#Draft2Digital Print

[author-a-holmes]

Re; Having an Ingram Account to use Draft2Digital Print

To my knowledge, no? But I've got Changeling through Ingram Spark, not Draft2Digital so I can't be sure.

Changeling is only uploaded to Ingram because I took part in a Dale L Roberts youtube video to compare print quality across several printers, so Dale covered the upload cost at the time.

In future I plan to go through Draft2Digital for that free edit every 90-days. But, I don't see why you would need an ingram account to access it through Draft2digital.

Draft2digital is your printing company, they just happen to use Ingram as their printer, at least that's how I understand it.

Hi, you mentioned having some resources for people considering Indie publishing? I would love to know more!

Hi! Yes!

So you mentioned not having a big budget, which was discouraging you from going the indie route, and I did a metric tonne of research before publishing Changeling, and came across a handful of really good, free resources so thought I could pass some along in case it's helpful!

The only thing I don't have a good, free, replacement for is an editor I'm afraid, but a robust series of self edits could work well, or possibly a kickstarter for the editing costs? Something to look into maybe.

If you do decide to run a kickstarter to cover your editing costs, I'd highly recommend the Facebook Group "Kickstarter for Authors", loads and loads of free advice can be found in there, but that's all I can really suggest since I've not run one myself.

When it comes to preparing a book for publication, however, I have a couple of helpful free or low-cost resources.

is Reedsy Book Formatter. Now, Reedsy recently updated their platform and pricing, so I just (24th May 2025) went in and checked if their formatter was still free to use. It is! You have to make a Reedsy account, or login with a Facebook or Gmail account. Additionally, there's lots of buttons suggesting their "paid features", which makes sense. However the formatter, and the ability to download your formatted manuscript either as a PDF (for Print Books aka Paperback or Hardcover) or an EPub (Ebooks) is still a free function. The only 'catch' to the Reedsy formatter is that, on the bottom of the Copyright Page, they will input something like "Formatted with Reedsy Free Formatter" or something along those lines. I don't remember exactly. I was on a bit of an ego trip when I was researching my debut novel, so that was a No-go for me and I saved up and paid for Atticus to format my books, but that's NOT budget friendly and runs about $147, but I digress. Once you HAVE a formatted Book File — and if it's a PDF for Paperback, you know how many pages your book will be, then next expense is going to be a Cover. You can make your own book cover, but unless you're (A) A graphic Designer and (B) have your thumb on the pulse of the book cover market in your genre, I wouldn't recommend it. What I would recommend is...

Getcover Design Services. Getcovers are a professional design company based in Ukraine, and they designed the cover for my Reader Magnet "Whatever Happened to Madeline Hail?" and my debut novel, "Changeling" (I'll put pictures of the covers below.) Getcovers has a sister company called Miblart, which charges a closer-to-market-average for their design services, although still cheaper than many designers. I have NO PROOF of the following statement, but I suspect the designers at Getcovers are new with the company, and being trained up, before they're moved over to Miblart. Again, I have no proof of this, it's only a suspicion on my part. And that's NOT to say I have any complaints over Getcovers quality. What I would say is that, being based in Ukraine, somethings a little bit of back and forth is required before the designer understands what you're looking for. (In one particularly memorable moment, I ended up doing a mockup in MSPaint, and that seemed to solve ALL communication issues lol) But, on the flip side, all of Getcovers cover design packages come with unlimited revisions, so as long as you have a bit of patience, they're well worth it. Which brings me to cost. Getcovers isn't free, of course, but in my humble opinion they might as well be. Getcovers will design an Ebook Only Cover for $10. They will design an Ebook & Paperback Cover for $20. They have a premium service, for detailed covers, which is a Ebook & Paperback for $35. If you want a Hardcover Design added on, that's an additional $10. It's not free, but you cannot buy a PREMADE cover for that price. It's a little bit insane. Getcovers over other design services as well, such as author branding (My author branding was developed by them as well), marketing materials, and merchandise design, but again, I digress.

Finally, uploading your files. You have self edited as best you can, you've formatted your book, and you have your cover files. Now, all that's left to do is upload the book for sale somewhere. This is, honestly, the easiest part. Draft2Digital is a free platform to upload your books. They are a distributor, which means they take a small cut of your royalties for doing all the labour of sending your book out to a dozen other storefronts, but for ease of use, and time saved, it's a negligable amount (10% if I remember correctly). KDP or Kindle Direct Publishing is basically Amazon. You CANNOT have more than ONE KDP account, so if you're not sure if you've made a KDP account before, I'd reach out to customer service and check if you have a KDP account linked to your Amazon account. They'll be happy to let you know if that's the case, before you try making a new account and end up in hot water. But, essentially, it's also free to upload your book to KDP. When it comes to your EBook on KDP you have a choice between exclusive and wide. If you want to upload your Ebook to other platforms like Draft2digital, you CANNOT put your Ebook into Kindle Unlimited (aka KU). This is because Amazon requires exclusive rights to your book, so if it's uploaded anywhere else, they'll kick up a fuss. I've never had my books in KU, I prefer to keep Changeling widely available so take this next part with a pinch of salt, but I THINK KU is a 90day rolling contract. So you can have your book in KU for 90 days, and then choose to go wide. It's more difficult to be Wide, and THEN go KU, because you have to pull your book from all storefronts and make sure it's not available anywhere before putting it back into KU. The only "Cost" of publishing on KDP is if you decide to have a paperback or hardcover book, and want them to print a physical proof copy. This is a recommended step to make sure the files all uploaded correctly, however it's not a requirement. And if you do decide to print a proof, it's not too expensive. I think Changeling, which is a 5.5x8.5 trim, 399 pages, usually costs me less than $12 If you decide to publish Wide, and no Exclusive to Amazon, then other storefronts I recommend uploading to directly, instead of through Draft2Digital are Barnes & Noble, Googlebooks, and Kobo. Itch.io is also free to upload to, and is beginning to pick up steam with Ebooks! You can also turn on tips, so people can choose to pay you more than the book price is set to. The only 'Downside' to Itch.io is that is has a minimum withdrawl cost, which I THINK is $10 before you can have it paid out to your paypal account. Again, I'm pulling those numbers from memory, so I might be off a little. But, essentially, you can publish an Ebook for as little as $10, and a paperback for as little as... what... $45? Tops? I know that's still a handful of cash, but it's much, much, more reasonable than initial research suggests when you start looking into it <3 I hope ANY of this helped!!

