Surviving the Horrors of Self-Publishing (Vol. I): Technical $h*t
A few lessons I learned the hard way when publishing my first novella…
A wise author once said, “Writing is easy. Everything that comes after it is next to impossible.”
Okay, so I made that quote up but I think there is some truth to that sentiment. For me, when it comes to being a writer, inspiration has never been an issue. Nor a work ethic when it comes to my meticulously-plotted and thoroughly-researched stories. That may sound conceited, but these are indisputable facts. Now, whether or not anyone likes my writing is a different story… The real hurdle for me has been everything a self-published writer needs to do after typing “The End.” In other words, everything it takes to make a book look professional/attractive and then let people know it even exists in the first place. So for the purposes of this article, I’m not going to deconstruct my brilliant creative process, because that is so entirely personal I wouldn’t even know how to relate the madness behind my method in any constructive way.
Instead, I’d like to highlight a few of the lessons I’ve learned along the bumpy road to self-publishing my very first novella, The Haunting of Nicolas Cage. And while I’m confident there are far more experienced authors than myself who can dispense pearls of immaculate wisdom on this subject, I’ll do my humble best to help out anyone who is on the verge of — or in the midst of — getting their first self-published work out into the world.
Stigmatizing the stigma
I think the tides are finally turning on this, but I’d like to start things off by declaring my unwavering love and support for authors who self-publish. I came of age in a time when the concept of self-publishing was generally considered to be the mark of an amateur, or even worse, sheer desperation. Can you imagine the will and effort it took to self-publish before Amazon and YouTube tutorials and social media? No analytics. No printing-on-demand. No e-books. Self-publishing prior to 2007 must’ve been like building a boat with your bare hands and then trying to sail around the world without a compass. Let’s have a moment of silence for all the tenacious authors who came before us — they who walked so we cold run…
Look at it this way: when a scrappy director bootstraps a feature film into existence outside of the Hollywood system, they are applauded for the end result (or at the very least, the effort involved to achieve it). Film festivals take these efforts seriously, as they should, and if an indie movie is good enough, it just might catch the attention of The Industry (cue thunder). Since the 1970s there has been a certain respect for indie cinema that I’d like to see within the world of self-publishing. After all, the directors of shoestring productions don’t label themselves as “self-filmed.” They’re just filmmakers operating on a different scale, period. Why should authors who produce their own published works be regarded any differently? If we have the means and ability to realize a book exactly as we want it, why spend months or even years trying to go through a highly impersonal, and often bureaucratic, filtration system? Granted, a mainstream publishing house has enviable reach when it comes to engaging a market, but take it from Sideways author Rex Pickett: just because your book (that becomes an Oscar-winning movie) gets picked up by a big press, doesn’t mean they’ll actually do anything to promote it.
I prefer to approach writing novels the way John Cassavetes approached making movies: don’t ask for permission and don’t wait for a green light. Just make it happen.
Margins of error
The good news about self-publishing is you have full creative control. The bad news about self-publishing is you have full creative control. Wait, that needs to be a pull quote…
The good news about self-publishing is you have full creative control. The bad news about self-publishing is you have full creative control.
Writing your book is one thing, but choosing its size, paper, fonts and, oh yeah, front and back covers is another skillset altogether. And quite frankly, one I would not have had the patience to develop if it weren’t for my intrepid girlfriend who is much smarter than me in every conceivable way (more on that later).
Like many indie authors, I published through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). I had only ever self-published an e-book with them prior to my first paperback, and the process was definitely more… involved… when it came to the paperback. It makes total sense, of course. A printed book requires more attention to detail in order to be, you know, readable. Basically, you need to mind your margins inside and out, cover to cover. They have a template to help you format things, but certain formatting needs to happen with your manuscript before you upload your file into KDP. Look, I’ll admit it: I didn’t know what a gutter margin was, let alone how to alternate said margins between double-sided pages in a physical book. Bleed? You mean what happens if my book gives me a paper cut? These technical details, while annoying to figure out the first time, will continually pay off moving forward. My advice: take notes along the way. Create a Google Doc (or whatever) and list all your specs for future reference so you don’t have to slide down the learning curve all over again the next time you put a book together. I did not do this. And I regret it already.
