#basics of self publishing

[oliviamaitlandauthor]

Comprehensive List of Tips for Self-Publishing Authors

Cover Design

"Never judge a book by its cover" is a philosophy very rarely followed by most readers, so it's important to make sure your cover is as eye-catching, aesthetically pleasing, and true to your story as possible. The cover should encompass what your story is about and it should give the reader a glimpse into the world you've spent years creating.

For most of us who are not artistically inclined, trying to create a cover design on our own is incredibly challenging. When you find yourself unable to generate an exemplary product, you may need to turn to a freelance designer or a company that specializes in poster/book cover graphics. Here are some options for you to explore:

Fiverr - budget-friendly, ample reviews from previous customers, and examples of work are provided by the designer, but make sure to be aware of AI use so your product is made authentically.

BespokeBookCovers - this company asks that you give a short synopsis of your book, along with some basic details, then you will be contacted to discuss more about what you are looking for. They do require a 50% deposit prior to beginning the design, but you do receive the product within 12 business days. They also ensure you are completely satisfied with the product before the transaction is complete. This company may not be the best for fantasy authors as most of their covers have more of a Colleen Hoover-esque aesthetic.

Miblart - This is a wonderful cover design company for fantasy writers, as evident in the examples provided on their website's home page. They do not require prepayment and offer payment installations in case the total cost at once puts a financial strain on you.

Editing and Formatting

Similarly to traditional publishing, you need to thoroughly self-edit your work before submitting it for professional editing. Suppose you feel as though you are proficient enough in editing that you do not require professional services or you cannot accommodate the cost. In that case, I suggest using workbooks or software to make sure your grammar and syntax are as high quality as possible. Here is a list of editing tools that can help you review your work:

Grammarly - a good resource for spelling, but it often flags intentional word-choice and sentence structure to make it more simple, which may be incompatible with your writing style. Also be aware of incorrect suggestions.

The Copyeditors Handbook - offers a guide to book publishing and addresses common writing errors. Does come with a workbook to help you exercise your skills.

It's also important that you understand the risks of self-editing. Sometimes it's hard to see flaws in your own story/writing because you already know all of the details. The reader does not have this knowledge, so certain plot points, wording, or details may be lost on them. Having a second set of eyes is incredibly beneficial to help you solve this problem. Here are some outside editing tools:

UpWork - allows you to list a job and review applicants. Each applicant is verified to be real, and you can sample some of their work and their credentials by viewing their profile.

Reedsy - employs Big Five editors to find a proper match for your writing

Raab & Co. - a self-publishing company that helps match you to a professional editor

ISBN

An ISBN number can help readers identify and find your book across multiple platforms, given that an ISBN is a unique number. You can buy an ISBN through Bowker or ISBN.org. An ISBN number on this website costs about $150 USD. This is not a necessary step, so no worries if you don't get one. It simply helps your book be more recognizable and appear more professional.

Pricing

The best way to figure out how to price your book is to look at similar publications on the platform you intend to publish on. Amazon is the most common, so look at your options. Generally, you can publish the book for a fixed price, or you can use Kindle Unlimited. Here's a list of pros and cons for Kindle Unlimited:

Pros:

Paid per page read, which is amazing for longer works or series

Saves a lot of time and effort as most of the work is done by Amazon, and it can generate more income than other platforms

Gain popularity because each time someone checks out your book or adds it to their library, it counts as a sale in your sales rank, which can boost your profile

Cons:

Unable to publish more than 10% of your book on any other platform while it is available on Kindle Unlimited, which limits your ability to reach a greater audience

Sometimes the length of the book affects income more so than the quality of the writing itself, so your book may be incredible well-written but have a lower sales rank.

[pompompurin1028]

"... Hey, Osamu are you even listening?"

"Of course I am, love. You can say anything and I'd listen."

"Somehow that doesn't comfort me..."

"Well if you must ask me to be honest. As interesting as your work is, I must admit, to me, it's author is much more enticing at the moment."

One last self-ship commission hehe. Drawn by @/notapiglet on twitter Got this as a reward for finishing the term after doing a lot this year.

[lucky-slice]

low key i think to deny Riko's trauma is to deny his narrative importance in the story.

like Riko's trauma related to his father parallels neil's. His concept of brotherhood adds complexity to Andrew and Aaron's relationship. He acts not just as an antagonist but as a foil to other character's relationship to trauma and violence.

to solely view riko through the lense of his actions is to miss the point. He is a character in a story, not a real breathing human being.

[kald-dal-art]

Fan art for a Hunger Games fic I have spent most of my summer writing.

Which is about the District 6 Victors, because I needed to know more about them and there is like 3 other people that care about them ... so yeah✌

Here is the link if you are interested to read that

[boatboys]

actually on the topic of old drawings; the first-ever drawings I did of Rich, Liam, and Sol turned up on my deep-dive of old discord messages and I was compelled to redraw/compare!