EDIT!! I forgot to add the covers for "Whatever Happened To Madeline Hail?" and "Changeling" for examples of Getcovers work!!

Whatever Happened To Madeline Hail is the reader magnet for my newsletter, so I only really needed an Ebook Cover. I could have just spent $10 on this, but I want to offer it as a paperback once the main trilogy is complete, so I decided to go for the full package $35. Mainly because I was VERY new and didn't know how many stock images the designer would need to bring my vision to life. In hindsight, and for future reader magnets, I'll probably settle with the $20 option.

Changeling is the cover of my debut novel, and I've lost count of how many compliments I've gotten for it. I chose the $35 bracket for this cover design, and I actually ordered the entire trilogy all at once, so I also have books 2 and 3 covers matching.

Since Changeling is available in Paperback and Hardcover, I paid an additional $10 for the Hardcover version, the picture below is the full wrap for the paperback...

And for Xmas my Dad gave me the extra I needed for Getcovers to make custom Title Pages based on the cover design. I don't have a picture of that immediately to hand, as they're on my laptop, but a screenshot from inside of my ebook file looks like...

[laurasimonsdaughter]

Hello, I'm having a BBC Pride and Prejudice watch party soon with a bunch of my girl friends and just wanted you to know that a) I reread C&C for the occasion and b) I have been recommending it to all my friends as well :)

I read the story incrementally as it was coming out—and enjoyed every chapter!—but binging it was another joy entirely. It reads so nicely: the characters are fleshed out, the scenes you imagined fit right into the narrative's pacing. I simply love everything about Conceit and Conciliation and wanted to tell you so.

THANK YOU! <3

How absolutely lovely of you to come and tell me and thank you for recommending my retelling to your friends!!

It was loads of fun to write, but also so much work to get right, and I'm really happy that it has found its audience <3<3<3

[faecorpspublishing]

Changes Upcoming.

Photo by Alexas Fotos on Pexels.com It has been brought to our attention that some of our older anthologies are being printed with some formatting errors. We changed where we do our print books – and due to just how busy we have been we failed to move the older volumes when we did so. First off – We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. We are aware now of the issue. We will be over…

[queerromancerecs]

Non Amazon book resources

Look, I know Amazon is a sensitive topic. It has been allowed to dominate the market, and for indie writers, it is a huge (if not their main) source of income. Personally, as an indie writer, I have tried to always keep my work available elsewhere (because you can't trust Amazon not to screw you over, I mean just look at Audible. For those who don't know, Audible royally fucks over authors, and the narrators don't do that great either). But even for me, the loss of Amazon sales would highly affect my ability to keep going without getting another job or three. So I get it. Nonetheless, they cannot be trusted not to drop queer writers and readers, so it's best to have alternatives now.

If you are a reader or an indie author looking for different platforms to buy and/or sell books, even if only to start branching out a little, here is a list.

I doubt it's comprehensive. Feel free to reblog with more.

Kobo and Kobo Plus -Kobo is the biggest online 'Zon alternative. Kobo Plus is sort of like KU. On either one, you get points for buying books and can use the points to get more books. Works for ebook and audiobooks. (And, if you have a non-Kindle ereader, it works for Kobo but it also works for like, fanfiction. I'm just saying. I got a refurbished Kobo a while ago and it's lovely.)

Bookshop.org -print as well as ebooks (authors, make sure you click "expanded distribution" on your bookselling platform of choice if you want your stuff for sale with Bookshop--which also benefits local bookstores!)

Smashwords/Draft2Digital - mostly ebooks but D2D does have a print option

Itch.io - ebook only (but gives a larger chunk of profits to authors than 'Zon does. Authors take note.)

Rainbow Crate -special edition print queer books. (I know there was some controversy with them but I am out of touch and don't know what it was, and most people who use them seem happy with them??? but if you know other queer/romance book crate services, lemme know)

The Ripped Bodice -brick and mortar stores but you can also shop online

Check out your local bookstores---many will order print copies for you if you request them

The authors' websites if they do direct sales

Barnes & Noble- yeah, it's a corporation and they are not great either, but it's not Amazon and sometimes a well-meaning relative gets you a gift card. And, for the moment, they do in fact sell queer romance and queer fiction. I know because I just used a gift card to get a paperback of The Prince and the Assassin. lol

Powell's Books- Portland's famous book store sells new and used books (and you can browse the stock online) --print only. They sell queer romance as well. I got a copy of Drag Me Up by RM Virtues there. That's not super relevant, but I was pleased :)

New link: Queer Books Weekly-- free and affordable books with queer protagonists

Tubby & Coos Bookshop: curates pocket bookstores featuring underrepresented voices

And from user @bobthebenevolentpirate (thank you!)

Giovanni's Room in Philadelphia was founded in 1973 and is “The Oldest & Very Best LGBTQ & Feminist Bookstore in the Country.” They ship to US addresses, but you can also email them about international shipping. The people who run it are lovely humans and have started providing harm reduction supplies/info to people to respond to the needs of the community! They deserve all the support

Also consider library books!

And for those in America--you can use library apps to read books. Yes, the authors still get paid! Libby is a big one. You can get audiobooks too, AND it can connect you with the Queer Liberation Library.

Also there is Hoopla - digital content

In Europe, I know there is Vivlio, which is French and I believe sells ereaders and also ebooks.

[thebibliosphere]

Cost of inflation aside, the draft2digital upload process is brilliant in comparison to Ingram Spark. It's intuitive, easy to follow, and lets you see the files in real-time instead of making you wait to see your physical proof. I also had a minor problem with something, and customer service got back to me within a few hours, not the literal weeks I've gotten used to with Ingram.

The cover it auto-generated from my ebook files was not the greatest, but if you're on a tight budget or unable to afford separate covers and wanted to do paperback, you could absolutely make it work with a little tweaking.

I had separate covers already because Ingram and Amazon require you to have PDF wraparounds (both different dimensions from each other), and while the Ingram one didn't work (Ingram formatting works literally nowhere, not even on Ingram 🙃), the Amazon wrap worked. There might be a sliiiight issue with the ISBN overlapping, but it was hard to tell on screen. I guess we'll see how it looks when the physical proof copy arrives.

So. Yeah. That was way less of a stressful experience.

And none of my files are being held captive! I can hit cancel at any moment without having to pay $25 to talk to a human to get my files pulled. Incredible... And if you're thinking to yourself, Joy, that sounds like the bare minimum of competency, I need you to know that after years of Ingram Spark, the bar for this kind of thing is so low it's in Hell.

