Thinking about publishing? Here are some details you may find useful.
I publish on Amazon (Kindle) and Smashwords for other ebooks (iBooks, Kobo etc) and Createspace for paperbacks.
First a couple of disclaimers. I am not a reviewer of books so please do not send me manuscripts for advice or critiques. I would like to help but don't have the time. If you read through this summary it will give you a few ideas on how to go about ebook publishing and hopefully how to avoid some pitfalls. Don't be discouraged by some of the difficulties, you have already finished the hard part which is writing the book!
Jokes aside, you will need a fully completed manuscript - that means proof read, reviewed and finalised. Therefore no spelling mistakes, problems with plots,characters or grammar etc etc. There is no easy road to a completed mansucript, just blood, sweat and tears. Take time with this as you are the editor in this process. All of the ebook publishing systems are automated and unless you want to pay, what you upload is what your readers will see.
Smashwords
Once you have your final manuscript for ebook purposes you will need to spend time formatting your word document. Needless to say, this should be a back up copy of your manuscript. This can be both torturous and tedious depending on a number of factors including previous word formatting. For smashwords read Mark Coker's Smashwords Style Guide. It is easy to follow and takes you through the requirements step by step. But be warned, this can be time consuming. The requirements are very specific. In particular take note of the sections which highlight what you should not have in your formatting including page numbers, page breaks etc. The final document looks quite bland but the auto formatting process that Smashwords uses works its magic quite well if you have followed the rules.
Watch the size of your font, paragraph breaks and line spacing in particular.
Smashwords is a great platform to publish your book on as it distributes in a number of formats including Kindle, EPub (Apple), PDF and Online Reading plus a large number of distributors. A great place to start.
Kindle
For Kindle Direct Publishing you need to follow a different process of formatting. They have a simple Formatting Guide which is basic but useful. This time you will include page numbers, page breaks etc. Essentially in this process you format to achieve the final product as you would with a hard copy. No restrictions on page breaks or line spacing. They recommend page breaks at the end of each chapter. Before uploading to Kindle you need to convert the file to a filtered HTML format.
Createspace
Before publishing on Createspace I read a number of 'how to' articles. As it turned out none of them helped. So here is a step by step guide that may help avoid some of the frustrations. These steps assume you are using MS Word. It also assumes you are publishing a novel, ie not a picture book or a how to book requiring tables etc.
Step 1: Set up an Account with Createspace. Log in and go to the publish tab. Here you will enter details regarding your 'project'. Title of the book, name of the author etc.
Step 2: The first decison when formatting for Createspace is part of Step 1, to decide on the page size and paper type for your book. A novel will be in black and white. You need to decide also on the paper type - white or cream. Most novels are printed on cream paper as it is easier on the eyes for reading. Check a couple of paperbacks to confirm this. In this initial stage you also need to decide on the 'trim' which is another way of saying 'paper size'. This is a matter of preference and you can be guided by other published books as to how you want your book to look. Rember though that the bigger the paper size the more expensive the publishing cost and therefore the selling price. This will also impact on the cover - more on that later. There are some paper sizes that are more popular (traditional) than others. I opted for 5.25" x 8" for one of my books and 5.25" x 8.5" for the others.
Step 4. ISBN decision time. Do you supply your own or do you get createspace to assign one? No hard and fast rules here. Some authors want full control and ownership so apply for and supply their own ISBN. I'm not sure that this is valid as you don't lose any rights or control by using a Createspace ISBN. Just for the record I supplied my own for The Fenians and used a Createspace one for Sink or Swim and Tug of War.
Step 5: Now comes the hard part. You have to upload a PDF interior file. This is the exact document which will be published so it is important to get it right. I'll take you through my version of the easiest way to achieve this. Note: to select imperial or metric measurements in word go to the home tab (the round button on the top left) click on it, and at the bottom in the rectangular box, select 'word options'. Pick 'advanced' in the left hand menu, scroll to the Display heading and in the drop box 'Show Measurements in Units of' select your preference.
