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No Publishing is Free Not even Self
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Hey Justin! Confusing isn't it? Get yourself a copy of Mark Coker's Style Guide. It's free on Smashwords where he's the boss or on Amazon. It's a step by step ebook guide for people like us who have no clue about HTML etc. It's easy to follow, but make sure you set aside a few hours to do it. Don't skip anything. I think it's wise to publish through Smashwords first. They'll tell you if something is wrong. Then you can use that .doc for Amazon, by replacing a few spots where you wrote Smashwords with Amazon. It's easy but as I said, time consuming. The upside is there is no cost to you. Covers are a different matter.I've heard, but have not used, Createspace is easy if you've already formatted for an ebook. Again, the cover may be the hardest part. They will print your book each time a reader orders one and you will pay from the proceeds of the sale a predetermined amount for the process. That's Print On Demand.
The third is a vanity press that will produce a contracted number of your books which you will pay for up front. It's then up to you to get them to readers online or through stores.
Hope this helps.
Jacqueline wrote: "Hey Justin! Confusing isn't it? Get yourself a copy of Mark Coker's Style Guide. It's free on Smashwords where he's the boss or on Amazon. It's a step by step ebook guide for people like us who hav..."Very much helpful, Thank you. I am curious what others think about all this. I made this into a blog post on here and my site, since its such a topic to discuss.
I used Createspace, and didn't purchase any services. It was time-consuming, but I did it for free, except for the purchase of a hard proof. Actually Createspace is easier than Amazon KDP because if you have an issue, Createspace has LIVE support people. You can talk to a real person! The people at Amazon respond to emails only, and, in my experience, rarely actually answer the question that's asked. The only problem I had with Createspace was that there instructions advised adding a ton of extra space after each paragraph. I followed the directions, and it looked ridiculous. But after I changed that, everything looked good. Also keep in mind, if you pay someone to format for you, then you might have to go back to them again if you want to make any changes and upload a new version later on. Just my two cents . . .
Create space have template covers (some of which are awful but meh) so in theory you could type in the title and find a nifty little picture and go. I doubt anywhere which is any good will offer you free formatting and suchlike and a decent share of the royalties.
I know for Createspace and Lulu you get a previewer so you can have a see what your book will (theoretically) look like and it is usually a good idea to order a proof copy but it is pretty cheap.
Create space have a free template you can download which gives you some idea of what goes where, which you can of course ignore. I think Lulu has pretty much the same.
The cover making thingy on Lulu was a bit harder but I think we did the whole cover ourselves and not just here is the template, put a bit here and a bit here. You can do that on CS as well.
One thing I like about both of them you get a royalty generator so if your book is say 5.99 you can see the royalties.
If you are not a US based person the postal costs to get your proof copy are expensive and don't buy from CS direct it takes AGES to arrive. CS prints in the US and doesn't have European stores. Lulu does, and takes way less time and has the advantage that a lot of the European countries do have a store so someone can buy in say Denmark in their own currency and it pays to paypal in yours. None of this getting paid in dollars and having to wait for the cheque or whatever. They pay out monthly too.
Producing the manuscript for Lulu or create space or even both is not especially hard and there are guidelines there. You don't necessarily need HTML.
There is no reason why you can't have your book on both. I would say though Lulu has to mark up by a bit to sell on Amazon. Mine was £8.99 via lulu on Amazon and is £6.99 via CS on Amazon.
Darlene wrote: "I used Createspace, and didn't purchase any services. It was time-consuming, but I did it for free, except for the purchase of a hard proof. Actually Createspace is easier than Amazon KDP because i..."Yes this is true. If you decide you don't like the look of it, find issues or whatever you then have to pay again.
One thing about Lulu. You can set it to private- ie only you can buy it, lulu store only, or buy with the link so someone can go look IF they have the link. Or the extended reach which put it on Amazon and makes it searchable. So you can fiddle with it, or just give the link to friends etc.
Hmm..reading that boosted my spirits and thoughts on CS..hmm indeed.
I have to say the main reason I switched to CS was I thought £8.99 as quite expensive for an indie paperback and CS is cheaper. I actually think Lulu is better print quality, easier to deal with and although their forums aren't great their support is good and one of the site mods checks the forums so he is helpful and stops any of the misbehaving you get on KDP.If you want the global reach to stores like Barnes and Noble you do have to pay but it is a one off and it isn't that much. IMO the global reach on lulu is better than the expanded reach on CS, but that is up to you to decide if you want. CS is cheaper but I think it is libraries and schools mainly.