Anyway. I'll post an update on print quality once the proof gets here.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Dear god why is the print industry so opaque. JUST TELL ME IF, WHEN AND HOW MY AUSTRALIAN, EUROPEAN AND ASIAN READERS CAN GET MY BOOK IN PRINT, DRAFT2DIGITAL. I AM DROWNING IN VARIOUS ITERATIONS OF THIS QUESTION IN MY INBOX.

[copperbadge]

Every time, you guys. Every time I look into alternatives to Lulu.com for self-publishing I come up with “Wow Lulu really is the best of a bad set of options, huh?” 

Recently, Draft2Digital bought Smashwords in order to bring a print book company under their aegis; they’d formerly only done ebooks. I thought I might investigate them as an alternative to Lulu, which I’ve used for about twelve years now. For ebooks I would venture D2D is probably top of the line. For print books they are....not. 

I’m writing this out half so other folks can see it but half so that in the future I can look this up and remind myself of why I’m still with Lulu. 

TLDR: Not only does Draft2Digital want 60% of my print book royalties where Lulu takes 0%, and $30 for a proof that costs me $11 at Lulu, but I also appear to have solved the problem of why Lulu was making me price my books so goddamn artificially high. Which is like. Honestly the best anti-anxiety drug I’ve experienced this week. 

Basically there are a number of elements that go into self-publishing with a print-on-demand service. For some publishers, there’s a “setup fee” which doesn’t really set anything up, it’s just there to be a fee, everything is done by computer on the back end. Traditionally, Lulu has not charged a setup fee. Smashwords used to charge $50, but Draft2Digital currently waives it. I was heartened by that because the setup fee was keeping me from migrating, since I can afford $50 but I balk at knowing I’m paying them $50 for nothing. 

Next is the cost of printing -- what it costs the company in paper, ink, machinery, labor, etc, to just make a book with no profit. Lulu’s price calculus isn’t super clear and I’ve never bothered looking at what the breakdown is, because they’re pretty up-front -- they tell you in the process of setting the book up how much it’ll cost. In this case, a 140-page 6x9 trade paperback, no frills, which is how all my books are printed, is $5. Draft2Digital doesn’t tell you the flat price anywhere but they do offer the breakdown information; it costs $1.22 flat plus $0.0133 per page. So, for a 140 page book, the at-cost is $3.08. So far so good. 

Now, if you’re going to sell through Lulu, the “at cost” is the minimum price. You won’t make any money but you CAN charge just $5 for a $5 book. Any pricing above that is your cut. So -- let’s price this 140 page trade paperback at $13-$15. That’s a bit high to be honest but let’s just see. At Lulu, your take is roughly $6-$8 based on those prices, because you’re just dropping out the cost of printing from the retail price. 

At Draft2Digital, the same 140-page trade paperback, which remember is quoted as costing roughly $1.20 less to print than Lulu charges, gets you $2.75-$3.50 in royalties per book.

....wait, what? 

So now we need to sidetrack a little but I promise it’s for a reason. One of the motivations for looking into a change to Draft2Digital is that I didn’t like that Lulu was setting higher “minimum prices” than I was accustomed to -- they would tell me the book only cost $5 to print but require me to sell it for $12 or similar, and I couldn’t work out why. I’m an idiot but the penny did finally drop: it’s because when you distribute them outside of Lulu (say, on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or similar) your royalties drop like a stone. $7 in royalties purchased through Lulu comes out to like twenty-five cents purchased through Amazon. So Lulu forces you to price the book at a point where you even GET royalties and don’t end up weirdly owing Amazon money. The “global distribution” is what’s driving that minimum up. 

So in price-quoting a competitor I actually solved the problem with Lulu. 

Which is good, because the fun doesn’t stop there. If you want a proof copy of a book from Lulu, it’s the at-cost of the book, plus tax, plus postage. Buying a proof copy of this book from Lulu would cost me $11. Lulu makes you order a new proof copy every time you make a change, which is shady, but usually I only need to make 1-2 changes across the life of a book, so at most the cost will probably be $35 and for that I’ll get three copies of the book. Draft2Digital doesn’t give you an option. If you want a proof pre-publication, it’s $30 flat. If you want to publish and then buy a copy you can, but you can only make one change to the book every 90 days once it’s published. If you want to make more than one change, it’s $25 every time you upload a new version of the manuscript within that 90 day period.

So Draft2Digital’s books cost less to print but they take a massive cut of your royalties out of the retail cost of the book. If the book costs $3 to print, and I price it at $15, that’s $12 in profit on the book. Of that $12, however, I only receive $4. Draft2Digital literally wants 2/3 of my royalties per book. They want $20 more than Lulu to send me a proof copy. If I need to correct the proof, the correction is free, but I’m assuming the second proof will also cost me $30. Any changes after that, within 90 days, will cost $25 plus $30 for a new proof.

Which means my upfront costs at Lulu are about $35 per published book; to do the same thing at Draft2Digital is between $60 and $105 depending on whether I need to make changes after the second proof copy. And even after that, my royalties at Lulu are just about twice what they would be at Draft2Digital per purchase. 

So, well, Lulu it is. And the problem I was having with Lulu is solved if I decide to just retail through Lulu rather than selling globally. Which...selling globally has done two things that I’m aware of:

1. Fucked up my author page so badly on Amazon that one of my books is still attributed to Kathleen Starbuck, and one of her books is for sale on my author page. 

2. Raised the minimum price I’m allowed to set my books at by like, 40%. 

So I think probably what’s going to happen is going forward my books will be for sale only on Lulu. I can still assign them ISBNs and they still will ship worldwide, and the prices will fall significantly. My deepest apologies to those of you who have paid an artificially inflated price for the last few books; I’m going to fix that going forward, I’m going to go in and try to fix it retroactively in the books that are already on Lulu, and if it’s any consolation at least the cash came to me, and TWO THIRDS OF IT didn’t go to Lulu. 

It’s gonna take me a little time, untangling Lulu’s relationship to other retailers is tricky, but eventually the Shivadh Omnibus and Twelve Points should come down significantly in price, and there ought to be a dollar or two drop for the older books as well. 

This is why it always pays to do the math, even if like me you are dreadful at it. 

[johannestevans]

A Queer Indie Author’s Experience of 2024

Looking back on my top stories, sales stats, and best experiences of the year past, and looking to the year ahead!

