A-Z of Self-publishing & Writing tips: D-F

Welcome to the second instalment of my series, in which I highlight a few things I have learnt over the years about the self-publishing journey.

I hope the series will be useful to aspiring writers and those who are having a hard time navigating their way through the often confusing self-publishing process.

The first part of the series was featured on author K.B. Walker's blog: A-C Writing and Self-publishing tips

So here we go:

D

Dialogue & Description:

There is a view that you should not include too much dialogue in your fiction. This is a view that, frankly, I don't believe in. I write character-driven fiction that contains a lot of dialogue, and I like it that way. When I'm reading books, I also like a lot of dialogue; when it's done correctly, it helps move the action along and also entertains more than a paragraph of prose ever could. That said, you should not include too much dialogue to the exclusion of other description. I think that description in a novel is also an important part of it. I really believe that there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to how much dialogue and how much description you include in a novel, the important thing is that you write in a way that makes it easy for the reader. Writers will find their own style, and some will include a lot of description, some more dialogue. Where there is more description than dialogue in a novel, it can result in a slower paced book. Books with more dialogue are often quicker to read.

The important points when constructing dialogue in a novel, are as follows:

1. Make it clear who is speaking. So, for example, where there are two men talking to each other, if you say 'he said' a few times, this could result in confusion. Perhaps, have one of the men mention the name of the other within the dialogue once or twice, or mention the name of one of the men, e.g. 'said James.'

2. Vary the writing, i.e. don't keep saying, 'he said', or 'she said' every time a character finishes speaking. Add other things, like, 'he swept his hand through his hair as he spoke', or 'she avoided his eyes'. In this way you are 'showing' your reader what the characters are doing as they're speaking. An example:


One way of doing it:

'How much is this vase?' asked John.
'Fifty pounds,' answered Bobby.
'That's expensive for a vase.'
'It's rare... an antique,' said Bobby.

Another way:

John picked up a blue vase with a floral design.'How much does this cost?' He asked.
Bobby eyed him up and down as if trying to work out how much he could afford to pay. He narrowed his eyes and said, 'That's fifty pounds.'
John's eyes widened. 'That's expensive for a vase.'
'It's rare... an antique,' said Bobby as he wiped a stain from the top of the shop counter, avoiding John's stare.

Okay, so that's a basic unedited paragraph, but I hope it highlights what I mean about trying to make the dialogue interesting.

3. Make the dialogue realistic; i.e. if your story is set in a certain part of the country where people have an accent and a certain way of saying things, you should really include that within the dialogue.

I do know of writers who have done quite well writing a whole short story only using dialogue and nothing else. So, it is doable. I suppose the point I really want to make is that you should never listen to anyone who says there are hard and fast rules for this type of thing; as with any creative pursuit, use your own intuition, and make sure you feel happy with the writing you are putting out there.

Digital publishing:

Any new writers would be forgiven for being confused by all the various ways you can publish e-books online. This is very much the digital age when it comes to publishing. More e-books are sold than print books these days, so if you are serious about your writing you do need to consider having your books available in digital form as well as print.

There are number of sites available for publishing your books as e-books. Some of them are listed below:

1. Amazon Kindle - probably the most popular, and most widely read. I sell the majority of my e-books via Amazon Kindle. It's relatively easy to upload your books onto Kindle yourself and you don't even need an ISBN number to do that. Your book will be available more or less worldwide and at a price you choose. I don't think any serious writer can get away with not publishing their books on Kindle.

2. Smashwords.com - This is a great site for indie writers. It allows you to upload your book and it will be converted into most digital formats, so it's available for download to most (if not all) e-readers.

3. Barnes and Noble (B&N) - Nook. This is also a popular reading device. If you publish through Smashwords, your book will be available through B&N. Or, you can upload to B&N directly (although when I last looked at that you can only upload directly if you have a US address or bank account).

4. iBookstore - the iPad is becoming more an more popular. Uploading your books onto the iBookstore can be done direct. I am told that if you produce a document on Pages (on a Mac) you can convert it into ePub and upload very easily onto the iBookstore. I haven't tried that yet, and believe there may be some restrictions for anyone outside the US trying to publish on there. I did get a few of my books converted free by Lulu.com, so they appear on the iBookstore.


E

Editing

This is a biggie. Ignore this at your peril.

You MUST make sure that before you publish a book of any type, it has been edited, and in most cases this means that someone other than the author has looked through it with a fine-toothed comb.

By 'someone', I mean someone who has knowledge of grammar, spelling, syntax.

I can't stress how important that is.

