I’m going to be a published author

I know so far I’ve talked about this as a possibility, but now I’ve decided to come out with it: I am going to self-publish Give in to the Feeling.

This is the reason why I’ve been quiet on this blog lately: I’ve been working on materials for the launch and reading like a mad woman about how to launch a book and promote it. It’s fascinating, you know? I actually like reading about promotion and marketing. We’ll talk about how I like it after I’ve actually promoted my book (I have a feeling my ideas might change…) but at the moment I’m really enjoying it.

Getting the work into shape

As far as my book is concerned, I have a cover which was provided by Marion Sipe of the Dreamspring Design… and no, I’m not showing it, because I want to do a proper cover reveal (eh! eh!!) while the MS is currently with my editor, Aaron Sikes, who’s a fellow dieselpunk author as well as a freelance editor.

I’m also reading manuals on how to format the text so that it will look good on any e-reader. I’m kind of surprised how much I’m stressing over this part of the job, but maybe that’s because I’ve never done anything like this and I know nothing about it.

I’m going with Smashwords as my main outlet. They are very straightforward and very transparent, which I like. I’ve already read their Terms of Service and let me tell you, I liked it a lot more than Amazon’s (which I also read in its entirety together with my boss when she decided to become a provider for Amazon). Where Amazon is obscure and convoluted, Smashwords is clear and straightforward. And – I’ve noticed– Smashword calls the author just that, author. Amazon’s contract never calls the author author. I know many authors won’t care, but honestly, I do.

Why I wanted to learn the song

People who know me are aware that for a long time I’ve said I wasn’t interested in self-publishing… which for a long time had been true. I have never had anything against self-publishing, mind you, I actually thinking all authors will be hybrid in the future, because that’s what makes more sense. Besides, I’m still seeking traditional publishing for my trilogy.

The reason why this is, is that I think the trad industry is where you actually learn the job. I know, lots of indie authors point out how many authors that were previously trad published went indie and they cite this as an indication that going indie is the way to go. But I think the crucial point here is previously trad published. These previously trad published authors know the job because they have been doing it in a professional environment for many years. They know how it works, what you should expect, what you are supposed to do, what your work should look like. I think this is very important because it will shape the way you go about your indie career and there are very few ways you learn this other than doing it in a professional environment. I’ve read articles by many indie authors who just gave me the impression they were jumping on the bandwagon and just try to follow the song. It works… sometimes. Personally, I prefer to know how to read music and how the dynamics of the band work before jumping in their midst.

I'm fascinated by the idea that I can build my author platform as I promote my first book…
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One reason I started thinking about self-publishing was my two rounds of queries last year. I leaned one important thing from all the rejections I received: my work isn’t up to the standard. It hit me hard, because I had honestly thought the contrary. I though I had a good story (which I still think and some agents remarked on that), but my style and my storytelling still lack a professional level of maturity. I honestly think this is the reason why, even if a few agents thought the story was good, no one ever asked me for a full.

So I started to think I had to go one extra step and professionally edit my stories before submitting. Clearly, I couldn’t trust myself on the professional level of my own writing. Problem was (and is) I can’t afford to edit my novel at the moment, so I instead decided to edit one of my old short stories (I ended up completely rewriting it) and have that professionally edited, so that at least I’d have a sense of what I might be overseeing in my writing.

But once I decided that, I though, wait. I’ll have a finished, polished product, why not go all the way through and publish it, and so experiment also in promoting and selling a story?

This is one of the reasons (but there are many) why I finally decided to self-publish Give in to the Feeling.

You can’t argue with your publisher

I knew from the beginning that self-publishing is a full time job in its own right, which is one of the reasons I’ve always been hesitant in going for it: do I have that kind of time, I wondered?

Well, I suppose that, as with all things, if you don’t have that kind of time but you want to do that thing, then you’d better find the time you need.

It does take a lot of time getting ready, even if I started having an idea what I needed to do and to achieve. I’m a bookseller in Verona (Italy) but the bookshop where I work is also a publishing house. So for ten years I’ve been involved in the publishing business and I’ve seen it happen everyday. I know the job from the inside and so I also know some of the things publishers blame on authors. I’ve tried to address that as I plan my launch, because you know, I’ll be the author, but also the publisher. Authors always know what they expect from a publisher, but what happens when the publisher is you and there’s no one you can blame about not doing something you expect? What when you are the publisher and you can’t blame the author not to be involved enough… because you’re the author too?

And of course, I’m reading widely about book promotions, which I’ve been doing for a long time, but now I’m focusing on an actual goal. It does makes all the difference.

I have a plan, here’s what it sounds like

 So after considering all of this, gathering my ideas, reading profusely on the subject, what have I been doing?

Write my media kit . I didn’t know anything like this even existed before a few months ago, but as soon as I discovered it, I decided I needed it.

Basically, a media kit is a page on you author site were people can find (in just one place) all the info they want about you and your work. This is particularly helpful when you’re promoting, because a part of promotion will be done on blogs. If you have a media kit, you just refer the bloggers on that page and they will find everything they need. You don’t have to send anything to them and they don’t have to wait for you to send them anything. This is a specific promotional tool.

