I’m mostly an indie author. Not exactly, because I have an agent, who’s wonderful. And an agency, which is awesome. So I get to skip some of the steps that 100% indie authors do. Which is fine by me. So I can’t tell you how to format, because Sharon–who’s an e-book wizard–does it for me. And I can’t tell you about working with a publisher, if you have a book coming out in hardback or paperback, because I’ve never done that. All I can share with you is what I know or what I’ve tried. But here are the steps I go through to get a novel/novella online:
1. People keep saying it, but they’re right. Write the best book you possibly can, because there are a LOT of books out there–some good, some bad, but you want yours to be the best it can be. So don’t slap words on a hard drive and share them with the world. Edit them. Have a few beta readers (who don’t tell you you’re wonderful and shouldn’t change a word) critique them for you. Then decide what you could do better and fix it. Now, I’ve had several friends who would be happy to NEVER send their book out into the cold, cruel world because they’re never going to be satisfied with it. They can always see one more thing to fix, one more thing that will make it shine. You have to find a happy medium here. But don’t rush your book either. When you send it out, make sure it’s good.
2. Have someone who knows his/her stuff copy edit your work. I notice misspellings, bad grammar, and the “sprinkle method” of adding commas. (I had a friend once who told me that she didn’t understand commas, so she just “sprinkled” them on the page so that they looked good). Aaargh. Grammar and spelling are the basic tools of writing, but none of us finish writing a manuscript with no mistakes. And we can’t always see our own mess-ups. Make sure your manuscript is clean before you offer it to the world. (My biggest weakness is hyphens. Hope one belongs in mess-up???)
3. Once your manuscript is ready to go, it’s time to format it for whatever site you’re going to load it on. Most of my writer friends pay someone to do this for them. A few take the time and effort to do it themselves. I’m lucky. (And I know it). Sharon does it for me.
4. Books need a cover. I’ve been lucky enough to work with Michael Prete. I love the covers he’s created for my novels and novellas. (And for the first time, he’s told me he’d like to do more covers, so I can share his name and web page: http://vertex10.com/. He usually designs web pages, so his site only shows his professional work as a web designer, but if you like any of the covers on my work, he’s done all of them, and his prices are reasonable!!). He’s also been kind enough to let me find images that I think fit the story/tone that I’m trying to create. Sometimes, I only use one image for a cover. Sometimes, I combine them. I just copy the links of what I like and send them to him, and he works his magic. But whatever you decide to do, your book cover is what makes people notice your novel. Don’t kid yourself. People DO judge books by their covers. Here are my two favorite sites to find images for Michael to work with: http://www.canstockphoto.com/ and http://www.shutterstock.com/. Be warned, though, once you start flipping through all of the images, you can lose a few hours without noticing.
5. And last, but not least, once your book is ready to go, how are you going to market/promote it? What have you got in place to help people find it? I’ve already shared a few great marketing sites in previous blogs. A good one is http://www.lindsayburoker.com/. Another is https://twitter.com/BadRedheadMedia. I had great luck with Book Bub ($90), but it’s getting harder and harder to get your book listed there. I had okay luck with http://www.ebookbooster.com/ ($40). By okay, I mean I had over 3,000 downloads of my free book with ebookbooster. Not bad, but nothing compared to the 18,000+ downloads I got from Book Bub. Later this month, I’m going to try out the parajunkee site to see how that works for the release of my 2 new novella bundles. I’m experimenting, looking for a mix of sites that help readers discover my work. I’ve been lucky enough to have several bloggers feature my books. I still haven’t been brave enough to try a blog tour. Twitter makes a difference when I tweet about a new release. So does Goodreads when I self-promote in Making Connections or Nexus. But an occasional paid ad has proven pretty effective, worth the money, (but only because I have more than one book online). All that I’m saying is that not many people are going to stumble on your book amid the thousands or millions of novels on amazon and Nook unless you help them find it. You can twitter (but do it right. Don’t just list your book over and over again. People stop reading your tweets). You can join Goodreads or Facebook. Or start a blog. But whatever you do, do something!
P.S. Just because I LOVE this cover and I mentioned Michael, this is the cover he created for the first Babet/Prosper bundle that’s going online Sept. 23–and this one happens to be FREE when it goes up.
My facebook page (but it’s mostly the blogs you’ve already read): https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/JudithPostsurbanfantasy
Judi Lynn 