Nuts and Bolts of E-Publishing
A (not so) brief what’s-what for the digital author to be
Right off the top:
It is a fact that my first novel (← link) has just been published to Amazon Kindle as of October 7th. It is also a fact that, through my novel’s launch weekend, only ten copies sold. It is, however, purely my own presumption that slow sales are common for new authors. I believe this is the case. I hope this is the case. This is probably the case…right?
Admittedly, I have very little experience with publication of any kind, but I am learning, and I think I’m starting to understand some of the kinks and holdups of the process. Take them with a grain of salt, but here are a few suggestions if you’re similarly Kindle-hopeful; some of the stuff I’d have wanted to know before I started.
(Also, yes, I will be pitching my book to you at the end of this article. I hope, by that time, you’ll realize why.)
Step One (point five)
Getting It There
If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume you’re at least toying with the idea of self-publishing. That is to say: you have something to publish. Maybe it’s a debut novel, a few short stories, a thin volume of verse, personal musings and memoirs… Whatever it is — congratulations!
I’m also going to assume your work has not been published elsewhere for one reason or another. Whatever that reason is — my condolences!
On the plus side, if it’s written, you’ve already completed the heavy lifting part of your job (that was Step One). Now, you have to deal with the architecture…the edits…oh, the edits. Unfortunately, I can offer little editorial advice apart from insisting you get some extra eyes on your work, and demanding you respect the Oxford comma. Formatting, though, that’s a different matter.
When you upload your book’s content to Amazon Kindle, it will be converted to an e-reader friendly file. Depending on the original file format, this can have a few hiccups along the way. Thankfully, you will be able to view your file as it would appear on most e-readers. I highly recommend you download and read through your sample manuscript before moving past the Upload phase. There’s a handy walk-through of how to do this on the publisher’s page, and I cannot stress enough how important this final spot-check can be. Chapter headings, paragraph breaks, page breaks, even spelling can get a little muddled in transit, and re-uploading a new manuscript after publication just for the sake of fixing typos can really screw with your metrics, but we’ll talk about those later. The Amazon services will do a quick spell-check for you after the upload, but anything capitalized or hyphenated is not checked, so pay close attention to the sentence openers during your read-through.
On top of everything else, it would seem as though some things are just…changed. I don’t know why, but I found a couple of typos in my manuscript which were not in the original document. I won’t specifically blame Amazon for this, but it does raise an eyebrow. Try to be thorough.
So, spelling and typos aside, let’s deal with paragraph breaks. It has been my observation that Kindle formatting likes to apply indentation for you. This means that if you have a manuscript with tabbed-in paragraphs, the formatting process might want to double-indent some of them. This might seem like a catastrophe at first glance, but there is a fairly easy fix:
Open your manuscript in MS Word (I only know Word, I’m sorry), and go to the Find-Replace function. There should be a ‘More >>’ option, and a ‘Special’ category. From here, you can roll through your entire file, find ‘Tab Character’, and replace it with ‘Paragraph Mark’ (or ‘^t’ and ‘^p’, respectively). After you’ve done this, make sure you upload the new file, and check it over once again for layout. You never know what might get shifted.
(Page breaks are easy enough, too, and can be inserted manually from ‘Breaks’ in the ‘Page Layout’ section of MS Word.)
It is entirely probable that other such formatting issues may arise, but these were the only major snafus I had to deal with, apart from the font being changed automatically which is still kind of bugging me. Ultimately, just read through your downloadable sample, and play with it until you’re happy. Then, read through it again…then maybe once more.
Learn by doing, but always back up your files.
Step Two
Make It Pretty, Make It Yours
If you’re not much of an artist, photographer, or digital designer, cover art might be a bit of an issue. This will likely be another step you’ll just have to play with, and rest assured that none of it is final until you click that big, shiny Publish button at the bottom of your browser. This is also another step where it might serve to get some help, but, if you’re dedicated to doing it yourself (or if you don’t feel like paying commission because…c’mon…we’re all starving artists here), there are a few tools to help you out. Amazon’s ‘Cover Creator’ template can give you the fonts, schemes, and building blocks for a few different designs, but there seems to be a severe lack of freedom. You might be better off opting for a simpler, more elegant design, rather than the clip-art laden chaos which is all too easy to assume looks ‘good enough, I suppose, if you squint a little’.
There are a few basics to play with, and a few resources which may be sampled if you’re feeling daring. Apart from the stock images in the Cover Creator itself, you can try poking around on sites like pixabay (← link) for open source images to use as backgrounds and focal points. If I understand correctly, these images are free to use for any application, and require no credit (though, do double-check that for yourself — no one wants to get sued, here).
For a background image or pattern, a sample of about 1200x1800 pixels seems to work pretty well, and leaves some room for error. Grab a pattern, slap a clever focal point on it, and drop it all behind one of the templates provided — bingo bango, you’ve got yourself some cover art. Unfortunately, it may not be quite what you envisioned, but it IS free.