- Set up a new word document in mirror margins. To do this go to the Page Layout tab. In Page Set Up click on the arrow in the corner of the box, select the Margins tab, multiple pages section and in the drop box select mirror margins.
- Set up page size and margins. This will depend on your selection in Step 3 above. For a 5.25" x 8" page size when in Page Set Up go to the paper tab and in the Paper Size drop box select 'Custom Size'. Then in the width and height drop boxes select 5.25" in the width section and 8" in the height section. This will obviously be customised to suit the paper size you have selected.Then go to the margins tab and in the drop boxes select the following sizes in the drop boxes: Top .75", Inside .75", Gutter .13", Bottom .75", Outside .5" and Gutter position 'Left'. These measurements meet Createspace's requirements.
- In the layout tab, at SectionStart drop box select 'new page' and put Header and Footer both at .5"
- Now still under the main Page Layout tab go to the paragraph section, click on the arrow in the corner and put in the following settings: Alignment 'left', Outline level 'Body text', Indentation - Left 0", Right 0", Special 'First line', By .12" (Optional depending on your first line indent preference.) Spacing: Before 0 pt, After 0 pt, Line Spacing 1.5 Lines (some prefer 1, depends on your preference) and AT leave blank. On the Line and Page Breaks tab, untick all options except 'Window/Orphan Control (whatever that means).
Step 6: Okay, now you are ready to go. The next most difficult area is conceptual. What you see on the screen in 'mirror margins' is reversed on publication. If you look carefully at the pages on the screen you will see the wide margins are on the outside of the pages. These wide margins are actually the inside margins of a printed book (where the book is bound). This means the left hand pages on the screen are actually the right hand pages in a bound book. Simple isn't it? You also need to remember that after all the information at the start of your book (copyright page, header page, dedication etc) the actual writing needs to start on an odd page. All books start with the first page of writing on the right side. This means a left hand page when you are looking at the screen. You may need to achieve this with a blank page which is okay. If you take a paperback out of your bookshelf you will see that a lot of books have a blank page. It all depends on whether you have reviews you want to list, dedications etc.
Step 7: Now you have all of that sorted the only other problem is page numbering. You will either want to supress page numbers until the story starts (eg page 3) or you may want to start numbering at page 1 where the story starts. Due to the quirks of word this simple task is more difficult than it should be. The way to achieve this is as follows:
- Insert section breaks at the start of each page where you do not want a page number to appear (eg Title page, Dedications and Copyright page). To do this, place the cursor at the top of each introductory page, click the Page Layout tab, then Breaks - Continuous, under section Breaks. On each introductory page, also on the Page Layout tab, click the small box with the arrow at the right, next to Page Setup. In the menu check the 'different first page' box. Don't do this on the page you want the numbers to display. When you want the page number to display, place your cursor at the beginning of the page, click Insert tab, then Page Number, and choose where on the page you want the number to appear. If there were three introductory pages, each will have a section break at the start of the page. On the page you want the page numbers to start on click Format Page Numbers, click the 'Start at' button and select '0'. This should start your numbering at page 1 (left hand side page as you look at it but right hand side when printed).
That's all there is to it! You then need to save the document as a PDF to upload it which will give you the chance to see exactly how it will look in print format. If all this is too much (and it can be frustrating) there are people who offer file conversion services online. I would suggest having a go yourself first but always only play with a copy of your manuscript. Good luck.
MARKETING
There is a lot of information out there about marketing your ebook. Some of it good and some of it rubbish. Isn't it always the case? The bad news is there is no easy way to market your book. There are a lot books out there, all struggling to be heard (and read). The good news is everyone is in the same boat, established authors or not. I cannot stress strongly enough that writing the book and getting published is only half the job. Now you need to get people to read it. To do this you need a plan. A random approach is not going to work because it will be inconsistent, not targetted and therefore drowned out in the noise of other authors in the market place. But don't despair. A marketing plan for your book is not too difficult to put together. It requires some simple steps and a commitment from you, the author. But if you are not prepared step up to promote your book no one else will be.