Judging my book by its cover
Speaking of covers. Deep breath… Okay. One of my biggest gripes with many (not all) self-published books are their covers. Often times — to my taste — they’re too cluttered with graphics, too busy, too eager to catch your attention like colorful children’s cereal boxes. And in my opinion, that’s exactly what many of them end up looking like. There are always exceptions, but I feel like most traditionally-published novels have a less-is-more aesthetic. Of course, these corporate-produced books also have the advantage of professional designers/departments to generate these captivating images. To my knowledge, Stephen King has never had to design his own covers. Or any other successful author, for that matter. We can assume most are just fine with that (once the check clears), but let’s consider otherwise: even if an author hated the cover a publishing company presented for their book, there’s little to nothing they can really do about it. For better or worse, us indie authors have to roll up our sleeves and do it ourselves. But visualizing fantastical worlds on the page requires flexing an entirely different creative muscle from the one used to visualize an effective marketing design on the cover. Yes, there are free book cover templates/generators out there, but I have yet to see one that doesn’t create covers which scream, “LOOK WHAT I DID ALL BY MYSELF.”
My idea was simple: have the protagonist of my novella look up at the title as he is melting into a puddle of blood that forms my name. The graphic design was done by my Photoshop-savvy girlfriend (100% self-taught) and creative-directed by yours truly. To say I micromanaged her is an understatement: I nanomanaged her. But in my defense I knew exactly what I wanted, and I knew it would make or break the book’s chances of survival (jury’s still out on this), so I needed to get it right. If you’re not well-versed in Photoshop, and don’t have the time (or in my case patience, will and ability) to learn it, then you’ll need a (very) patient person who can do graphic design under your direction (and preferably with food, drinks and/or intimate favors as compensation). Or, if you have any talented artistic friends, you could always outsource the basic design to them, and then use your hostage — I mean graphic designer — to implement said designs accordingly.
I’ll skip the minutia here, mostly because I couldn’t tell you the difference between “rotoscoping” and a “colonoscopy” if you had a loaded revolver to my head, but I will say this: when it comes to your cover, what looks great on your computer can easily look not-so-great IRL. Case in point: blood. It took the better part of two weeks to get the blood on my cover to look right. Not because my girlfriend and I are colorblind (at least… I don’t think?) but because every time we tweaked the shade of red — the only color on my dramatic, black and white cover — we had to reorder a copy to be mailed to us so we could hold it in our hands and bear witness with our tired eyes. A lot of time was lost this way, and a few gray hairs were gained en route. The original shade came out as a dim — downright dismal — burgundy. Shade 2.0 resulted in a ghastly orange that still haunts me to this day. The third time was not the charm when we ended up with a very sad pink. Finally, after much trial and error, we landed on a shade of blood that was actually red: bright, but not neon. Hallelujah! Why such discrepancies? I don’t know, to be honest. Probably something to do with the way images appear on a well-lit, high-resolution computer screen versus dull, matte wax paper would be my guess (duh).
Indie-pro tip: design your covers while writing/editing your book. Multitask. If you’re a perfectionist like myself (and quite frankly you should be if you want your book to be taken seriously) give yourself plenty of time to iterate the design/colors, otherwise you’ll prolong the entire process leading up to publishing and make your significant other question their life decisions… or so I hear.
Don’t be porn
And by that I mean, don’t accidentally categorize your book as salacious content that gets shadow banned by Amazon (nothing against sex workers). In a nutshell: during the publication process, you’ll have to enter a bunch of book details such as key words, descriptions, genres, etc. One seemingly innocuous question they ask you is, and I’m paraphrasing: “Does your book contain material unsuitable for children below the age of 18?” In my case, the answer to that is technically yes. Being a proud horror writer, my novella naturally contains some strong language and outlandish gore. So, no, it’s not something you should read to your children as a bedtime story (unless your last name is “Addams”). Using this logic, I opted to be responsible and label my novella as “not intended for children.”
It took me the better part of a MONTH after publishing my book to the world to realize the reason literally NO ONE could find it on Amazon was because choosing this option was akin to labeling my work as porn and they shadow banned it. You could find it if I sent you the link, but aside from that, The Haunting of Nicolas Cage was a ghost… and not in a fun, thematic way. At first I figured it was because it was so new and needed time to accumulate clicks, reviews, and algorithms sprinkled in fairy dust. But a few weeks and five-star reviews later, my book was still invisible — so I Googled around for a solution. Thankfully, once I caught up with my own error, I was able to go back and edit my book details to change my answer and viola! Within minutes the issue was resolved. Great! Now all I have to do is let people know my book exists and convince them to buy it…
Sigh.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for PART II in which I explain how I’m promoting my book online and –– gasp –– IRL.
Wanna connect with me? Bam.
