Ian Dawson's Blog - Posts Tagged "metadata"
The Field - From Word Doc to Paperback, Part Two
My mind was made up, I was going to self-publish The Fieldas an eBook. I began to research different methods and companies that specialize in taking a manuscript and turning it into a professional finished product. I came upon www.BookBaby.com and after a few clicks knew that they were the company I wanted to partner with.
I emailed my editor, Kathleen, and told her that after long last I was going to publish my novel. She suggested I reach out to cover artist Steven Novak at http://www.novakillustration.com. I did and after a couple email exchanges, I decided to use his services for my book cover.
Things were starting to fall into place.
Steven sent me a list of what he needed in order to get an idea of how the cover should look. This being my first time doing this, I went WAY overboard with the materials I sent him. Luckily, I’m sure he has dealt with first-time authors before so he whittled my over-the-top ramblings into an initial cover concept. We then worked over the next two days to fine-tune the cover into what the final cover became.
I was very excited with the final product, and was excited to share it with people. Now that I had the cover, I could take that and the manuscript and begin the process on Book Baby of creating an eBook. And that’s exactly what I did, but before I did anything, I copyrighted my manuscript. This is a very important thing to do that I highly recommend to all self-publishers. While you do retain the rights to your work when you publish with Book Baby, it’s always good to have the official copyright on your side as well just in case. Visit the site here: https://www.copyright.gov/registration/ (FYI, it doesn’t let you do it on the weekends or holidays)
Copyright in, I submitted my manuscript and cover to Book Baby. There is a lot of other extra information that it’s important to have on-hand as you go through the process: a short description of your book, a long description of your book, and metadata keywords.
They use this information on the various sites like Amazon, Apple iBooks, and Barnes & Noble. Some use the short version of your novel’s description, others use the longer version. Think of either one as the blurb that you would want on the back of your novel if it was a hard cover or paperback.
My original short description:
When fourteen-year-old Daniel Robinson is abducted during a summer game of hide-and-seek, his life quickly changes from one of fun to one of survival. Daniel must find the courage and strength to escape his two captors and get back home no matter what it takes. Will Daniel make it out alive, or is this one nightmare too real to escape?
My original long description:
A summer of adventure becomes a summer of terror when fourteen-year-old Daniel Robinson is abducted by two older boys during a game of hide-and-seek with his best friend Kyle. Daniel soon finds himself at the mercy of his captors, doing whatever he can to survive and escape before his fate is sealed. Can Daniel make it out alive, or is this one nightmare too real to escape?
As Kyle comes to the realization that something bad may have happened to Daniel, he sets out to find his best friend and bring him back to safety. With nothing but his teenage instincts to guide him, will Kyle’s quest to find his best friend result in a happy ending or end in tragedy?
In his first novel, author Ian Dawson draws from his real-life experiences to create an action-adventure story about unconditional friendship, courage, and determination.
Welcome to The Field.
Metadata are keywords that Amazon and other sites use to categorize your novel based on its content. That way people looking for books about the topic you have written about are likely to have it pop up when they search. Once Book Baby has these three things, they tweak them to make them for better search optimization on the various sites. Tomorrow I will let you know what metadata Book Baby and I decided on, and how I decided on the pricing for my eBook.
I emailed my editor, Kathleen, and told her that after long last I was going to publish my novel. She suggested I reach out to cover artist Steven Novak at http://www.novakillustration.com. I did and after a couple email exchanges, I decided to use his services for my book cover.
Things were starting to fall into place.
Steven sent me a list of what he needed in order to get an idea of how the cover should look. This being my first time doing this, I went WAY overboard with the materials I sent him. Luckily, I’m sure he has dealt with first-time authors before so he whittled my over-the-top ramblings into an initial cover concept. We then worked over the next two days to fine-tune the cover into what the final cover became.
I was very excited with the final product, and was excited to share it with people. Now that I had the cover, I could take that and the manuscript and begin the process on Book Baby of creating an eBook. And that’s exactly what I did, but before I did anything, I copyrighted my manuscript. This is a very important thing to do that I highly recommend to all self-publishers. While you do retain the rights to your work when you publish with Book Baby, it’s always good to have the official copyright on your side as well just in case. Visit the site here: https://www.copyright.gov/registration/ (FYI, it doesn’t let you do it on the weekends or holidays)
Copyright in, I submitted my manuscript and cover to Book Baby. There is a lot of other extra information that it’s important to have on-hand as you go through the process: a short description of your book, a long description of your book, and metadata keywords.