In the past few years, I have read hundreds of indie books, and about 98% of them have had problems associated with the fact that a good editor was not used... It's frustrating. I know that when you're a writer starting out you will be very keen to publish your work. You will love it, you will feel accomplished when you write a whole novel, you'll show it to a friend or two, maybe your mum and dad, they will all tell you it's great. Then you publish... then you learn. This is the road most authors take on the journey. We all make mistakes.

I can give an example from my own publishing journey. I know that I published Coincidences too soon. I should have sat on the story, re-read it, edited it, and waited until it was perfect, but I was keen to publish and a less-than-perfect version is out there in hardback. My second edition is as near as what I would say is perfect (in my opinion), but my reviews from the older version are still there on Amazon, and will live with me. The first version was good, but not great. We should all be aiming for great books before we publish them. At the time I published Coincidences the first time, I was sure it was perfect and would become a best-seller, but that was over 12 years ago and I have learnt so much since then. There is a lesson in that to aspiring writers: just because you think your book is the best thing since sliced bread, it may not be :)

In conclusion, it's okay, and not the end of the world, if you've published a less-than-perfect book, but we must always be striving for perfection, so either do what I did with Coincidences and rewrite it until you're happy with it, or try to edit your work before your publish it to avoid all that.

Try and use an editor who comes recommended by someone else. With my soon-to-be-released novel, Haunted, I used the editing services of Susan Helene Gottfried. I am quite confident with my writing by this stage of my writing life, but I spent so many months editing Coincidences that I wanted to hand over the hard part of the publishing process to someone else. I'm glad I did, because I now have someone's comments on my book that will make me think from the perspective of a reader when polishing my work.

It's also important to have proof-readers. But I can deal with that subject in a later part of this series.

F

Formatting

This follows on nicely from the part above about digital publishing.

Self-published writers are expected to wear many hats. They are artists, writers, entertainers, now marketers and editors, and the digital age has required them to be able to be computer-literate and format their books into a version that can be accepted on e-book seller sites.

There are guidelines that you can follow on Amazon Kindle and Smashwords and other sites that will enable you to upload books yourself to the sites. I found I was limited with what I could do as I have a Mac computer and until recently most sites were not very user-friendly for Macs. I was lucky enough to have a good author friend who helped me with formatting. I won't mention her name in case she's inundated with requests for help LOL.

Formatting is a big issue in publishing. I read a lot of Kindle books and notice that most of them have formatting issues. This is partly due to the fact that the book is being converted from one file type to another. It can also be due to the fact that Microsoft Word is quite a basic software system not capable of functioning well for this type of usage (an IT expert told me this.)

There is help and there are resources you can find on the Internet if you find that you are stuck and need help with formatting.

If you want to go it alone, self-published without using another company but just require formatting help, I would recommend, eBookBuilders: https://digitalebookformatting.wordpr... I am told that this company will produce the best quality formatted ebooks for your requirements. I am probably going to use the company for my next e-book. It would be peace of mind to know that the product I am publishing will be the best it can be.

Facebook

One of the features I have recently started using on Facebook is the Author Fan Page. So, I've set up a page separate from my own personal page, and use that for promoting my books. I think all authors should have a fan page. It makes sense, because then you can post personal stuff on your own page and project a more professional image on your Author Page. It's quite easy to set up the page. You go to your 'home' page and click on 'Pages' then there should be a link for 'start a new page', or something like that. You build the page as you would your normal Facebook page.

I found that getting people to 'Like' the page can be a struggle, but I was invited to a Facebook Event yesterday, where people were swapping 'Likes' and it was very successful. I ended up with 315 'Likes' of my page. When people 'Like' your page, they will see whatever you post in their news feed. So, the more 'Likes' you have, the better.

Friendly

I'm just going to tag this on the end because I believe that now we are in the e-publishing world we are all much more accessible on the Internet. A big part of what we do as self-published writers is marketing. That's marketing of our book, but also be aware that you are also marketing yourself as a brand name. It's important that you are friendly in your approach to readers and fellow indie authors. There is nothing more off-putting than an author who obviously just wants to sell you his or her book, but just as obviously, doesn't want to know anything about you...
Get to know your readers and have a circle of fellow writers that you can chat with. Writing is a lonely business, but with the advent of the Internet and all the various social networking sites, it can also be a lot of fun.

That brings me onto another word: Fun You should have fun as a self-published writer, enjoy what you are doing and this will come across to others. If you are not happy, you should perhaps not be self-published. Being a self-published writer is hard work, it's something that won't bring immediate results, and there are many things that can drag you down. This is another reason why it's important to have fellow authors you can chat to.

Here's another F word: Forum Join a writers'/readers' forum, liked Bestsellerbound.com, that I mentioned in my last post (Under B).

Look out for my next post in this series. Coming soon...