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Self-publishing question
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Evan
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Feb 18, 2014 07:20PM
I am hoping to have my book completed in a couple of months. I have been seeing ads for WaveForm.com on FB. Has anyone used this site before? If so, how reliable are they?
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Just did a search on that, and it came up with someones resume...?
I haven't heard of them, but what are they advertising? To be fair, if they are offering self-publishing services for a fee then they are more than likely a vanity press, which you should stay away from as they usually charge silly money just to do what you can quite easily do yourself via Amazon KDP or Smashwords. Editing is the only exception to finding outside help (you should always have someone else look over your work before publication) but other than that you should steer clear of companies offering to create and market your book for a large sum of money. They rarely deliver what they promise.Hope this helps :)
Sorry, just thought I'd add that like David I have just searched this and it came up with someone's resume, so unsure if this is the same site as the ad on FB?
I've not heard of them either. I would second the comment on vanity press. Bad idea.
I got the name wrong. It is WaveCloud.com
Had a look. The thing is, you can do all the things they offer for yourself with no cost. I'd have a go first. If you can't manage it yourself, perhaps consider it at that stage.
Have just had a look, and yes definitely agree with David. There is nothing I can see that you couldn't do yourself. I know that self publishing your first book is a very daunting experience, and unfortunately that's how these companies make their money. They make it seem like they are doing something extremely difficult and doing you a favour in exchange for a lot of money as *everything* is extra on top.If self publishing is something you are interested in then take your time and look into everything slowly. Its what I did. Amazon KDP is extremely easy (and there are plenty of help forums and pages to advise you). Photoshop can be used on a 30 day free trial so you can do your cover, and marketing (although not everyone's cup of tea) is not always so bad (though I'm still mastering the whole journey!)
I would just advise to take your time and research. It shouldn't be a rush job and you should make yourself familiar with the whole process before actually starting so you feel comfortable with what you're doing.
Yeah, I would stay away from services that offer publishing packages for high prices and/or royalties. If you need help, shop around and select just the individual services you need (such as cover design, editing, formatting) and pay a flat one-time fee.
Wow, just took a close look at that. Here's an item-by-item breakdown of their cheapest package, $490:Author Coaching: "advise you about different problems, opportunities, and options" You can get all this advice from the many excellent self-publishing blogs out there as well as the Amazon KDP, Smashwords, and CreateSpace sites. And without the attempts to upsell you that undoubtedly are included in this.
ebook conversion and layout: I do my own, following instructions in an excellent guide by Paul Salvette I bought for $6 and a couple of free software programs (Sigil and Calibre). If you don't have the time/inclination/technical know-how to do this yourself, there are services that will format your ebook for you for (rough guess) $50-100. Or you can just produce a very cleanly-formatted .doc which KDP and Smashwords will convert for you.
ebook cover design: You can license a piece of stock art (cost: free-$20?) and do the lettering yourself. You can get a premade cover (designer customizes the cover copy for you - $35-$60?) A custom cover made with stock art will run maybe $35-90. Custom cover art can be had for around $100-150 (can run a lot more expensive, but this is about the average of what I've paid) (shop around on an art site like deviantArt.com)
Online bookstore placement: basically, uploading your book to the various online retailers. This is the easiest part of the whole process and can be done yourself for totally free. Or you can distribute through Smashwords and/or Draft2Digital, both of which will format your book for you. They take a small percentage of each book you sell through their distribution, which is my only exception to the No Royalties rule for publishing services.
WaveCloud promotion: They will promote your book on a site that no one's ever heard of except other authors buying their publishing packages! woo hoo.
Metadata Creation and Setup: this is incredibly easy to do yourself, and when you're doing all this yourself, it's easy to change and experiment and see what works.
Social Media Assessment: paying someone to tell you what social media you should be on and what you should be posting. Again, you can figure this out yourself. See what other authors are doing, see what feels right for you, experiment. Various self-publishing blogs (free to read) have lots of great advice for you to pick and choose from. I'm also reading a book right now called Your First 1000 Copies, by Tim Grahl ($3.99) that also has lots of great suggestions.
