How to Self-Publish a Book, The N.E.W. Way (Part 1)

Hehe, see what I did there? The “N.E.W.” way, meaning my way. That’s me being clever.

Anyway, I’m not an expert, but since I managed to write three books this past year, I thought I’d share my process in ten easy steps.

Step 1 — Write a book.

Holy crap, Nila. That’s step one?

Yeah, I know. Writing a book can take a person years, even decades, to finish. And there are so many things to learn as a writer about the craft of writing, about yourself, and about your potential readers. All of that is not gonna fit in a nifty little blog post.

While I can’t narrow down writing an entire book to ten easy steps, I can point you to some books that might help. They include books on plotting, editing, and suggested wording. These are not the only books on writing you should read. I have quite a few other books on writing, but these three are the ones I repeatedly go back to.

Save the Cat! Writes a Novel: The Last Book on Novel Writing You’ll Ever Need by Jessica Brody – the title is a bit presumptuous, but the author does a great job of laying out the basic plot points and story arcs needed to create a satisfying read. She does it with humor, lots of examples, and bullet points. I’ve read other “how to write a novel” books, but this one is by far the most thorough and succinct.Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself into Print (Second Edition) by Renni Browne and Dave King – this tome is very helpful to nix those annoying prose hiccups we all have. It offers concrete examples and exercises. It’s a bit of a mini-class on grammar which might make your eyes glaze over, but well worth it.The Emotional Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression (Second Edition) by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi – no, you shouldn’t only use this book to help describe your character emotions, but sometimes I get in a rut describing my character reactions in the same way over and over. Sometimes, a quick perusal of the ol’ emotional thesaurus can kick me out of that well-worn lane. Try it!Step 2 — Edit Said Book

This seems to go without saying, huh?

But often when you think you’ve edited your beast into submission, you haven’t really edited your book. Not until you share it with discerning readers (i.e., other writers or beta readers).

The Self-Editing book I mentioned above will only get you so far. You need discerning (notice I used that word again) readers who will pick your story apart: find those glaring plot holes, nix those repetitive phrases or sentence structures, and confirm or refute whether your pacing and tone mesh well for your story.

Those things are incredibly hard to see yourself. We’re just blinded by the brilliance of our stories. Not so other writers or readers!

Here’s where sites like Scribophile come in (a peer-to-peer writing critique site).

Yes, you could hire a development editor (like I did) and pay hundreds of dollars (like I did) for that well-paid editor to essentially say you got everything wrong (like I did). Then you’ll chunk the whole thing and start over, essentially wasting all that money (yes, like I did).

Or you could pay the modest yearly fee of $150 to a peer-to-peer critique site like Scribophile.

No, the system is not perfect, but if you can hunt down and catch a few like-thinking critique partners, the feedback you’ll receive can be invaluable. Or, at least, worth the one to two thousand you’d spend on a developmental editor.

Step 3 — Hire a Copy Editor

Hehe. About ready to cut my head off, aren’t you?

There’s a difference between a developmental editor and a copy editor. In this step, I’m referring to a copy editor.

In general, a copy editor comes after you’ve revised, revised, and revised some more. Then polished your text until it shines. And then tweak the text based on beta-reader feedback. Essentially, your book is just about ready for prime time and that’s when you hire the copy editor.

The copy editor’s job is to look at each and every sentence individually to correct spelling and grammar. They’ll also check for story consistencies, i.e., you spelled grandma’s name ‘Jenny’ in Chapter 2 versus ‘Jonni’ in Chapter 3 and all of sudden she’s turned into grandpa. That sort of stuff. The copy editor will also make sure your punctuation (commas, em dashes, quote marks) and formatting (italics for inner thoughts (or not) and other stylistic choices) is correct. Overall, they make sure the entire work is consistent.

The copy editor will not edit to ensure the writing flows smoothly or suggest different wording (unless it is super bad). That’s the developmental edit or stylistic edit (more money). You can, of course, hire an editor to do those initial editing steps that help correct your story (plotting, character arcs, pacing, and tone), but again, that’s super expensive.

Now, after you’ve managed to find a copy editor at a reasonable price, established a working relationship, and accepted all their edits, now what?

Well, this blog post has gone on too long. I like to keep these under a thousand words and we are rapidly careening up to that limit, so I’ll cover the next (exciting!) steps in another blog post.

Until then, write as if you life depends on it.