Brian’s Comments (group member since Oct 13, 2013)

Brian’s comments from the The Self Publishing DIY Group group.

...and here's another one - Susan Kaye Quinn's Indie Author Survival Guide (see bookshelf)

Gaughran is one of the best, clearest, most informative writers on self-publishing. Apart from getting both books that I've put on the bookshelf (they're cheap and infinitely valuable on Kindle) you should follow his blog. Here's today's link (and very meet to what this group is about it is, too)
http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/20...

Kindle Publishing - Format Publish Promote your Books on Kindle
Dr Andy Williams ( No, he isn't that kind of doctor...I think...) is one of the best writers on self publishing. This book is essential reading (very cheap on Kindle) for anyone taking on the exciting journey that is publishing your own book. He keeps updating it and is very good at replying to queries.

At last - some sense on the subject of how to write - http://www.writersdigest.com/online-e...
The 'Outline First' method advocated by SO many is anathema to the writing process, death to the free imagination.

As promised yesterday- today a book to inspire. It's only£2:99, and worth every penny. Be aware that, at first, it looks an odd choice. The writers all belong to a group called The Indie Voice, and are all writers of romance. However, they're all also successful authors, some of them having sold millions of copies, so you ignore their advice at your peril.
There are two reasons why you MUST read this book.
1) One of them is a lawyer, another an accountant. Their advice on how to deal with publishers, agents and other denizens of the publishing world is the equivalent of getting a gold bar in the mail. The stories of how authors are manipulated and ripped off are hair-raising. Should you ever be in the position of having to negotiate with a publisher, this book is ESSENTIAL!
2) It is really instructive to read, over and over again, the same story of the same depressing road that authors (and this includes me) have had to tread under the old system of slavery and domination. All of the stories have wildly happy endings when the slaves shake off their chains! Learn, so that you will not make the mistakes that we all did, and waste years of your life. If you go further into this world there are also masses of gold nuggets of advice about publicising and ways to use all of the resources of Kindle, blogging, websites, etc., to help sell your books.

Have a happy read....

Let's start.

Firstly - please understand that if you want to self publish on Kindle you have two choices:
1) get someone to do it for you. This is the easy, but expensive, way. There are many people out there who will offer to do all the work for a fee. Many writers take this route. If you do you will need to do some research, get on forums, ask for references... Don't rush this process and take the first, cheapest offer you get. You will regret it. A badly set up and formatted book looks really naff. I don't know what the prices are that you can expect to pay. I do know that it's not something I would do for a living, and, if I had to, I would charge a fortune. I haven't looked but I am fairly sure that somewhere on the Goodreads site you will be able to get some advice from a published author.

2) DIY. That's where this group comes in. Again, please understand that there is a learning curve involved. If you're not willing to do this then get out your purse and go to 1) above.


Now don't get depressed. Think of it as An Adventure! It is! And the nice thing about it is is that there is a warm glow of rewarding comfort, and a certain pride in your achievement, at the end of the process.


When I started off on this road four years ago it was relatively uncharted. I really had to dig deep down on the web to find the advice I needed from all kinds of very generous people. Things have moved on.
For instance, one of the first things I was told by many sources was that using Word to prepare your text, despite what Kindle suggested, was a very huge NO NO! I did the basics in Word but then had to go about a process called Nuking! (That ! is not mine - it's part of the name). We won't go into it now as it's no longer really necessary. The premise was that Word littered the file with all kind of unnecessary code which would mess up your precious manuscript when you uploaded it.

Now there is an eminently sane book which dispels this myth and steers you through the choppy Microsoft waters: Aaron Shepard's From Word to Kindle. Very expensive, too. I've just checked and it's still available on Amazon for 1p. Break open the piggy bank! Here's the link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/280-8290631...

Read it carefully, preferably with a copy of a text that you are thinking of printing that you can use to follow his instructions. You will note that I said A COPY. Pardon the caps but you don't want to make the stupid mistake I did. NEVER work with your original. Keep that safe - preferably in at least three places. There's so much free Cloud space around these days (Gmail alone gives you a healthy chunk, and, if you haven't got Google Drive and a free Dropbox account you should have) that there's no excuse not to have several storage locations. Just remember to name, number and date each version carefully.

Shepard will guide you through all the steps necessary to achieve a happy consummation of your publishing dreams.

If you use Scrivener - an advanced word processing programme which can be of real help if you do a lot of research and like to shuffle your chapters about - it apparently allows you to convert your finished file straight to an epub or mobi file which is what will be necessary to publish on Kindle. It costs $40, which is probably worth it. You can get it here: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/sc...


Enough for today. Go and spend a penny. Read. Learn. And don't forget to do your own writing. Tomorrow I will be introducing you to a really inspirational book that all those who wish to publish should read.

Quick addition...
sorry about that - putting in the <> instructions actually carried them out so you won't see what I typed. I'll lead you to an easy HTML explanation tomorrow.

Poetry is a real challenge on the Kindle platform. Until now. Here are two methods:

No 1: Invest £2.65 in Your Poetry eBook: Quick & Easy Formatting for Kindle [Kindle Edition] by D. L. Lang. It's a short, well-written, clear set of instructions, with examples, which will soon have you publishing your poems. At some stage you will have to plunge headfirst into HTML coding (in the book the author gives you a 10-minute break to 'freak-out' at this). All I can say is that when I published both of my books I found quite quickly that there is very little way of avoiding this arcane, dark and frightening area. So, with considerable trepidation, I set off into that darkness - only to find that its terrors are vastly magnified by our fears. There are a few basic rules, a little like grammar, for beginning and ending sentences, paragraphs, etc., all enclosed in nice little <> brackets (

means new para;

means end new para; means begin to underline; means end underlining, that sort of thing...)
Simples, tsssk.
D.L. Lang takes your hand and leads you through the thickets with admirable clarity - right up until the point of publication. You could use her instructions to publish short stories, novels, as well. Try it.

No 2: This involves the use of the Kindle Comic Creator (available on the Amazon website) and an investment of £5.45 (I'm not getting a kickback here, honest...) in How To Make Kindle Comics & Children's Books [Kindle Edition] by R. Scot Johns. This book contains all you need to now about what it says on the cover. However, the Comic Creator can also be used to publish books of photos, graphic novels, and, oh yes, poetry on Kindle.

As we're dealing with poetry here, what is basically involved is as follows:

A poem tends to have its own visual structure, with line breaks, odd spacing, etc. Kindle is not good at this. It was set up as a reading device. It does not have pages with numbers, an index (you can do a search for anything you want to find). If you want to have each page with its poem appearing separately then you either follow D.L Lang's instructions above, or you plunge into Comic Creator.

The major challenge here is that you will have to learn how to set out your poem the way you want it to look in something like Word - and then how to convert this page into a Jpeg image. In case you're freaking out - don't. I haven't got 10 minutes to give you, as I am feeling my afternoonly coffee withdrawal symptoms coming on and need to leave....

If you have Word - from about 2007 on to 2010 - then you will be able to use the wonderful Snipping Tool. This will allow you to select your page as you want it to look, and then save it, which it will do as a Jpeg! Result! Then you import it into Comic Creator as its own page.

This is the simplified version. Read R. Scot John's book, which covers the whole process in detail.

OK - time for my latte.
More tomorrow.