They do sell individual services, which is better than packages, but their prices are still pretty high on those services. You can also just sell through them, but they charge a $49 setup fee (Amazon, Smashwords, Draft2Digital do not charge setup fees.)
tl;dr: have a look at my self-publishing FAQ (the self-pub question is down near the bottom of the page): http://www.kyrahalland.com/faqs.html
Thanks guys (and gals). I had intended on handling the publishing myself. I just needed to hear words of reason to keep me sane.
Evan wrote: "Thanks guys (and gals). I had intended on handling the publishing myself. I just needed to hear words of reason to keep me sane."Evan, as a indie author I have bee there but honestly there are no avenues of marketing that I have found worth the expense other than offering a free giveaway on goodreads.
I think it's helpful to know what you're getting into. Writing the book is not the hard part. It's a great accomplishment, but formatting it, uploading it, and managing the awareness of it, is almost as much work as writing. Here is what you want to spend money on and what you don't want to spend money on - in my opinion.The cover. Don't spend money. My suggestion is to go to a University Graphic Arts class and ask if anyone wants a "real" book cover on their resume. No money, but they can put it in their portfolio. There are always students who want that and actually need it. Give them a deadline, so they have to meet one. If there are a few students who want to do it, then make it a competition. The great thing about a competition is getting the winner to tweet all his friends when the book comes out - and all his friends to tweet their friends.
Twitter. No money, but you need one.
Facebook. Don't need to spend money - the page is free, BUT I've found spending a little money is good - especially around travel dates (spring break, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years). Target your ad very specifically. Make sure to take people directly to the "buy" page and have "Buy it now!" in your ad.
Services that promise stuff. Don't spend a dime.
Self Publishing Companies. Don't use them. They are money sucking leaches off of poor authors.
Goodreads giveaways ... great thing to do.
Goodreads ads ... have not proven themselves and they are working on how to make those not only profitable for them, but for authors too. So far, there aren't any real solutions. I wouldn't spend the money.
Book signings. Good thing to do. I've had success with book signings at Public Libraries or Used Book stores ... the chains often won't let you do it. But used book stores or libraries often will. Make sure to have snacks, drinks, and $.99 coupons for your eBook ... you can sign the back of the coupon if you'd like - I made mini posters of the cover as the coupon. And have about fifty hard copies to sign. Donate one or two to the bookstore/library and ask if you can hang a poster ...
You're not going to get rich, most likely, but at least you can generate a little bit of buzz ..
Wow, Conrad, that's some great advice. I wish I had that two years ago when I was ready to self-publish! I had no idea when I got started how much work it was to try to generate internet awareness.I also agree with everything that the other commenters have said about paying high prices for "services." There are many articles on the web that warn about these types of companies. I'll add that if you decide to go with the self-publishing route, there are a number of sites that offer free resources or will list your book if you are running a promo. I've had good success with Author Marketing Club (I only signed up for the free option versus their select membership which costs money). But they have a tool to make advertising your discount or freebie days simple.
I'd avoid that and sites/services like it
Kyra wrote: "Wow, just took a close look at that. Here's an item-by-item breakdown of their cheapest package, $490:Author Coaching: "advise you about different problems, opportunities, and options" You can ge..."
Kyra,
You are absolutely right. The know-how is all out there for free. I started with Smashwords, but also found it easy to upload a book to Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Kobo directly even though Smashwords converts to all formats. On the other side, it's harder to download a Smashwords' book to a device. I used an inexpensive service to design my current cover, but they would have fixed my own design, which they said was pretty good for a lot less.
Formatting through Smashwords was awkward and as they changed requirements, I went with a service for formatting. The cost wasn't bad at all.
Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo have self-publishing formats that can be as simple as uploading a Word document.
I designed my own cover, by I have heard good things about 99Designs. You describe you project, and artists send you their designs. If you don't like any of them, you don't pay. It can be kind-of pricey depending on which "bid" you choose, but it's risk free in terms of how much you spend.
True.Only thing with 99Designs is you get more bids if you guarantee that someone will win, meaning you have to spend the money you put up.
I used Novel Idea Design for my recent book cover.
The Fifth World: The Times That Try Men's Souls
It isn't 100% original or custom work but they managed to do a lot of the minor things I asked for with no trouble.
They are also cheap. Just don't pay them for anything besides cover. Their formatting services are unreliable.
