Adventures in self-publishing...

AKA - here's all the mistakes I made, so you don't have to!

I knew I was in for a lot of work when I decided to self-publish revised editions of my five-book Courtland Chronicles series. The books were originally published in 2008-09, and my writing style's changed quite a bit since then. I spent a good chunk of time in the self-editing phase on each book, smoothing out wonky prose, making my main protagonist more sympathetic and changing a lot of other stuff that just didn't work.

Then came time to hire a freelance editor. This is where I made my first mistake - I sent it to a friend. Actually, a Twitter acquaintance who'd decided to give editing a whirl. I should've known it wasn't going to work out when she quoted me a top-dollar price when she hadn't so much as looked at the manuscript, but at that point I didn't know any better.

She was willing to read through the first manuscript without charging me, so I said okay. But as soon as I saw her comments, I knew we wouldn't be a good match. I don't expect editors to tell me my every word is a pearl and I shouldn't change a damn thing, but neither do I expect them to act like they'd prefer undergoing a root canal without anesthetic to reading my work.

(Oh, and brand-new editors - here's a tip: overpriced + being a sourpuss doesn't equal a winning sales strategy.)

The editorial process is a partnership, and if I have to shell out my own money, I'm damn well hiring someone who likes my work and is committed to helping me make it the best it can be. Which isn't to say there won't be any harsh blows (aka, "you need to rewrite the next fifty pages" *sob*), but experienced editors know how important it is to soften the impact with humor and encouragement.

Happily, my next choice - a freelancer who'd line-edited all my Ellora's Cave books and couldn't wait to work with me again - came up a winner.

So we got the first novella edited, then it was time to hire a cover artist. If you have even average Photoshop skills, you can probably handle this yourself - but unfortunately, mine are nil. I can't stress strongly enough how important it is to have a professional-looking cover. It's gotten to the point where I can pick out most self-pubbed books at a glance from their awful, Photoshopped-by-a-blind-five-year-old covers.

I decided to use the same guy who'd done my business cards, which I was absolutely over the moon about:



How's that for beautiful? And he nailed it on the first try, too!

Sadly, my first book cover didn't evolve so easily. For one thing, he asked me to pick out the stock photos myself. None of the e-publishers I'd worked with ever wanted me to do this, but I just figured this was the way things were done in self-publishing.

But... OMFG, it took me hours to sift through all those pages and pages of photos. Hours I could've spent writing or editing. Hours my cover artist should've been spending hunting down the damn photos for me. Then it took the guy ten or twelve drafts to get the cover right. I pushed him hard, I'll admit, but I wanted my cover to look polished and professional.

Lesson #2 - don't work with a cover artist who makes you do three-quarters of his work for him. Starting with my second book, I went with the fabulous LC Chase, who's done several of my covers for Riptide.

So, editing done - check. Cover done - double check. Time to get it formatted.

This was one part I thought I could handle myself, but after several days of cursing at Calibre, I threw in the towel and started shopping around for a pro. I got a recommendation, sent the files along and waited.

And waited. And waited...

Finally, after an exchange of email that felt distinctly like shouting into a hurricane, he delivered the files. They were missing a table of contents, so back they went. Two days later, I had the finished files in hand.

I can't adequately describe how it felt to look at those files and realize that, despite all the delays and wrong turns, I'd done it. I'd made a book.

But I was still nervous about uploading it. It was Thanksgiving weekend by the time the formatter got the files back to me, and I'd penciled in December 1st as the tentative release date. I uploaded the files on the Sunday following Thanksgiving, figuring the holiday would probably push things back a few days - and the book showed up on Amazon the next morning.

::head desk::

My first self-booked blog tour proved another huge eye-opener, but I've already wandered into tl;dr territory, so I'll save it for next time.