If
you’ve been with me through the past three posts, you’ve seen that making the
decision to self-publish on Amazon was just the first of many steps. During the weeks spent recording and having the audiobook mixed,
I was making dozens of other choices leading up to publication, many of which
I’ll walk through in this post.
WE DO JUDGE BOOKS BY THEIR
COVERS!
Think
about the way you shop for books. Browsing sites or shelves, we find that covers either do it for us or they don’t, right? The
combination of title and cover art speaks volumes, ideally giving readers a
glimpse into the genre and feelings provoked within the pages. Most of us can easily
imagine the types of photos and fonts chosen for romance novels, science fiction,
memoirs, and self-help books, not to mention every other genre. The cover design is a book’s brand and main
advertisement. It can truly make the difference between soaring or
floundering sales. If the art grabs shoppers, their next step is to flip or
open the book – or click online – to read the blurb.
Selecting
a cover designer is highly personal. One can choose an artist’s pre-designed
covers – somewhat like thumbing through a catalogue of basic flash tattoos – and
then personalize it by plugging in one’s title and name, and just like that,
it’s ready. Some people hire their favourite artist. Others use programs like
Scribus, Canva, or even Amazon’s Cover Creator to design their own. There are also
a myriad of freelance hubs, such as 99designs, Upwork, and Fiverr, where
thousands of graphic designers (and other professionals) advertise their
services.
Having
previously hired a designer on Fiverr for a business logo, I returned and chose
one of the highest rated book cover designers. Total cost was $35 for the three
formats: front cover (e-book); front, spine, and back (paperback); and square
(audiobook). It took longer than I’d hoped – a couple of months from initial communication
to final draft, another lesson in you get what you pay for – with style, time zone, and language challenges; using a photo
of me taken by my husband as the base, we eventually found the right fonts and
layout.
I’m happy with the cover, but in future will probably either design the
covers myself or invest more time and money in choosing an artist.
BLURB: a kooky word for a grueling writing task
While
the cover was being designed, I read a boatload of tips on how to write an
attention-gripping 90-150-word blurb. This paragraph or two is the most important
copy that author’s write, either “hooking” or losing potential buyers. Make them
curious, I read, but don’t give too much away. Show the main character’s dilemma,
but don’t outline the plot.
It’s ad writing,
a style in which I had never written, and one that many authors grapple with. Not
realizing that I could hire an inexpensive copywriter on Fiverr, I grappled my way through a
couple dozen versions, tweaking and revising with awesome feedback from my
writing friends. At last, the blurb and a few snips of early reviews were added
to the cover art of the paperback version.
So. No pressure… but getting these two pieces right – the cover and the blurb – is sort of crucial. Of course, they can be amended, but starting out strong and building sales momentum is usually the goal.
Another thing I know now – especially after
connecting with the #WritingCommunity on Instagram and Twitter – was that at
this point I should also have been well into a social media book launch
campaign. Ah, well… another lesson learned after the fact for next time.
Next steps, working my way through Amazon’s formatting requirements.
FIRST UP: E-book
Here was my logic: Since the
cover photo for the e-book was a simple rectangle of the front cover, I guessed
(incorrectly) that the Kindle version would be the easiest to upload, so that’s
where I started.
I wrote my manuscript in Microsoft
Word, so the first step was complete. However, as with most of this first-time
process, there were multiple steps to discover and programs to learn.
Firstly, Kindle DirectPublishing (KDP), Amazon’s publishing platform, requires a format made only in
a program called Kindle Create (formerly CreateSpace.)
Once I downloaded Kindle
Create to my computer, I popped my book in, and soon learned that there were very
few formatting options within the program. KDP preferred that most formatting
be completed in Word.
The most important piece was
linking the Table of Contents to the chapter titles, allowing readers to click
a chapter name on their device, rather than scroll through the entire book. Luckily,
YouTube came to the rescue again. I played with different fonts and spacing
options in Word and created multiple versions in Kindle Create before finding
the look I wanted. The program has a handy preview function, showing exactly
how the book will look on different devices. When I was finally satisfied, the program
compacts and packages the file, which shows up as a cute little box-shaped icon,
and it’s ready to upload to KDP.