Like I said: keep it simple, keep it elegant, keep it easy.
Step Three
Marketing Stuff
This is where it starts getting pretty heavy. Thankfully, this also seems to be the one section you can change at your whim without having to worry about resubmitting the whole project. You will be asked to make several choices regarding price, royalties, promotional eligibility, and a number of other things which can all seem very overwhelming. Let’s take them one at a time, though, yes? Here we go:
Pricing and Royalties: It took me a while to understand this bit, despite how straightforward it actually is. Basically, if you’re selling out of the U.S., and it’s not public domain, the only factor which will keep you from getting the full 70% cut of every sale is the price tag. Keep it priced between $2.99 and $19.99 (I think), and you keep your 70% royalties — anything else drops it to 35%. All very simple, once you know what to look for…just fill in the boxes.
Payment: Here, you have a choice between check delivery, and wire or direct deposit. Personally, I didn’t even consider anything but the paper check (because I’m neurotic like that) so I am not too sure about the other options. Truth be told, I’m still not entirely sure about this one, either…I have yet to actually be paid, so I have yet to see it in action, but take Amazon at their word and it breaks down like this:
Your royalties will be totaled by individual sale. Once your total royalty payment gets above $100, you are then eligible for payment. This payment should be expected within sixty days of the end of the calendar month during which the $100 margin is reached.
Understand? Let’s hit that again. This means, basically, if you sell $99 worth on October 31st, then that final $1 worth on November 1st, you can expect payment within the sixty days after the END of November, but that payment will include all additional sales made throughout the month of November. I think…I’m pretty sure that’s how it works. Sounds right, at least.
KDP Select: Now, this is where I show my ignorance more than I already have. KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) Select is, as I understand it, kind of like the HBO of e-books. Amazon customers can sign up for a subscription service which grants them free access to any published works enrolled in KDP Select. Sounds weird, and it gets weirder. From these subscription fees, the ‘KDP Global Fund’ is assembled, and is then distributed to the authors of these enrolled works based on number of pages read. I have no idea how they keep track of how many pages are read from each book, but I enrolled under the assumption that it will all come out in the wash. You still get paid, just in a more roundabout way.
The only qualm I had was in the ‘exclusive rights’ agreement. By enrolling in KDP Select, you’re basically promising to host your book’s digital format solely through Amazon for a given time. This only applies to the digital format, however. Other formats (print, audio, interpretive dance, whatever) can still be sold or distributed however you like. Unless your book has a pretty formidable built-in audience, I would encourage enrollment for the sake of exposure, but…let me say it again…I’m still new to all this.
Step Four
The Grand Aftermath
So, at the far side of all your hard work and formatting, your book is finally hosted on the Amazon Kindle store…provided you’ve also waited the 12–48 hours for processing…and you don’t need to make any quick, last minute alterations.
Now what?
That really is a good question. You certainly won’t be enjoying the fruits of your labor for at least another month or two, so now…you take a breath…maybe try to have a good night’s sleep…and dive straight into your promotional work. Tell your friends, and tell your family. If you’re in school, tell your teachers. If you have a day job, tell your coworkers. If you don’t have a social network presence, now is the perfect time to make one — for yourself, and for your freshly published book. Just get the word out. Don’t be shy, but don’t be pushy. The internet is a big place — people need to know what to look for. X marks the spot (← link), so draw them a map if you need to. If all else fails, you can buy a few copies yourself, and distribute them to friends, or to your favorite bartender, or to that guy you might have noticed had a Kindle that one time…you know the one I mean. As for tactics: if it’s inexpensive, it’s good; if it’s free, it’s better; if it keeps your mind off your metrics for a while, it’s better still.
Wait, what’s that? Metrics, you say? Oh yeah…let’s talk about metrics.
Ever heard the phrase ‘holding the tiger’s tail’? Generally, it means to have gotten into something you dare not quit for the grim alternative. Watching the sales, and ratings, and views, and stats of your book day to day…or hour to hour…that’s like being the cheerleader for whoever’s holding the tiger’s tail. You’d better keep shouting — better keep those pompoms up — because every little bit helps, but who can really say if your efforts are having any impact at all? But keep it up, because the alternative is…well…
Basically, you’ll end up watching two things throughout your routine: your personal KDP Reports page, and your book’s Amazon sales page. The one directly reports sales and activity; the other shows how your book rates against others in its top three genres. You will learn these pages, I can almost guarantee it. You will either get to know these pages, or you’ll be the sort of person who sleeps slightly better at night. Whatever you do, try to refrain from calculating your hourly wage — that way madness lies.
But…hey. What do I know? I’m new to all this, too.
Good luck.
[And, as promised, here’s that pitch, though I’m too tired to do more than simply describe it as a futuristic, business / political satire — a little like ‘John Carter Of Corporate Accounting’ — and drop a Link To Its Promo Page. Thanks for reading, thanks for checking it out, and have fun with your metrics.]
That’s all.
Stay curious, Readers.
-G
