Five mistakes killing self-published authors...

I'm not sure who said self publishing was easy, but you're right saying it's unrealistic. Take it from me, it's not. It's A LOT of hard work. I'm self-publishing and since I don't have the funds, I'm finding ways to do it for free, and so far, I've been quite successful. But it's also been crazy! Putting it through a few free editors, learning to do my own cover (and make it look professional and not look like some art work in Kindergarten) Learning how to do html code so my book will look perfect on every ebook device. The only thing I'll have to pay for is the copyright.

Self-publishing is not for everyone. It's not easy. But it is doable if one is committed.

Mistake number 6: Robert Stanek.

Brian Turner said:

The implication remains that self-pubbing is a way to become rich and successful with little work, when the hard truth is that those who succeed clearly run their writing as a business and not a hobby.

Click to expand...

Of course, the original piece Fishbowl Helmet linked to doesn't make these claims, and tries to disabuse the notion of easy riches.

I always thought that Self Publishing was like normal publishing, except the author does the job of the publishing house when it comes to publicising the book.

Hi Wo7F,

Dump the HTML stuff. You don't need it. Use Word 2003 to upload. You can hate Microsoft like everyone else - but the plain fact of the matter is that Word 2003 is the software that the publishing industry has standardised on. You will have the least problems with it. Let Amazon and Smashwords do the conversions for you, and as long as you've formatted it correctly in word it'll be fine. (Though never use the tab for paragraphs - that seems to catch a lot of people out - just the enter key.)

For covers you can DIY. But you can also buy a reasonable book cover for sixty or seventy bucks. Not a fortune.

Editing, I don't know what you mean by free editors, but you can do a lot by using friends, family and beta readers. Still a good editor - someone who actually knows the business - can do wonders for you.

As for copyright there is no paying. Once you've published a book it is copyrighted as yours. You can also get a free ISBN through Smashwords and CreateSpace.

And yeah, it is a lot of hard work and a steep learning curve at the start. But for me that's been one of the most worthwhile parts of the journey.

Cheers, Greg.

Hi psychotic,

Will word 2003 format look good on any and all devices? I've heard that Amazon and others can do the conversions, however, I've also heard it sometimes looks horrible. Many have said it looks fine on say an ipad, but when you look at it on an iPhone or other devices sometimes it's not so great. This worried me. I wanted my work to look professional on EVERYTHING. So after some looking around on the web, I found this guy... http://guidohenkel.com/2010/12/take-pride-in-your-ebook-formatting/ and followed his examples. It was a bit hard to understand at first, but I just kept telling myself it's for the good of my work.

Yes, I don't need a copyright, but I want one. There is a lot of piracy out there and I'd like to be protected just in case.

Actually, and hopefully I'm right on this, I don't need an ISBN. A number or code will be assigned to my book automatically. But since I haven't done that yet, I can't be sure, so you might be right that I need one. I'm publishing with Amazon right now. We'll see about Smashwords and others on down the line.

Cheers!

Hi,

Can't tell you about looks. All I can tell you is that I use Amazon Kindle, Smashwords and Createspace. The first two take Doc files an convert everything for you - Smashwords into about ten different file types - and the ones I've seen all look good. But I've never looked on a phone. I know other people do try loading .mobi and HTML files and when I look at the problems they keep reporting and the inordinate amount of time and effort it seems to take - I think why bother? CreateSpace (Amazon's POD) takes PDF and Doc files. Here I always convert my files to PDF before uploading because I have a free software program called DoPDF which is brilliant. It lets me see the print ready version on my screen complete with margins etc.

And again, the moment you publish, the work is copyrighted to you. Piracy is a concern and it is plain annoying - all of my books have been pirated - but in my view it hasn't been a major issue so far. And copyright, whatever you try, won't stop it. Most pirates don't care. Case in point, when Amazon India came on line last year I immediately had six sales on the first day of six of my books. All of them were returned the next day - so I didn't even get a cent from the sales - and the day after I found all six books on an Indian pirate site. Since then the guy has taken the rest. So I am peeved of course, and since this guy's in India there doesn't seem to be a lot I can do. Reporting to Amazon did nothing, and cease and desist letters had nowhere to be sent to. (Pirates seldom have addresses - not even internet ones.)