Hello hello!

I’ve just been in the process of attending to my yearly tradition, ordinarily attended to in the last days of December and the first of January — I sit down with my new year’s calendar, and I write down all the vital dates and pieces of information. 

On the current calendar in front of me — a charming Peter Rabbit family planner with a little attached whiteboard, as I wasn’t able to get the Discworld calendar this year — I’ve transferred over the birthdays of all my friends and loved ones, written down some of the main conventions of 2025 I’m planning to attend like TeratoCon, and other already established professional and social plans, as well as deadlines for different submissions. 

As I’m looking ahead, I thought it would be worth looking back a little bit as well, for a nice bit of contrast!

Statistics for 2024:

Total Books Sold Through KDP (Amazon) in 2024: 1,548

1,265 of those units were eBooks and 283 were print books — my top performer was my first novel, Heart of Stone, which sold 637 units (396 eBooks, 241 paperbacks), and after that was Touch-Starved, which sold 209 total units, then Powder and Feathers, at 82 total units. 

Approximated royalties are at $2,288.42.

Total Books Sold Through Draft2Digital in 2024: 13,529

Draft2Digital is the company through which I publish to several platforms, particularly Kobo and Kobo+, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Everand, Smashwords, and then library programs like BorrowBox, Hoopla, CloudLibrary, etc. 

The sales are so incredibly high because it was the Smashwords End of Year sale, and all of my 99c shorts were discounted to free for most of December, so 12,548 sales were in December, and I only had 981 sales for the rest of the year. 

I unfortunately have absolutely no idea how to look at the breakdown between eBooks and paperbacks for D2D, but my top sellers were Touch-Starved, at 464 units sold, Sweet On, at 400 units sold, and Hitting the Books, at 369 units sold. 

Approximated royalties are at $1,117.56, with $354.52 of those royalties being in the last month. While obviously ten thousand books were free books sold, my advertisements for the free books and the freebies themselves drove a lot of traffic to my other works like Heart of Stone or Strange Liberty, etc.

Total Royalties from Medium in 2024: $1073.92

Medium pays out royalties based on views of subscribers and how much time subscribers spend reading each work. I normally tock up my top story for each month on Medium, but Medium has helpfully taken away the option to do that for months January through July, thinking that only the last six months are useful in the stats block for the Partner Program rather than the last 12. 

Nonetheless, for the months I can see:

August’s Total Earnings on Medium: $64.39 September’s Total Earnings on Medium: $47.33 October’s Total Earnings on Medium: $56.25 November’s Total Earnings on Medium: $57.27 December’s Total Earnings on Medium: $57.08

August 2024’s Top Performer was Yentl: A Trans Man Studying Talmud is Distracted by Gay Thoughts. It earned $3.80 that month, and its lifetime earnings, having been published in July 2023, stand at $163.36. It was also September 2024’s Top Performer, earning $3.79. It was also November 2024’s Top Performer, earning $3.71.

August 2024’s Top Fiction Performer was The Devil’s Mark, which earned $2.76, having been published that month, and has managed $3.12 lifetime earnings since publication. 

September 2024’s Top Fiction Performer was Street Trade, which earned $1.15, and has managed $1.81 lifetime earnings since publication.

October 2024’s Top Performer was Passing Privilege: Through My Eyes, as a Trans Man Who Passes, earning $11.64 that month, and its lifetime earnings, having been published in June 2023, stand $138.04.

October 2024’s Top Fiction Performer was Bred & Betting, which earned $2.09 that month, and has managed $3.10 lifetime earnings since publication. 

November 2024’s Top Fiction Performer was Divine Service, which earned $2.52 that month, and its lifetime earnings, having released on Medium in May 2024, stand at $32.99. It was also December 2024’s Top Fiction Performer, earning $2.21.

December 2024’s Top Performer was A Transphobe Ruined His Own Night Because I Was Existing Next to Him, which earned $13.42 and was actually a new piece, so that’s its lifetime earnings. 

Total Income from Patreon in 2024: $16,502.38

Of course, Patreon is always the bulk of my income, and I’m very grateful for my Patreon subscribers! 

On my Patreon, I publish all of my short stories and essays, barring a handful that due to Patreon’s guidelines can’t be cross-posted there, and the new benefit I’m going to be offering my patrons is going to be giving them voucher codes so they can always buy eBook versions of all my works on Smashwords as an additional benefit. 

I try not to look at my general new subscriber and unsubscription rate on Patreon each month, but my Active Subscribers currently stand at 420 (noice), with 104 new subscribers and having had 102 cancelled subscribers in the past year. 

People regularly unsubscribe on Patreon and come back later when they can afford it, or go between Medium and Patreon, depending on what works best for their income at the moment. 

What I Did in 2024

This year has been really good for me, and I’ve been absolutely delighted with the results, but the past few months particularly have been especially good, and I’m really excited with some decisions I’ve made and what they’re gonna look like for me in 2025. 

Firstly, in February I accompanied Dalton Harrison, author of The Boy Behind The Wall, and Kirsty from Bi+ Leeds to HMP Askham Grange to run a Q&A and read from some of our pieces in Transmuted to the prisoners there. 

It was such a privilege to be able to talk to some of the prisoners incarcerated there, especially other queer and trans people, and to advocate for prisoners’ queer identities to guards and staff in a way that prisoners often don’t feel able to approach in the same way for themselves, but mostly just to spread a little joy and talk about creativity and art to the prisoners in place there. 

In April, I delivered a talk with Romancing the Gothic about Crimson Peak as a modern Gothic Romance, and I of course ran my usual Monstrous May prompt event, although I don’t think I did enough promotion for it in 2024 and I don’t think my prompts were necessarily that enticing. I’m hoping to drum up more excitement and interest in 2025. 

 I went to WorldCon in August, and I had an excellent time, it felt really fulfilling as a creative professional, I loved being on several panels and also being able to moderate a panel, and I’m very excited to further cultivate my skills in the next year or two in interviewing and moderation for Q&As and panels alike! 

I didn’t unfortunately get to any other conventions in 2024 because WorldCon was very expensive between con tickets, travel up to Glasgow, and the AirBnB, but more cons is absolutely the goal. 

I also got involved in a few other projects that are going to be published in 2025 — I contributed a short story to Dudes Rock: A Celebration of Queer Masculinity in Speculative Fiction, edited by Jay Kang Romanus and published by The Circus Collective, and the anthology is currently open for preorder, due for release on January 10th! 