There is a lot of material that goes into a media kit (I’ve written a short and a full bio, trivia on myself and a sample interview, and also a short and a long presentation of the book and a few loglines) and yes, it is work, but it’s such fun too!
Prepare material for my author site . So yes, I think I should finally set up a site in my name. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and this seems the right occasion to actually do it.

At the moment, I’m going with a free WP site. I’d love a self-hosted site, like The Old Shelter, but I’d need to upgrade my hosting plan and at the moment I just can’t afford that. I know I’ll miss the freedom a self-hosted site gives, but I’ll make the free version do – for now.

There a lot of material I need to prepare for the site: some is the same as the media kit (which is good), but then I’d like to add characters’ presentations, setting presentations, many things about the story itself. I’ll probably add a section with image-quotes, which is an idea I LOVE.

Be assured that when the site is ready, you’ll be the first to know.
Plan my launch. I’m kind of scared about thinking to what will come next, still I think I should take a problem at a time, and so at the moment I’m completely absorbed with the launch.

One of my buddies, Rae Lori , twitted about a marketing book and I’ll never thank her enough. The book is Tim Grahl’s Book Launch Blueprint, and it’s really very interesting and factual ( you can download it for free here ). Tim Grahl is a book promoter and he has a lot of knowledge to share. I’m basically planning my own launch on this book. I did change my mind about a few things after reading this book, but I’m saving them for the future. As someone told me, once you start promoting, you never really stop, so having a few ideas in my bag sounds good to me.
Prepare a few freebies for my lovely new readers (eh! eh!)

If you have time, I’d recommend checking out Tim Grahl’s site. There is a wealth of info about promoting a book, including how to organise your site and how to write and promote your media kit (see links above).

A couple of other reasons why I decided about self-publishing come from a speech Tim Grahl gave during a webinar:

He pointed out that being a published author opens doors that were previously closed. If you can honestly claim you are a published author, people, including people who can help you promote, will look at you in a different light.
It’s true that to successfully promote a book you need an author platform, but if you don’t have it, you can use your first book to build that platform. Which sounds just like what I want to do.

Decisions, decisions, decisions

So once I decided to self-publish, I was done, right?

Well…

I knew that I wanted my book to look as professional as possible. This would cost me money. So the first decision was: do I want to sped money to get published? And the second was: how much money am I wiling – and able – to spend?

A few friends suggested me to make my own cover. I did consider this. What finally pushed me to turn to a graphic was that I can’t use Photoshop in any satisfying way. Sure I can crop images and slap a text on it. That hardly qualifies as being able to use Photoshop well enough to make a book cover. And what bothered me even more was being able to find pictures I could actually use. I’m not as strict with images I use on this blog, because of course they don’t belong to me, but if I use a picture for the cover of my book, I want that cover to belong to me legally.

Because I know very little about this, I preferred to turn to someone who knows how to go about it. And in any way, I then discovered that most of the pictures you can use are for sale, so you still need to spend money on them.

This said, I’ll admit that while I’m happy with the end result, I was very awkward with the process. Because I’m a visual person myself, I had a very clear idea what I wanted the cover to look like, which turned out to be not really the same idea Marian had. This resulted in a longer process which I think was frustrating on both sides.

And I wish I had read this blog from Bard Constantine earlier, because I may have gone a different way, but well…

I ended up thinking I should learn to use Photoshop and be able to do my own things. I had been toying with this idea for sometime and never really go through with it, because, you know, it will probably cost me more money. But after this experience I really think I should educate myself with Photoshop.

Self-publishing is an exciting adventure... it's also a forming experience for any authors…
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There was never a doubt I’d hire a professional editor, but now I’m facing the possibility to hire a proof-reader too. I’m very happy with Aaron’s job, but he did (as he should) the job of an editor. And no, I can’t proof-read my own work. I can’t do it when I write in Italian, let alone in English.

I just think that, after having gone through all this, I’d hate that someone would think, not too bad… shame for those typos…

Then I had to decide about the publication date, which was a natural decision for me.

I’ve read recently that Mondays are terrible days to self-publish while Saturdays and Sundays are good. I decided for a Friday.

Tara Sparling analysed in a blog what time of the year is best to self-publish and it turned out to be spring and autumn. I decided for March.

I made both decisions before reading those two articles… on the very scientific reason that the beginning of March is when my birthday it. So, don’t say a word, I’m not going to change my mind!

Now I’m facing another decision and I’d really like your help on this because I can’t make up my mind on it: what should I price my book?

I’m hesitant to price it near 3,99 because it isn’t a novel, and many novels are priced that. But I don’t want to price it too low, like 0,99 (as I originally thought), because I’d like to have some room for promotion.

I’m kind of leaning toward 1,99… but I really don’t know. I’ve read articles that suggest 2,99 for novelettes and novellas, but it kind of sounds maybe a bit too much for a 16.000 words story.

What would you suggest? How did you decide, if you’ve already published your stories?

My sweet baby

What can I say, I’m excited. I really am.

You know I love this story, I might have mentioned it once or twice (caugh caugh…). I just loved writing it, but making the book is so very exciting too.

However this will go, I don’t think I’ll regret trying. It’s a nice, forming journey. I hope you’ll come along.

 

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