{"id":5548,"date":"2018-01-10T23:26:33","date_gmt":"2018-01-10T12:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/?p=5548"},"modified":"2020-09-26T23:21:50","modified_gmt":"2020-09-26T13:21:50","slug":"adventures-in-self-publishing-all-the-mistakes-ive-made-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/2018\/01\/adventures-in-self-publishing-all-the-mistakes-ive-made-so-far\/","title":{"rendered":"Adventures in Self-Publishing: All The Mistakes I\u2019ve Made (So Far)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In which I tell you all about the mistakes I\u2019ve made, so you don\u2019t make them yourself if you decide to self-publish your own book. It\u2019s a very long<\/em> blog post. (If you\u2019re not interested in the technical details of self-publishing, I recommend you skip to the end of the post. Or read another blog post instead. For example, here\u2019s a post about scones<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Self-publishing a book for the first time involves a very steep learning curve. If you choose to do it, you have to accept that you\u2019ll bungle some things. The good news is that you\u2019ll probably be able to fix your mistakes, although that could involve a fair bit of effort and\/or money. But keep in mind that traditional publishing houses, with their vast teams of highly-experienced staff, also make mistakes, ranging from putting out books riddled with typos (looking at you, Gollancz), to having to change an offensive book cover due to public outcry<\/a>, to being fined tens of thousands of dollars for publishing a \u2018non-fiction\u2019 book full of obviously fictitious claims<\/a>. <\/p>\n

I found the editing<\/a> and cover design<\/a> stages of publishing Dr Huxley\u2019s Bequest<\/em><\/a> pretty straightforward, probably because I\u2019d had experience in these areas through my traditionally-published books. I\u2019d then planned to ‘typeset’ the book myself, using a template<\/a>. \u2018Typesetting\u2019, in the digital age, means turning the edited manuscript into a pdf, with the print arranged as it is in printed books, with a title page, chapter headings, page numbers, appropriately-sized margins and so on. This wasn\u2019t something I\u2019d done before so I\u2019d need to learn a lot first. However, I really wanted the book out by the end of the year and I was getting closer to my planned publication date. Also, the book had illustrations and an index, which I thought would complicate matters. I figured it would be easier and quicker to pay a professional book designer to do it and that\u2019s where I made my first mistake.<\/p>\n

There are two options if you want to contract out this sort of work: large companies that specialise in all aspects of self-publishing, from editing to marketing, and freelance graphic designers. I began by looking for a local freelance book designer, but lots of them preferred not to work with self-publishers or else they claimed<\/em> on their website that they welcomed self-publishers, then didn\u2019t answer my emails asking them for a quote. One book designer with lots of relevant experience sent a quote and agreed to do the work, then didn\u2019t respond to my subsequent emails (she did eventually email a month later to say she was ready to start work, after I\u2019d already found someone else). Grrr. (I should point out here that all the editors<\/em> I approached for quotes responded within 24 hours. What is it with designers?)<\/p>\n

Anyway, with my publication date looming, I turned to the big companies that specialise in assisting self-publishers. I\u2019m generalising here, but most of them exist to make money from first-time authors with no publishing experience. And there\u2019s nothing wrong with that! These companies are providing a service that\u2019s very useful to many new authors, but they do<\/em> charge a lot of money for things that these authors could easily do for themselves. For example, it takes about fifteen minutes to apply online for a pre-publication National Library of Australia cataloging number (which you\u2019ll need if you want your book to be stocked in libraries and appear on the National Library database). This is completely free of charge, but self-publishing companies will charge upwards from $100 to do this for you. Again, that\u2019s fine, especially if the first-time author doesn’t know anything about the National Library and needs a lot of support at every stage of the self-publishing process, but all I <\/em>wanted was someone to turn my Word document into a print-ready pdf and format it for ebook publication.<\/p>\n

One thing I will say about these big self-publication-service companies is that they have informative websites and they respond immediately to queries. I decided to go with the only Australian company recommended by Ingram Spark<\/a> (the printer\/distributor I planned to use). The staff at this particular self-publishing company were always polite and responded quickly by email and phone to sort out the problems (oh, so many problems<\/em>) that arose. Also, I got a discount on Ingram Spark fees through them. However, there were major issues from the start. I\u2019d explained what I needed over the phone \u2013 someone to format my manuscript for print-on-demand and ebooks \u2013 and they assured me they could do that and the finished product would look just like my traditionally-published books. But when their quote arrived, it was twenty-one pages long(!), full of expensive options I didn\u2019t want (such as a thousand-dollar \u2018book coaching\u2019 package) as well as \u2018free gifts\u2019 that were worthless to me \u2013 and the quote didn\u2019t include ebook formatting, which I\u2019d specifically requested<\/em>. <\/p>\n

We sorted that out and I got started with a designer who had \u2018ten years experience with [major Australian publisher]\u2019. He sent me three chapter samples so I could choose the font I wanted. Two of the samples were inappropriate for this type of book; the third was okay, but the font seemed a bit on the small side. I figured the designer knew what he was doing with font size, though, so I didn\u2019t interrogate him about it (BIG MISTAKE). In any case, I was distracted by all the other<\/em> problems, the major one being the end-of-line hyphenation. There were hyphens all over the place, in the most ridiculous places, which made it difficult to read the text smoothly. For instance, single-syllable words like there\u2019ll<\/strong> (which shouldn\u2019t be hyphenated at all) were hyphenated as the \u2013 re\u2019ll<\/strong>. Compound words weren\u2019t hyphenated between the component words, so a word like courtyard<\/strong> was broken up as cour-tyard<\/strong>. They told me that this was how books were printed these days (no, they\u2019re really not) and that if I wanted words at the end of lines hyphenated in my required (that is, normal, conventional) way, it would have to be done manually (I later found out this was untrue) and I would be charged per hyphen. <\/p>\n