I’ve also contributed to SLAKE HOUSE, an erotic horror Choose-Your-Own-Ending anthology presented by Noah’s Ark and Radha Kai Zan that’s due for release in the next few months, and I’m very excited for that as well, it was such a cool project to be a part of, and I was so delighted to work along so many splendid and deliciously fucked-up creators, both other authors and amazing visual artists!

I made some changes to my social media presence — most notably swapping the bulk of my activity from the dying-a-swift-death X, née Twitter, to BlueSky, which has now added threading — enabling me to write my first ThreadFic on the platform — and publishing more actively to Reddit, especially in the fantasy, romance, and queer subs, as well as making a Threads account. 

And finally, the biggest change I’ve made in 2024, I went through my back catalogue of longer shorts, those that were in the 5k to 30k range, and made each of them available as 99c shorts, with new eBooks published in the 5–10k range to be published as 99c shorts, and ones closer to the 20k range or above to be priced at $2.99, apart from my serials that get re-edited and published as extended novels.

For a long time, I was quite reticent to publish shorts in this way, convincing myself that I absolutely had to publish shorts in big collections or otherwise I was somehow cheating the reader by giving them such a short piece, but I’m so glad I managed to shake off that anxiety. 

The response to all these 99c shorts has been overwhelmingly and absurdly positive, and I’ve reached a huge swathe of new readers even before the Smashwords sale where I sold off 10k of these shorts for free. Quite a lot of readers have been really excited at the short story, novelette, and novella formats for a lot of these pieces, especially because they’re so varied in their subject matter, genre, and characters, and obviously like…

Each of these books individually can work up its own popularity and readers who have affection for it, each of them individually being recommended on their own strengths, but having so many shorts available, people often recommend a handful in the same breath, especially those that play with similar topics or themes. 

Going from having a back catalogue of seven or so eBooks and paperbacks to 50 eBooks and 20 paperbacks makes a big difference, and it’s going to be great to be able to pick out paperbacks to bring along to sell at conventions and so on that exactly match the brief or the theme!

As each of these shorts and novelettes gain reviews, I’m excited for them to gain more of an audience over time as readers find them as their favourites, similar to the response Heart of Stone has received over time, and that I hope Powder and Feathers and other long novels in future to receive, such as the next expected release, An Uncommon Betrothal. 

I’ve come on leaps and bounds with my own ability to design book covers, working with a pared back vintage style that incorporates a lot of public domain etchings, sketches, and block prints, the sort I grew up seeing in adventure novels and so on, and also in editing and formatting my books for paperback on KDP! 

My Goals for 2025

Most of what I want to achieve in 2025 is more of the same.

I definitely feel that because I was working on a lot of longer pieces this year, and then because I was working on making eBooks and paperback versions of various pieces available, that I didn’t publish as many fiction pieces overall, but I’m very proud of what I have published!

I want to attend more conventions, as I’ve said, and involve myself in more literary and author-run events where I can, as well as maybe selling books and merch at pride events. 

I haven’t focused that much on merchandise this year, but now that my printer is up and running, I’m excited to design new badges in a few months, as well as maybe make some bookmarks, postcards, stickers, and similar. Depending on how my income looks in the next few months and how significant a difference my back catalogue makes, I think I’d also like to have some business cards printed.

I’ve definitely made more money business-wise this last year than I ever have before, and I’m keen to keep those growths doing, but we’re hoping to get a cat this year as well as do some home repairs, so I want to be modest about how I’m reinvesting that new income as I keep it building up. 

I want to be more creative about how I’m advertising to new readers and meeting new people — I actually put up some posters around Leeds last month to advertise the Smash sale, and I definitely think I want to get into the habit of regularly putting up posters advertising my work in queer spaces around Yorkshire, both around Bradford and Leeds, but also if I’m going out in York, or even if I’m going farther afield to Manchester or Bristol or London. 

And my biggest goal I think is that when I finish An Uncommon Betrothal, I want to do an official in-person launch for the paperback and do an event where I’m reading from it, selling copies, and signing them as well! 

That would most likely be in Leeds, and I just think it would be a really fun event if I can do it, and would drum up a lot of support and sales both online and in paperback. 

Thank you so much for all your support, and wishing everyone a happy new year! 

[em-dashes]

✨YOU ARE NOW ENTERING SUDDENCE is now available for purchase!!✨

While Suddence has been free-to-read online for a while now, perhaps you prefer the comfort and convenience of an e-book or physical book. Now, you can have exactly that!

You can find Suddence on a number of vendors, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and more!

Plus, if you order between now and May 19th, you will receive some extra goodies!

If you purchase an e-book, you will receive a digital advanced look at the bonus comic, THE RABBIT INCIDENT, and a high-quality version of Suddence's back cover, which has woefully been covered up by the blurb and ISBN.

If you purchase a paperback, you will receive these pretty stickers and a print of the back cover.

The goodies will also be available to purchase on Etsy*!

To receive these gifts, please fill out this Google form! The gifts will be sent out in batches, so don't worry if you don't receive them right away!

There will also be a giveaway announcement in a bit! Keep an eye out for that 👀

As usual, reblogs are appreciated! The very existence of links in this post means it most likely won't show up in the writeblr tags.

Notes below the cut:

*To be uploaded in the coming days! E-book goodies will be $5 CAD, and paperback goodies will be $10 CAD.

Also, as a general note, this is my first time creating e-books, and I used Draft2Digital's automatic formatting software to create them. If you notice any egregious issues with them, please do let me know and I'll see about having them fixed!

Suddence is also reportedly up on a number of online library services, such as Bibliotheca, OverDrive, and Baker & Taylor! Unfortunately, I don't have any experience with online library services. I've checked OverDrive and was told the book was not available despite it technically existing on there.

If you live in/around Vancouver BC, I will be at VanCAF on May 18th and 19th with some copies of this book (with the freebies too)! If you want to bypass the shipping fee or you just want to see cool art, come on down! It's a free event :^D

[laurasimonsdaughter]

My ebooks will be on the move

I currently have two free ebooks available on various platforms (Apple books, Kobo, etc.):

Coffee and Faerie Cakes, my urban fantasy romance

Fullerton Parsonage, my Northanger Abbey retelling

But since Draft2Digital merged with Smashwords their terms and conditions have changed in a way that will not let me upload anymore of my Austen works, so I'm considering moving to a Dutch self-publisher instead.