Once within KDP, I faced another
slew of decisions:
- In which three categories should I list the book?
- What keywords would help the most people find it?
- Do I really love the blurb, or should I write an 86th version?
- Am I sure I want to go exclusively with Amazon for a little higher royalty or should I reconsider “going wide”?
- And what will the book’s price be?
Some
authors choose to set their e-book price at Free or .99, with the intention of getting
loads of sales, which I’ve heard often backfires.
People
tend to value what they pay for. It certainly seems to be true for me: I’ve purchased a number
of super-cheap Kindle books, many of which languish unopened in my library. While
price doesn’t necessarily equate to quality, I’ve found that it often does. I knew the thousands of hours I’d put in over the previous five years and -- call me crazy -- believe that effort is worth more than
a dollar. Besides, I wanted people to actually read my story, not just
buy it.
Since my initial goal was to break even (approx. $650 investment to date), not to make big bucks or become a best-selling author, I looked at it this way: I could set the price at 99 cents (and have to sell a zillion copies to break even) or set it at $9.99 and only have to sell a billion. I chose to go with the higher, though still genre-comparable price point, knowing that I could change it later if I chose.
After uploading all of the above details
to KDP, I saved them, holding off on clicking the Publish button until the paperback and audio versions were ready to go.
For you visual learners, here’s the e-book map:
* Unfortunately, this diagram and
the two below do not exist anywhere but here (because my hubby and I created
them from my giant document of notes after the work was done.) I’m passing them
along to you, hoping they’ll be helpful.
NEXT: Paperback
Unlike
traditional publication, Amazon prints hard copies (though not hard covers) on demand. There
is no initial print run of 500 or 1000 books. Each time someone buys a
paperback, a copy is printed and mailed out. (Saving multiple forest groves, polution from pulp mills, ink,
and labour costs worth of unsold recycled books!)
I copied and pasted my original
Word document into a book template that one of my writing group partners
shared. Initially I chose a 6”x 9” size, then tweaked the margins and font sizes
to my preferences (multiple times), converted it to a .pdf file, and made sure
all the fonts were embedded.
Once I’d uploaded the (resized) full
cover photo and the .pdf manuscript, I made many of the same decisions as with
the e-book, (categories, keywords, and pricing.) The main exception is that paperbacks
do NOT have an Exclusive-to-Amazon option. In other words, paperbacks can be sold "wide" -- through additional selling platforms and storefronts -- with no drop in royalties.
I chose paper colour (white or cream) and either a glossy or matte cover.
I was then able to order proof
copies. Receiving the proofs a week later was wild.
I was holding my BOOK!
Many authors don’t order proofs,
but seeing the physical product, I was glad I had.
I quickly discovered that I preferred
a smaller size (5” x 8”) and white paper instead of cream. (Although it’s a warm
story, the cover colours are mostly cool, so white turned out to be a better
fit.)
One more Fiverr resize of the
cover photo and a reload into KPD, and it too was saved and ready to go.
Here’s the map for paperback
publishing:
AND FINALLY: The Audiobook
If you didn’t catch my last post,
where I shared more about my audiobook journey, you can find it here.
Upon receiving the engineered
files from GutenbergReloaded, I logged into my newly created account at
Amazon’s ACX and learned yet another new thing:
In order to upload an audiobook
to ACX, one must have a physical or digital print version already available on
Amazon. So, although I wanted to release all three formats simultaneously, that
did not happen.
I clicked the Publish button on
both the e-book and paperback versions, expecting, as KDP said, that their
actual “live” dates would be 48-72 hours later. Amazingly, emails arrived within the next
12 hours containing live links to both formats! I chose not to announce that until the
audiobook was also up.
Hopping back to the ACX site, I meticulously
titled and uploaded the MP3 audio files, filled out all of the specifics
matching it with the other formats, and prayed it would pass the quality
assurance tests quickly.
Below is the map to the Audiobook process.
It took the entire estimated two
weeks to receive approval, but at last it too was available, the
release was announced, and the marketing began. But that is a story for another day. 😊
Thanks so much for reading! Until next time…