People are way more likely to find it on Amazon than lulu but if you decide for the extended reach which gives you Amazon as well then it is free you just need the mark up. I suppose it depends how much you think you want to sell your book for.
Justin, it is very easy to do the formatting and stuff yourself, if you are at all adept with Word. Less easy for most people, and a step way too many self-published authors skip, is the editing. NO ONE can edit their own work and get it all right. You don't necessarily need to pay for it (and if you do, I don't recommend using CS services), but you need at least one person who can read the book early on and critique for you (some choose to skip this. I think it's a mistake, but you can still produce a book that is decent if you don't skip the next step). You also MUST have someone who can proofread: someone who will catch spelling errors and who also has a very thorough grasp of grammar and punctuation and word usage and will prevent you from putting out a book where you constantly mix up words or have random commas, use apostrophes for plurals. . . . you get my drift.As you can tell, this is a peeve of mine--because poorly edited books are giving all self-published authors a bad rap.
So yes, DIY is really DIY. That includes going out yourself and getting the editorial help every author needs. That's part of the price we pay for the much larger royalties we get for self-publishing vis-a-vis traditional publishers.
I just spent an hour uploading my book to lulu and the cheapest I can sell it is outrageous! It's up there for those customers who don't know they can get cheaper versions at cs... I think I will stick with buying through cs. :)--Jill
Well said again Alexandra. Rebecca thank you for being very informative, I think I understand alot better. Aside from new projects Im trying to get my first book out of contract with PublishAmerica cause they butchered the hell out of my book and to this day it pains me. So I definitely wanna be sure im getting a good service, know what im doing and getting a good deal
I've just learned all of these things the hard way. Thanks for the free advice... it's about the only free thing I've come across yet on my self publishing journey. My book cover alone is driving up the cost long before I'll ever see a pretty penny. I can see why so many writers never follow through with their dreams. It's a lot of hard work that, at least early on, goes utterly unrewarded.
Christa, I did my first book cover myself with the CS templates, even if they are less than ideal (to put it mildly). Now I'm turning most of my profits back over to get a new cover for that and one for the sequel. I learned the hard way that kids books are more expensive than most genre fiction, because you really need some custom art. But even with an amateurish cover (it's still there for a while longer if you want to look--The Ninja Librarian) I have sold enough to pay for some art, thus avoiding any infringement on the household budget.
So I take it certain services are well priced and worth looking into while others arent on CS? Thats my take.
Actually I don't recommend any services you pay for at CS. The cover templates are free, as are the text templates. They also have a collection of no-royalty images you can use (though I went to my brother-in-law for my cover photo, as he's a professional photographer who is doing with his art what we are trying to do with ours).
So I thought that Self-Publishing and POD companies were free in the sense that everything you need done would be and can be on their sites this is true. However, they offer and recommend paying professional services which any company does(these fees to me are ridiculously overpriced) so me being the I dont wish to spend money and free free free type of person I am would go with the DIY(Do it Yourself) option which means all things they offer I can do myself..but...
Not sure about everyone else but not everybody knows what to do or is computer skilled at formatting and sizing and what not. so what to do there? if your going to do it yourself you mine as well do everything yourself but again if you need help are they there to assist you or bamboozle you into paying for a service to get their money?
I just read something about CreateSpace in which an author said they went with DIY and they were treated like an outsider and didn't get much help from anyone since they didn't use any paying services to make their book, so any error they came across or helped they needed, CS did nothing for them..however this is one person so maybe that's a bit of a stretch. So I look at it this way..I've always seen it as "Traditional Publishing"-going with a company and "Self-Publishing"- A company that assists in you publishing your book on your own. But now I see it as "Self-Publishing:DIY" and Self-Publishing:Paying..I don't know maybe I'm the only person who sees it like this or maybe it is in fact like this and me and my assumptions have gotten the best of me yet again.
So is there 3 ways in which to publish a book then?
I myself had my first book published through PublishAmerica, for those who don't know who they are give em a google search and get ready for your mouth to drop. They are one of the worst and they say on their site they offer alot of FREE services..which is true because they either charge you a HUUUUGEEEE amount of money for any service after your book is published or they don't actually have such a service to even call FREE. In any event, anything I look for and find will be a breath of fresh air compared to PA, however when I come across anything with a fee or want to know I can receive help when needed that I can get help and not have to worry about being treated with disdain.
Sorry for rambling on, this is more of a blog post(which I mine as well make on my blog) but please chime in on your thoughts as to what any of you think and have experienced yourselves.