This would possibly mean print on demand physical books (!), but might also mean that I can no longer offer my ebooks completely free. So if you want to grab them, grab them now!

[duckprintspress]

hey, i'd like to just throw this out to you, since you're a press so i have a feeling you might know. if i was seeking to publish a book but i didn't want it to ever be sold through amazon, what would my options be?

Hiya!

I'm assuming you mean you're interested in self-publishing? If yes, then yeah, I can give you at least some information about your options. :D

If you don't want to use Amazon, you definitely still have some options for self-publishing a book. I can sympathize with this sentiment; we hate Amazon and I've done what I can to keep our works off there (and, ultimately, failed, but still kept it to a minimum).

There's two overarching questions you'll need to consider when deciding how to proceed:

What formats are you selling? Are you doing e-book only or e-book + print or print book only? What about audiobooks? Which will influence your choices.

Are you mostly interested in direct sales (as in, you personally sell the book to the customer) or sales-through-an-intermediary (as in, a bookstore sells your book to a customer) or distribution (as in, you list the book with someone who acts as an intermediary between you and other vendors)?

As briefly as I can, first, here's what Duck Prints Press uses:

Ingram - e-book (and, once we have one - we're working on our first! - audiobook) distribution. Ingram is the biggest book distributor in the US and has a virtual monopoly on distribution. Even places that aren't technically Ingram, such as draft2digital, usually use Ingram. Because they're a near-monopoly, Ingram has a lot of ability to, well, screw people, and one way they've tried to screw people is they keep making it harder to get into their better services, pushing people to their much-less-supported service IngramSpark. I managed to get the Press grand-fathered in to Coresource, which is their e-book and audiobook distribution system, even tho we don't meet the current minimums for number of titles for that product. I CAN'T get into Lightning Source, which is their better-supported print book distribution service, because we don't have enough titles (we'd need 30, we currently have 10ish). If I wanted to use IngramSpark, I'd have to ditch Coresource, and I don't want to do that because Coresource works great and has good customer support, and so I had to settle on a compromise I don't love until we meet the minimums for Lightning Source - I use Coresource through Ingram for e-book distribution (and don't distribute to Amazon), which is...

draft2digital - print book distribution. This was my work around for not losing Coresource in the name of getting Ingram print on demand (pod), and it came with a price: d2d doesn't let me opt out of Amazon, much to my irritation. So the three titles we currently have pod on ARE on Amazon.

our webstore - e-book and print books, directly sold to the public. Our website lets people download e-books; I package print book orders made through the webstore myself and mail them myself.

in-person sales - I started vending at events last year; this year I'll be doing about a dozen.

All of which goes to show, even trying to publish while avoiding the most evil places is really hard and a source of frustration. If anyone knows a good option for ethical publishing distribution, I'm honestly all ears. Competing with Ingram is extremely David vs. Goliath (see also the recent death of Small Press Distribution).

So: remembering that Amazon is easily the worst but that there's still basically no ethical consumption or production under capitalism...

Ingram

Of the places I'm familiar with, the best-known option with the widest reach for self-publishing distribution is IngramSpark. As mentioned, I don't use Spark, but Coresource lets me completely customize which of Ingram's partners (vendors, wholesalers, libraries, etc.) I actually distribute with, and I've assumed that other Ingram products are the same. I believe IngramSpark is currently free per title; they get paid by charging fees per sale and because they get better listing deals with partners than an individual would get (like, Ingram might get charged x per title they list with, idk, Barnes and Noble, whereas you as an individual would get charged y, where y is larger than x, and Ingram pockets the difference).

I know a lot of people who use IngramSpark and my impression is that when it works, it works really well, but when it doesn't, getting help/customer service can be a nightmare. Virtually everyone I know who has used them has stories about late titles, support taking a week+ to reply, that kind of thing. I believe they have an option to pay for better/more rapid responses from customer support, which I feel kinda tells you everything you need to know about IngramSpark.

Draft2Digital

Another option is draft2digital. They use the Ingram distribution network, but again they can do so cheaper than an individual can because of their bulk sales through Ingram. They also offer e-book, audiobook, and print distribution. I use draft2digital for print and I've been quite satisfied with their customer support, but their print distribution doesn't allow opt-out of Amazon. HOWEVER, I believe their e-book distribution does. At minimum, there's a checklist on d2d about "steps you have to take to distribute e-books through d2d" and I'm assuming if you just. didn't do that checklist. then you obviously wouldn't get your books distributed through them. The other big thing I don't like about d2d (which may also be true of IngramSpark, idk) is that they charge after the first revision. Which is to say: you put together your book, you upload your book, you get it all set... and you notice a mistake. Okay, fine. You fix the mistake and re-upload. Re-uploading uses a "change token." You only get one free change token per title per six months. So, you notice another mistake you feel you have to fix a few days after that first? That'll cost $25. I've personally just kinda... tried to find all my mistakes right off and fix them, and anything I spot after that, I keep a log and will update all of them at the six month point. (I understand why they do this, btw - they have actual humans doing set-up on their end, so if you revise eight times in a week, that's a lot for an actual human, and charging for the tokens forces people to be careful, helps ensure people submit books that are actually ready in good faith, and helps keep costs low. That doesn't mean it's not annoying, though.)

Bookvault

Bookvault is a UK-based print-on-demand option (so NO e-book distribution, just print) that has recently started offerings in the US too. They currently have a relatively limited distribution network, but they're growing, and especially for UK-based people they're a strong alternative. I've heard a lot of positive reports about their printing in a FB group I'm in (Kickstarter for Authors - do recommend, lots of great info there), but I'll own my personal experiences weren't great and I've decided not to keep using them for now. However, if what you primarily want is print books as print-on-demand, and some limited distribution choices, they're a good choice, and they can help with option five below.

Do It Yourself Lite

A fourth option that's a LOT of work is...you add it everywhere yourself. Most places will let you. For example, here's how to sell on Barnes and Noble.com. When I self-pubbed a book a few years back, before I ran the Press, I submitted my work by hand to several different options (B&N, Kobo, Amazon because I still used them then, Smashwords, to name a few). However, doing this isn't the same as distribution - it only will sell through that specific vendor - and as far as I know there are no options for doing print-on-demand those ways (I THINK, tho I'm not sure, that Amazon is the only place you can set up both e-book and pod through a single vendor - it's not something I've researched tho, cause with the Press, doing single-title-at-a-time entry across so many different vendors is simply not realistic).

