Self Publishing

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.