Finally…Back to Writing

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Well, I’ve been away from the most treasured thing I love to do…writing. I have finally finished my second book in my series and sent it out to many…many…count them, many agents and/or publishers…but to no avail.

So, I made a decision…a hard decision, to self-publish.  I have read so many blogs, posts, and comments regarding this process, and it became a little confusing.  But I overcame that publishing stereotype of not being good enough if you self-publish…and did it.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t easy.  The process was a gigantic learning curve, but I’m thrilled with the product I’ve released. I chose CreateSpace because it was, to me, very user friendly. I found an image on Pixmac for only $7 and used it as my cover. Hint: try to use one full image for the cover instead of many images within an image.  The clarity is much better.

I then downloaded their word template for the book format. I proceeded to copy and paste my book from my original word document into their template.  You do need to understand formatting, but it went rather smooth.  What’s fun during this step is you get to choose your font for your titles, page numbers, etc. Hint: do read the information out in the CreateSpace community, many helpful hints there. I learned which fonts work the best.

CreateSpace gets your ISBN number, no worries there. But the little snag I came across was the process of getting the Library of Congress number, if you choose to do this.  CreateSpace does this for you for $49, and I almost paid for that step.  But, I found out on the internet a great article on how you can do this on your own. (I’ve posted this article on one of my earlier blog posts).  So I went out and tried my hand at it, and low and behold, I got my LCCN# for free, yep that’s right, no fee. Now, it can be a little confusing on making sure you fill the information correctly in their form, but there are librarians out there to chat with, so it’s worth the try if you would like your book to be purchased through a library. Which I’m glad I did, what better way to get exposure than in your local library to do signings, right? Libraries always love to promote local authors. And we authors love our libraries and librarians, right?

Then I uploaded my file to CreateSpace and they do the conversion. They give you the opportunity to review the entire book through their electronic previewer.  You can literally read the entire book there, and if you find any errors, you can go back into your template, make the changes (which always improves your professionalism) and re-upload.

Once your satisfied, you can order a hard copy proof – which I HIGHLY suggest that you do. The cost is minimal (mine was $3.22 a book), this will show you how your cover will look and you can, yet again, read through your book and pick out any mistakes…if any .

Once you’re satisfied, you can go back to CreateSpace online and do the final approval.  They also walk you through the steps as to the cost you want to place for the book, and if you want to extend the sell of your book in Europe, wholesalers, retailers, and the like.  Mind you, I’m being brief here, but you get the jist.

After that process has been taken care of, CreateSpace carries you onto another automated screen to publish to Kindle. Now this was a little more involved for me because I needed to learn how to upload a file for any e-book and there were so many answers to my searches that it blew my mind. But, I did find the universal software to convert my file for e-books. And that my friend, is Calibre.

Calibre can be downloaded for free, and they have a tutorial on how to use it, which wasn’t hard. I needed to take that CreateSpace book template and save it out as an .html file. Then I brought that file into Calibre and walked through their steps and converted it to an .epub file.

Once complete, I was able to upload it to Kindle and B&N Nook, which is another venue I had to create through B&N PubIt, but not hard either. Kindle and Nook walk you through their steps for pricing and give you advice on how to price.  Worth your while to investigate the cost you want to choose for your book.

Then, whalah, it’s out for ebooks. But, as I said earlier, I was away from my writing to complete these tasks, and I did get a bit frustrated and had thoughts of why am I doing this, why hasn’t a publisher answered my prayers, why, why, why.

But, now that I have come out on the other side and my book is out there for sale, I can proudly say, “Yes, I have self-published my book, and I’m damn glad.” No regrets or takesy backsy’s. You still need to have a great product, which in my heart I know I’ve done. And of course, the marketing takes up quite a bit of time, but I continue to ask myself the real purpose for all of this, and my continued answer is, “I love writing and all aspects involved.”

After a little turmoil of getting my book out there…and being a bit of a crank with my hubby, I was able to get back into the flow and find my creative brain muscles…and continued writing for the third book in my series. As always, I was able to slip away into my little world and become reacquainted with my characters.  I missed them, and I think they were a little glad to have me back.

So, keep on writing and thanks for listening.