Side note on this: I don't believe there's a way to list self-pub books on Bookshop.org, but don't quote me on that.

This method also doesn't work well if you want to get your title in with libraries. I researched this a bit well over a year ago now, so I don't recall all the details, but before we signed up for Ingram I DID try to see if there was a way for us to publish and get in libraries especially without involving them, but there...wasn't really. Places like Overdrive that handle e-book-to-library distribution don't really have a way for individuals to submit; I have this vague memory I found a way to do it that involved paying per title but tbh I can't even find that now (though while I was looking I did find this decent-looking article about how to get your self-published book out in the world, echoing a lot of what I say here).

Do It Yourself Difficult Mode

Your fifth major option, and what we originally did as a press, is: do it all yourself. You can get your own storefront (ours is through Woocommerce + Wordpress). You can do your own crowdfunding. You can run your own newsletter (I use Mailerlite), do your own advertising, etc. You can do your own printing (we currently use Booklogix and I'm quite happy with them, their customer service is A+++). You can vend at events, you can market to local bookstores, sell through bookstores that do consignment, etc. You can learn to format your own e-books (I use a combination of Affinity software and Calibre, with an assist from Daisy to improve the accessibility of our e-books). You can get access to stock images and vector art to make things look nice (I use vecteezy). There's a LOT you can do entirely on your own. And that's what I did for myself before I ran the Press, and what I did for the Press for the first couple years we operated.

The reason I changed how the Press handles things? I hate to say this but the sad truth of publishing is that not using Amazon is utterly crippling to a publisher. As of 2 years ago, Amazon represented 67% of all book sales in the United States. Not selling through Amazon means accepting you'll simply be completely unable to reach more than half of the people reading works in English all around the world (works not in English may be different, I don't know that market since I publish in English). And for myself, alone - for my works? I could make that choice. But the Press currently works with well over 100 authors, and I ultimately felt I couldn't make the same choice to them. I tried so so hard not to compromise this, but refusing all distribution, when we were also avoiding Amazon, meant completely hamstringing the ability of authors we work with to market and sell their books. It meant, to work with us, people would have to sacrifice so much of their ability to earn money from their words, and it just didn't feel right to continue in that avenue as we grew. So, I was forced to compromise: first to use Ingram, which I did on the condition that I'd be able to reject Amazon specifically, and then by having to use draft2digital, including their goddamn Amazon print-on-demand, at least until I qualify for a better option, which as soon as I can do? You bet your butt I'll be switching and opting out of Amazon again.

The current climate makes these choices really hard, and I didn't make them lightly, nor did I make them alone - there's about 20 people on the DPP staff, and they all contributed opinions and voted on the final decisions I implemented for the Press in these regards.

(and sorry, I know "what DPP does and why" is a bit to the left of your actual question, but I felt like it'd be weird to make a list of recommendations without including the decisions I've personally made and why - like, why would I recommend you something I don't do myself with the books I publish? So sorry for the info dump.)

The TL:DR of all this is, as far as I know, and as I've been forced to accept as part of the realities of running a small press in the modern world of publishing, is that avoiding one Big Evil (Amazon) with any hope of achieving even a modicum of success basically requires partnering with at least one other Big Evil (Ingram especially). It's a very hard game to win.

HOWEVER, you are doing this FOR YOURSELF, NOT for all the people involved in a business larger than just you. If you're willing to put in the extra work to figure out a lot on your own and manage your own marketing, you can theoretically build enough of an audience to go it alone without Amazon OR Ingram OR places like Kobo/B&N/etc. You'll have to outlay more out of pocket - things like webhosting cost money - and you'll have to be a lot more careful - if you're running your own website instead of using someone elses, you gotta go above and beyond making you're in compliance with privacy rules and such - but it can be done.

And if you don't want to go that route, and your only real "to avoid" is Amazon specifically... use IngramSpark.

Sorry I'm long-winded. I hope this helps! Good luck with your publishing goals!

(and if others reading this have some other advice and resources, things I may not know about, please do weigh in! I bet the asker would like to know, and I'm always eager to learn about new options too.)

[writingquestionsanswered]

I apologize if this has already been asked, but how does someone go about getting their novel published? Let’s say you’re got your story wrapped up in a nice pretty bow. But you don’t know the first steps to take in order to get it out into the world.

Publishing: Story's Done... Now What?

First, congratulations on finishing your novel! That, in and of itself, is a huge accomplishment!

If you want to get your book out into the world, the next step is to decide which publishing route you want to follow. There are three potential options, each with their own benefits, drawbacks, and pitfalls:

Online Publishing: Sites like Wattpad and Inkitt are online publishing platforms that allow writers to upload their novel and book cover so that it's available for readers to read online or via an app. Depending on what you write, this can be a great way to find readers and start building an audience. Both Wattpad and Inkitt offer the ability for the author to get paid.

Self-Publishing: Many writers choose to self-publish their books as e-books (and sometimes print books) using platforms like Kindle Direct Publishing, Draft2Digital, Barnes and Noble Press, Kobo Writing Life, Smashwords, and others. The benefit to self-publishing is that you maintain 100% control of everything, from rights to design to publishing timeline. You also get to keep a higher percentage of royalties and can get books out faster than you can with traditional publishing. The drawback to self-publishing is getting out a quality, polished book can take a lot of time and effort, and to do it really well you should hire a professional editor and cover designer.

Traditional Publishing: This is the route most people think of when they think of being a published author. Via this route, authors first query their manuscript to literary agents open to submissions. If in agent offers to represent you, they will find a publisher who is a good fit for your book. The interested publisher will offer you a book deal, and the agent helps with the whole process. Less often, writers query publishers directly, though few legitimate publishers accept manuscripts that aren't represented by an agent.

The main benefit of traditional publishing is there is no out-of-pocket cost to the writer, Everyone gets paid out of your book's sales. There's also a fairly good chance you'll receive an advance on royalties, meaning you'll get paid a small sum of money upfront, before your book is even published. You also have a whole team dedicated to helping you make your book the best it can be, and you're much more likely to see your book on bookstore shelves.