They use this information on the various sites like Amazon, Apple iBooks, and Barnes & Noble. Some use the short version of your novel’s description, others use the longer version. Think of either one as the blurb that you would want on the back of your novel if it was a hard cover or paperback.
My original short description:
When fourteen-year-old Daniel Robinson is abducted during a summer game of hide-and-seek, his life quickly changes from one of fun to one of survival. Daniel must find the courage and strength to escape his two captors and get back home no matter what it takes. Will Daniel make it out alive, or is this one nightmare too real to escape?
My original long description:
A summer of adventure becomes a summer of terror when fourteen-year-old Daniel Robinson is abducted by two older boys during a game of hide-and-seek with his best friend Kyle. Daniel soon finds himself at the mercy of his captors, doing whatever he can to survive and escape before his fate is sealed. Can Daniel make it out alive, or is this one nightmare too real to escape?
As Kyle comes to the realization that something bad may have happened to Daniel, he sets out to find his best friend and bring him back to safety. With nothing but his teenage instincts to guide him, will Kyle’s quest to find his best friend result in a happy ending or end in tragedy?
In his first novel, author Ian Dawson draws from his real-life experiences to create an action-adventure story about unconditional friendship, courage, and determination.
Welcome to The Field.
Metadata are keywords that Amazon and other sites use to categorize your novel based on its content. That way people looking for books about the topic you have written about are likely to have it pop up when they search. Once Book Baby has these three things, they tweak them to make them for better search optimization on the various sites. Tomorrow I will let you know what metadata Book Baby and I decided on, and how I decided on the pricing for my eBook.
The Field - From Word Doc to Paperback, Part Three
In its most basic terms, metadata is data about data. A novel is filled with data, and Amazon and other sites use data (keywords) based on the data in the novel to categorize your book and make sure that when certain terms or phrases are searched that your novel pops up.
The keywords Book Baby and I chose were:
“abduction|courage|friendship|kidnapping|survival story|teenage boys|thriller”
If you do wish to change these in the future for your novel you can, and it takes about 24 hours for the changes to occur on Amazon.
Now on to pricing. Since it was my first novel, I didn’t want to charge a crazy amount, but I also wanted to make sure that I could make some money off each sale. I decided on the lowest amount that gets you a maximum return on Amazon: $2.99. At this price I get 70% of the sale and Amazon gets 30%. Any lower and I get 35%. $2.99 seemed like a fair price since it is affordable for an eBook and my main goal was to get people to download and read the book.
With all that in place, I did a few more accounting-based steps about where you want your money sent and at what set amount would you like the money sent to you, and awaited the proofs for the eBook.
But did I just sit around waiting for that day to arrive? Quite the contrary! I knew I had to create a platform for people to learn about my book, so I created a website using www.wordpress.com. I started with a pretty basic and bland theme and format, but eventually took the time to make it my own. I opted for the business website option, which costs a bit more but gives you more freedom and options with your design.
Tomorrow, I’ll talk about proofs, other book sites I joined, and getting early reviews. See you then!
The keywords Book Baby and I chose were:
“abduction|courage|friendship|kidnapping|survival story|teenage boys|thriller”
If you do wish to change these in the future for your novel you can, and it takes about 24 hours for the changes to occur on Amazon.
Now on to pricing. Since it was my first novel, I didn’t want to charge a crazy amount, but I also wanted to make sure that I could make some money off each sale. I decided on the lowest amount that gets you a maximum return on Amazon: $2.99. At this price I get 70% of the sale and Amazon gets 30%. Any lower and I get 35%. $2.99 seemed like a fair price since it is affordable for an eBook and my main goal was to get people to download and read the book.
With all that in place, I did a few more accounting-based steps about where you want your money sent and at what set amount would you like the money sent to you, and awaited the proofs for the eBook.
But did I just sit around waiting for that day to arrive? Quite the contrary! I knew I had to create a platform for people to learn about my book, so I created a website using www.wordpress.com. I started with a pretty basic and bland theme and format, but eventually took the time to make it my own. I opted for the business website option, which costs a bit more but gives you more freedom and options with your design.
Tomorrow, I’ll talk about proofs, other book sites I joined, and getting early reviews. See you then!