Rich very much predates the worldbuilding of the Michigan Fleet universe, as one of Key/rollerskatinglizard's oldest OCs, and was originally just a normal amount of un-tweaked big and buff dude, although I also sucked at drawing people with body mass back when I drew these lol. It does make me laugh that the huge crooked nose and sad, downturned eyes have been a constant from sketch one!

Liam predates the Michigan Fleet as well and was originally mine! He..... hasn't changed much actually haha. Although his size/prettiness/temper being a genetic modification is new, from the first lengthy discussion of mods where fourhands and hastings both got established (although not by those names). It looks like I coined the mod name "Babydoll", which I do NOT remember doing.

Sol was the most Group Effort of these three, looking back at the messages: Key invented a salty little gorgeous asshole with modded hearing for a snatch of interaction in a wildly different context than his new introduction; roach was the one who suggested the elf ears and iridescent hair to go along with it, I was the one who suggested he was from New York and threw several large pinches of "a big tsundere about Rich" into the mix, and a lot of the much later patrician worldbuilding was roach.

[bbreis777]

Angelic Relief as an aesthetic ᜊ( ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)ᜊ

[racke7]

I've been reading through the BNHA-archives lately, and holy fuck am I pissed about how some of these fuckers tag shit.

They make wholesale crossovers and don't tag the crossover-fandom.

Saw one that had "warning noncon" in the summary but "no archive warnings apply" in the fucking tags.

They keep making soul-mate AUs without tagging them as soul-mate AUs.

Just... I wanna push them down the fucking stairs. Why. Why are you stupid fucking assholes like this?

[beforeviolets]

hot take: I think book boxes should stop prioritizing books based on popularity and start prioritizing books based on how ugly their covers are

[suttonite]

behold!!! chapter nineteen!!!!

ps: this chapter nearly killed me. it was so unfinished when i thought it was finished. and then i read a bunch of great romance books so i started feeling extra insecure about my writing. and then i couldn't think of how to finish it and then i kinda got out of my head and finished it so... phew.

[cornflowerbluewrites]

I was going to wake up today and do so much writing. I was gonna be so productive.

And then I actually woke up today and I had a head cold and some nitpicky comments that ‘didn’t mean to be rude’ without mentioning one nice thing in my inbox and decided today was a wash and instead napped on my couch all day because cold medicine makes me sleepy.

[gailynovelry]

would you ever do print versions of your books? :O

Hello nonny! We’ve answered this before (maybe we should link to it somewhere), but in summary; yes! It will be at few years before we do it though.

We did have print versions of Shadow Herald on Amazon at one point. However, we ended up not liking Amazon or the quality of what we made, so we removed them from the marketplace.

While we have much more design experience now, and could probably make a better version right away, we currently approach our book publishing . . . almost like video game publishing? We put out the thing, we go back to iterate and improve on it, we release the better version, rinse and repeat. This makes Itch a really good platform for us right now, and physical copy a little less viable until we get the whole series polished.

Once Heralds of Rhimn is complete (ie book five is out), we’ll focus on getting print versions made! The real question is which print services are the most trustworthy. Amazon has a nasty habit of eating other services and making them intentionally worse.

But! We are pleasantly surprised that so many people have interest in our books. <3

[em-dashes]

anyway while i wait for the distribution to sort out, i submitted an isbn deposit for the e-book edition of Suddence, so i did do something productive (❁´◡`❁)

[astramachina]

this weekend has been THE weekend for weird coincidences.

[oathofmoonlight]

terrible time to be not just a casual user of the internet but also trapped in the eternal self-promotion machine of being an independently published creator!

[malinaa]

every time... every single time i order a physical copy of a self-published book the formatting makes me want to DIE like baby i can fix u 😭 PLEASE let me fix u

[gingergofastboatsmojito]

Instead of censoring the shit outta ppl who don´t share our POVs, and accusing others, passive-aggresively, of incoherence, (ofc passive-aggresively bc that coulda never flown if thrown directly LOL), why don´t we all start assuming by default that MAYBE, MAYBE our thought process is too narrow or too binary and thus we can´t even grasp the concept that 2 things can very well be true at the same time and that there might even exist a thrid option that we´re not even beginning to fathom but maybe for someone else all of that comes as easy as breathing and that is why we are not on the same page (at least not just yet) but we can either agree to disagree or even move past that first line of action and disengagemtn and try to amplify our perspective, bc there´s a chance that it is too narrow atp and that such change would only benefit us? THAT IS REAL EMPATHY AND RESPECT, AND SELF-AWARENESS. Empathy isn´t agreeing with someone, it´s just trying to see things it from their perspective, which we always can ofc, NOT SHARE, and being honest about it is a sign of respect and being cogniscent of our own limitations is a way of giving ourselves the chance to change that, which is also a way of excersizing our self-esteem, by advocating for our own self-growth. How exactly can we grow in a constant status quo, not sharing with others, only surrounding ourselves with those who agree with us, and silencing dissenting voices? WRITE A FIC ABOUT THAT.