The drawbacks of pursuing traditional publishing are numerous. For one thing, it's a time consuming and often frustrating process. Most writers spend anywhere from a few months to a year "in the query trenches" before they find representation, if they ever do at all. The general estimate is that 1% to 2% of writers who pursue traditional publishing will end up with a book deal. Even if you do get a book deal, that doesn't mean your book will definitely be on bookstore shelves or that it will sell really well. There's a lot of competition for shelf space in bookstores, so many traditionally published books never see the inside of a bookstore. Regardless of whether or not a book is on bookstore shelves, only about 25% of traditionally published books sell well enough to earn out their advance, which means the advance is the only profit the author receives from the book. You will also still be responsible for doing the majority of your own marketing and promotion, so just as with self-publishing, how well your book sells can depend partly on how well you market it.

One thing that's true across the board... regardless of whether you choose online publishing, self-publishing, or traditional publishing, is that it's very unlikely to make you a living income. Most writers, whether they're self-published or traditionally published, have a "day job," a writing-related "side hustle" (like book editing, ghost writing, or hosting craft workshops), or they have an independent income such as being retired or having a spouse who supports them. So, don't choose a route because you think it's a fast-path to income or a surefire route to one.

How do you choose between the three? Before you choose a path, it's worth sitting down to take stock of what you want to get out of your publishing career. If you want full control over rights, content, cover design, and publishing timeline, self-publishing may be the best route for you. If you would prefer not to do anything other than write and revise, query, and some marketing, traditional publishing might be a good path. If you want full control over everything but don't want to do much other than write and revise, online publishing may be a good choice. Either way, there's tons of information out there about each option, so make sure to do more research into whichever paths interest you.

Older posts with added info:

Guide: A Quick Rundown on Publishing To Self-Publish or Traditionally Publish? 12 Sites for Sharing Original Fiction

Best wishes on whichever path you choose!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[thebibliosphere]

I'm uploading the paperbacks to draft2digital this week (the process is already SO much easier than Ingram Spark, holy shit, it's so much easier) in anticipation of Ingram Spark dropping me, and the "set your price" page just kind of floored me a little.

It calculates how much your book should be worth based on size/page count, and d2d is recommending that the Hunger Pangs paperbacks should be $24.99.

It will not let me set the price for what the book is currently retailing at because it will make negative money. Logged into KDP, and yep, I'm being prompted to change the price point there, too, because the increased cost of printing means I'm about to be earning negative money there as well.

And I'm just sitting here like... I remember when paperbacks of this size were $7.99, and I have never felt older. I thought I was being unreasonable charging $17.99. I just... I... who... what...

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

I cannot believe you ended book one of TTO:U like that. I sat there for 30 seconds trying to turn the page on my phone. So cruel! What do you have to say for yourself?

Blame draft2digital who didn't want to print my 1420 page book and made me split it into two

[copperbadge]

Because Royals/Ramblers is becoming very long and because Lulu has increased their minimum prices, I’ve been investigating alternate self-publishing options. @thebibliosphere recently warned me (well, not JUST me or anything) away from my primary candidate, Ingram Spark, and I trust Joy; she recommended Draft2Digital so that’s the next one I’m investigating. 

I figured I’d compile the short stories, which would be a relatively small book, and I could try selling that through whatever new channel I go with. It’s a good way to learn how their process works, check their quality, and see how you guys like it before I try it with something bigger. (This may take a while, I’m typesetting the document now but as with all new experiments it often takes extra time.) And if Draft2Digital doesn’t work out I can reissue the book fairly cheaply on Lulu. 

I am however running up against two issues:

1. What to call the thing. Right now I’m calling it “Dinner At The Palace” and that’s fine, but I feel like I can do better somehow. 

2. Do I include the one short story with sex in it? I don’t really want to make two versions of this thing, one with and one without; I also don’t want to place it at the end, because all the other stories are chronological. Maybe I need to consider removing it and saving it for a spicy volume at some point. The football novel has sex, I could add it into that one as a bonus I guess. 

I’m also going to have to do a few rewrites on Cryptofauna if I want to include it, but that’s less of an issue -- it just needs to be bumped from fall of 2022 to fall of 2021, for plot reasons. 

Typesetting is roughly ten thousand times easier now that I have a style guide to work from, I will say. It’s easy enough that I worry I’m missing something because there’s so much I don’t have to go look up.  

Anyway, Royals/Ramblers might be a minute but the short stories should be out in the next month or two, so that’s fun! And the book will come with a timeline of events-to-date so people can marvel at my inability to tell 2021 from 2022. 

And if Draft2Digital is any good, I might consider that overhaul I keep meaning to do, re-typsetting all my older novels to be contiguous with the new style guide and reissuing printings. 2024 will be 15 years since I first published Nameless, so it's tempting. Stressful but tempting.

[writeblrfantasy]

hi! I've been looking through your stuff for a while now and I'm super duper in awe of what you've been able to accomplish!! genuinely good for you and I'm happy for you !! I hope things have been well. ive been meaning to ask-- what are your tips for an author who is just starting out and wants to put out their own book but doesn't exactly know how to do that? thank you so much and keep up the incredible work !!!! xx

ohmygosh thank you!! i struggle with permanence so much and dont realize people actually hear me when i'm shouting into the tumblr self promo book void, let alone that real people read my books, so this is beyond flattering. thank you thank you. it really is messages like these that keep me going.

there is so much advice i could give- if you're looking for a literal how does one publish a book, draft2digital is what i use, and it's very starting/low budget author friendly because the ISBNs are free, there is no fee to upload your book, d2d formats it for you, is ebook and print copies, distributes to lots of stores, and gives you one link for every store in one place. plus their communication is fast, and the percentage of money they take is small. i truly can't recommend it enough.

in a more abstract answer, being an indie author is tough, i won't lie. it can feel like you're shouting into the void with no one listening, it can feel isolating, and you have to decide what your measure of success looks like for you, otherwise you can feel like you've never accomplished your goals and you're always reaching for something more.

however, i would say it's so, so worth it because your book will always be true to you, your cover, your blurb, your chapters, whatever you want it to be. for me, that control is more important.

believe in yourself. you are an author, you are not an impostor, and there is no such as "that sounds too intimidating for someone like me" or "someone like me wouldn't be able to pull that off" or "i don't even know where to begin" all doubts that kept me from publishing for a while. you- yes, YOU, can publish your own book! you can do it if you have a good support group and you believe you can get it done!

you too can hold your book in your hands and feel every childhood dream come true.

and if you have the funds, maybe hire a cover artist and an editor. don't drive yourself to the brink of madness like i do.

i might put together a masterlist of all my resources as an indie author. would anyone like to see that?

i hope this helped! if you have any more questions feel free to shoot me another ask! thanks again!