But every so often I sit and google my books and go through the pirate sites hunting them, and find most of them. But many of those sites have counters on the number of illegal downloads they do, and usually the counts aren't high, compared to my actual sales. Who knows? When I hit LOTR success things may change!

And as for ISBN's yes and no. For publishing on Amazon kindle only you don't need one. They will provide you with an ASIN instead (Amazon Stock Identification Number). For publishing on Createspace and Smashwords and I understand Draft To Digital, you do need ISBN's. Every hard copy needs one. Smashwords and CS will provide you them for free, but only for their editions. You can't add one of their ISBN's to your kindle book for example.

Cheers, Greg.

Just to expand on a few things Greg said...

Amazon's POD service CreateSpace can provide a free ISBN, but, as said it's only for their POD.

However, you only need an ISBN on your digital books for certain retailers. Draft2Digital provides those free for the retailers they distribute through. Apple for example, D2D has you covered. You can upload to D2D and distribute to six or seven digital retailers. They just added the German equivalent of the Kindle.

D2D also coverts your uploaded file to several types and you are free to download any version of your book at will, whether mobi, ePub, or PDF.

Thanks for info guys! Something to think about for the future after Amazon.

I attest to being the person who once published a book before it was ready. I only did it to see what it was like, though. Three days later I took it down. But the entire process takes, if you're lazy enough, a half hour at most. Imagine if NASA built spaceships out of cardboard, blasted them to the moon, and they didn't make it.

That's my half hour of self publishing experience.

I wrote a novel in the 90s and planned to self-publish it by printing it out at Kinko's and handing it out for free. Then I heard about one of those e-publishing ventures and did it that way. Big waste of money (I could have published it for free with them but I wanted my own cover so that upped the cost). Months after I did, a stock market fluctuation caused the company to increase the sale price, thus destroying any hope of selling them. It was a classic vanity press.

I talked to a Tor editor about my book at a conference and she volunteered to read it, but 6 months later she said what I had told her in the beginning, that it was probably not marketable (an Arabian Nights novel after 911).

Years later, I learned about Amazon and kindle and re-published it with them for nothing, and to my surprise, with zero marketing effort I sold several as kindles (I also did a paperback version but cannot be sure I sold any-maybe a couple). Unlike a classic vanity press, Amazon was interested in selling them to people and you benefit from the random ads and large number of visitors. I didn't sell a hundred, but I know others have sold enough to get an income so it is nothing to scoff at, vanity or not!

I could not care less about the vanity label. The stigma vaporized in an era of fake news and corporations.
I was conscious about it back in the early 2000s and I sent out untold numbers of short stories to magazines that had "pro" or "semi-pro" rates, but then I read an article by Stephen King where he discussed how the short story market was dying. In the 1950s an author could earn a living on short stories alone, but nowadays the pro rate was much less, and the editors tend to pick stories they liked, not because they were seeking to appeal to an audience.

And now it seems like everything has to be a series. Movies, tv, books.
I prefer "one shot" stories, so I wouldn't be marketable even if I tried.

But the corporate Wall Street-owned publishers are not writer or audience friendly anyway.
Big publishing is marketer and boardroom controlled, just as the film industry is. So if a reader or viewer wants something more old-fashioned, they have to look to online retailers.

One thing I have heard is you need 5 novels to have the quantity for a readership base. I only have 2.
When it comes to writing I am slower than molasses.

Looking back on this thread; my but things have moved onward since this started and even since two years ago.

A lot changes in two years. Heck, stuff that was valid six months ago likely won't be any good any more, soon if not already. It's one of the hardest parts of doing the indie thing, because you're always having to twist and jump because something changes.

But, it's also a lot of fun, and filled with satisfaction when you see your shiny new precious.