Then when the first-pages proofs arrived, they were a mess. There were sentences and paragraphs missing, illustrations placed upside-down, chapter headers in the wrong places, and of course, there were all those hyphens I had to check and correct. Once that was fixed, I manually located all the page numbers for the index, the index was added to the back of the file, and we went through the whole proofreading process again. Then<\/em> it was time to turn the book into ebook files, which involves stripping out all the print formatting (including hyphens at the end of lines) so the text is \u2018reflowable\u2019 and can be read on any reading device, with the reader choosing the font and size. Of course, they\u2019d only removed about half the hyphens \u2026 This whole formatting process only took about four weeks, but was immensely<\/em> frustrating. I\u2019ve proofread all my traditionally-published books and believe me, it doesn\u2019t have to be this stressful.<\/p>\n

\"'Jove
Portrait of the author, halfway through fifth proofread<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I sent the final files off to Ingram Spark to print a sample copy, and when the first paperback copy arrived I realised, with a terrible sinking feeling, that I should have spoken up about the font size at the start because the print was just too small<\/em>. The book was readable (I own books with print that size or even smaller), but I thought a larger print size would provide a more enjoyable reading experience, especially for younger readers. (An experienced book designer should have known that. But as I<\/em> wasn’t an experienced designer, I hadn’t picked up on it and made them change the size.) Rather than halting the whole publishing process, which would push the publication date into the next year, I decided to release the paperback as it was, then do another edition with larger print as soon as I could. <\/p>\n

I then did what I should have done initially and discussed it with Nada, who designed the book\u2019s cover. (I hadn\u2019t even considered getting her to design the book\u2019s interior, because I thought she only worked on really complicated books with diagrams and text boxes and other fancy design features. But if I\u2019d asked her to do the interior design, it would have cost less and would certainly have saved me a lot of stress.) She was astounded at how messy the file was but was happy to increase the font size for me, except she happened to be overseas, which would make things difficult. She gave me the contact details of a local designer she knew, who, of course, didn\u2019t respond to my email. Neither did another designer I emailed, but I finally found Diana Murray<\/a>, who did an excellent job of sorting out what she politely called \u201cunconventional typesetting\u201d in the print file (apparently some of it was in Spanish<\/em>). She increased the font size and her hyphenation was perfect \u2013 and the new hyphens didn\u2019t need to be done manually! As this new edition had more pages, it needed a new ISBN (that\u2019s the thirteen-digit number on the barcode) and I had to redo the index page numbers (ugh<\/em>), but finally, it was ready to be uploaded to Ingram Spark.<\/p>\n

So, Dr Huxley\u2019s Bequest<\/em> now has a new, larger-print edition of 350 pages (compared to 270 pages for the first edition, which is now out-of-print). It will be available to buy from next week (Monday, 15 January, to be precise), in all the same places the first edition was sold, for the same price. For those nice people who bought the first edition \u2013 rejoice! You own an extremely rare first edition of Dr Huxley\u2019s Bequest<\/em>, one of less than two dozen in existence! However, if you think the print is a bit small and you (quite reasonably) don\u2019t want to buy the second edition, then email me<\/a> some proof that you purchased the first edition (for example, a scan of a receipt showing the book\u2019s ISBN) and I\u2019ll send you a free ebook edition in epub format, which you can read on your iPhone, Nook reader, Kobo reader or other ebook reading device (unfortunately I can\u2019t send you a free ebook in Kindle format, for Amazonian reasons). <\/p>\n

Oh, and the other big mistake I made was setting a publication date in mid-November, just before the whole of Australia goes on summer holidays. This was a ridiculous time to start doing marketing and publicity (so I haven\u2019t done any of that yet) and it made the process of issuing a new edition extra-difficult because Ingram Spark pretty much closes down in December. So, hooray for me, again. I\u2019ll do a post about marketing and publicity once I\u2019ve figured out how to do it.<\/p>\n

In conclusion, here\u2019s my advice for other self-publishers:<\/p>\n

– allow loads of time for each stage of the process. The more stressed you are about looming deadlines, the more likely it is you\u2019ll make unwise decisions.
\n– if you\u2019re contracting out work, use someone who\u2019s been personally recommended to you. At the very least, they should belong to an appropriate professional association.
\n– if you\u2019re worried that something\u2019s not quite right, speak up straight away! Don\u2019t be afraid to ask lots of questions and make (polite) demands. You\u2019re paying and you\u2019re entitled to professional service.
\n– sometimes it\u2019s better just to do things yourself. It\u2019s certainly cheaper and you\u2019ll learn a lot of useful skills along the way.<\/p>\n

Feel free to ask questions in the comments if you want my \u2018expert\u2019 advice on self-publishing. (Well, I do<\/em> have a lot of expertise in making mistakes…)<\/p>\n

More in Adventures in Self-Publishing:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why Self-Publish?<\/a>
\nWhat\u2019s This Book About, Anyway?<\/a>
\nEditing<\/a>
\nTo Tweet Or Not To Tweet<\/a>
\nDesigning a Book Cover<\/a>
\nTurning Your Manuscript Into A Book<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In which I tell you all about the mistakes I\u2019ve made, so you don\u2019t make them yourself if you decide to self-publish your own book. It\u2019s a very long blog post. (If you\u2019re not interested in the technical details of self-publishing, I recommend you skip to the end of the post. Or read another blog … Continue reading Adventures in Self-Publishing: All The Mistakes I\u2019ve Made (So Far)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[256,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-huxleys-bequest","category-this-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5548"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5564,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5548\/revisions\/5564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}