About a year and a half after I finished writing Infused, I
finally decided to self publish it. My earlier blog posts shed light on some of
the reasons that I waited so long, but in the beginning, I hesitated because I
had read that agents would not work with people that had self published (either
because the writer had gone outside the system, or because they would have
concerns about rights to characters and stories).
I finally got to the point where I just wanted to complete
the process of producing a book. So, after I spent time finishing up going
through the editing changes that Joyce had suggested, I looked into what I
needed to do to be able to get a printed version of my book created.
My son had been told that Create Space was a good avenue to
get a book published in his teen writing group, so I looked into that site. I
assumed that it must be reasonably priced if teen writers were being guided to it.
There didn’t appear to be much information on the site itself about the costs
involved, but there was an ‘Explore paid services’ button on the front page. I
knew that they would offer editing and design services to make extra money, but
I was not planning on spending anything on those offerings. So I clicked on the
‘Start a title for free’ button to see what would be involved. I had to create
an account and was then given options on the kind of paperback book that I
wanted to produce. I was given options of different sizes, black and white or
color, and type of paper. After that was decided, I was given the chance to
download a template for the interior of the book.
I had thought about wanting to have the book published in a
5 inch by 8 inch format before I went to the site, so I had formatted a copy of
the novel in a Word document to be that size. I had even made a guess at the
margin settings that would be needed – the main ones pertaining to the gutter
settings. The gutter is the part of the paper that is in the middle (where the
left and right pages come together). In a newspaper, the gutter is fairly
small, but in a bound book, there is a wide area of the paper that you cannot
print on (because it will be in the binding). To have a book formatted
correctly to avoid printing in this binding the pages have to be setup with
larger margins on the left side on the odd pages, and a larger margin on the
right side of the even pages. Once I had the template Word file from Create
Space on my computer, I modified the copy of my novel in the 5x8 format so that
it had the same margins. I didn’t want to go through the process of copying
pieces out of my file into the template file, so the formatting of titles and
page numbers are not what was provided in the template. I then uploaded the
interior of the book and it was presented on the screen in a realistic view of
how it would look in a printed book – the shading of the pages and the flipping
of the pages caused excitement to build in me.
Next, was the cover design. The site offered a number of
pre-defined templates where you can put in text and upload a few pictures, but
they were very rigid and they did not offer one that could handle a cover made
up of just an image (which was my plan since I had created a cover image
including the title a while back). So I went for the other option which was to
download a template graphic file would have an outline of the back, front and
binding edge that was the correct size for the number of pages of the book (and
the type of paper I had selected).
Once I had the cover template, I worked to fit my image to
it. I found that the picture I had created was more square than was needed, and
started to trim off the sides to fit, but then I realized that I had enough
extra width to be able to also wrap around and cover the binding. I really
liked the way that it came out. I then had to add the title and my name to the
edge of the image so that they would appear on the binding. I didn’t get them
perfectly lined up, but by this point I was raring to get it submitted and let
it go without inspecting it carefully.
For the back of the book, they suggested that I put an
overview of the story and a picture of myself and information about me as the
author. I quickly typed up an overview and put that on the back, but I knew
that this information would be a lot more important if the book would be
available in retail stores (where people would pick it up and consider
purchasing it) than when the book is only offered on-line, so I didn’t put a
great deal of effort into it. Unfortunately there is a typo that I didn’t
notice at the time that got through. I didn’t have a professionally looking
photo of myself and I did not have any other writing credits, so I didn’t put
any author information on the back.
Once I had the cover finished, I uploaded it. The next day I
was sent an e-mail that the book was ready to be proofed. I had the option of
checking it completely on line or having a copy sent to me. I chose to purchase
a copy and have it sent to me. It arrived a couple of days later. It felt great
to have a real book in my hands that I had created. The cover looked great and
I felt a sense of accomplishment. I did however notice a few typos right away
in the first chapter. When I had started verifying the editing changes many
months earlier, my heart wasn’t in it (because of the depressing talks by local
authors addressed in an earlier blog post), so I had not done a good job of
checking the edits. I went back and fixed the issues in the first four chapters
and then resubmitted the interior file.
I chose to proof these changes on-line (since the exterior
was not changing) and (while I was on the phone chatting with my best friend
Monique) I finished up the paperwork (such as setting prices) to have the book
made available. To get to this point, the only money I had spent at Create
Space was the cost to have the proof copy printed and shipped to me – I was
surprised that there were no other costs. I then used a Kindle tool to make a
version for that ebook reader from the ePub that I had created earlier (after
copying over the editing changes) and signed up on Amazon directly to have that
made available on Amazon. I later discovered that I should have setup the
Kindle version through Create Space because otherwise the Amazon store doesn’t realize
that the Kindle and print versions are the same story. I also put the ePub up on Barnes and Noble’s
site.
The next morning I found out that the Kindle version was
available. Minutes later, Gary, who was managing a project that I was working
on at my day job, bought a copy for his iPhone after I told him that it was
available. The next day, when the printed version was made available, the first
person to order it was Monique. It was wonderful to have friends support me in
this endeavor.
