7 as it will become too difficult to read.

I deleted my table of contents.

If you haven’t done so already, justify the body of the text so that it looks more professional.

10. KDP provide a cover creator if you don’t have your own to upload. I added my picture, but apparently, they do have stock images available. There was also space for an author photo and bio, and back cover blurb. KDP can assign you an ISBN number and barcode.

11. Once you have uploaded it, go to the previewer and make sure it looks the way you want it. It might mean that you need to go back and add things like blank pages between elements. You can keep uploading revisions until it is perfect.

12. As for pricing, that is up to you. KDP tells you what the cost of printing is, so you need to factor that in. Do you want to be competitive? Make the maximum amount of profit? Just get it out there so people can read it? There are no hard and fast rules. There are opportunities to change the price if it proves to be too cheap or expensive, and you can have offers to generate more interest. As an author, you can also order books at cost (plus P&P) which is great if you end up doing a book signing or author appearance somewhere!

13. Create an author account on Amazon. You can generate a URL to add to your other social media or author websites so people can find you.

14. Finally, think about adding yourself as an author (and your new book after a week) to Goodreads. It doesn’t hurt to have an extra string to your marketing bow.

So, there you are! I hope that is helpful. Let me know how you get on.