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Self-Publish a Novel

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Self-press to impress. Photo by Mirko Tobias Schaefer/flickr/CC
Self-press to impress. Photo by Mirko Tobias Schaefer/flickr/CC

The age-old curse of the writer is not writer’s block or carpal tunnel syndrome; it’s the endless swarm of acquaintances that, upon learning of your profession, immediately blurt out, “You should write a book!” Publishing a novel isn’t as easy as being a Mormon housewife who's obsessed with vampire romance, but it is certainly a lot easier than it used to be. Here, we investigate some ways to get your erotic adventure mystery or paranormal detective novel out of your head and into the hands of some readers.

This how-to was written by Adrienne So, a Wired.com writer and regular how-to contributor.

Contents

Don't Ignore Traditional Avenues

Just because your novel stands a significant chance of ending up in a slush pile at Harper Collins doesn’t mean that it can’t be a great success somewhere else. Investigate niche publishers: Native American lore? Fly-fishing techniques? There might just be someone for you.

Pick a Distributor

This is mostly a matter of personal preference, and how much effort you’re willing to expend on behalf of your recently birthed novel. Both Amazon and Barnes & Noble contract companies that make it pretty easy to upload your text and cover art. Amazon’s is called CreateSpace and the Nook's is called PubIt!, but starting a book with both is as simple as signing up for an account. Both will publish directly to their online stores. For wider distribution, consider a company like Smashwords, which bills itself as the world’s largest indie e-book distributor and which is compatible not only with iBookstore and the Nook, but with other lesser-known devices like the Kobo; or Lulu, which distributes both online and in print.

Alternatively, print-on-demand services like Lightning Source, will forgo all the frills and simply bump out your document as it's ordered. However, companies like these generally cater to more experienced self-publishers. There’s a reason why traditional publishing houses take a couple of months to produce a book, and that’s because formatting your document can be really hard.

Format Your Text

First, verify that the content of your novel doesn’t violate any of the distributor’s policies — Amazon, for example, doesn’t publish pornography. Obviously, make sure you’re not trying to sell anything that infringes on any previously existing copyrights or trademarks. Once you’ve taken advantage of a few style guides, gotten “you’re” and “your” straight and double-checked your place names, you’re ready to upload the text. We suggest looking up your distributor’s size guidelines and converting your text to a PDF first; as anyone who has ever tried to publish an academic paper can tell you, Microsoft Word is not your friend.

Study Your Market

So, ideally you would’ve done this before even writing your novel, lest you plunge your work into obscurity and a sea of copycat, thinly disguised Bear Grylls fanfiction. However, we can’t all be perfect.

Studying similar books is a good way to determine several things: Cover art, how to write your marketing copy and how much to charge. “Cover art?” you ask. “I’m publishing an e-book so that I wouldn’t have to worry about cover art!” Ah, but did you consider how your book will look as a thumbnail, both in the online store and in your customer’s library? CreateSpace has a number of different resources for designing a cover, but they’re inclined to tack on fees. If you’re not so visually inclined, we suggest investigating your own options for getting your cover — and possibly the rest of your manuscript — designed for you. Talk to friends, contact websites or artists you admire, or try freelancer.com.

When it comes to writing your biography and the quick description that will hopefully reel a reader in, you want to be succinct and punchy as possible. If you have any credentials relevant to the subject of your book, feel free to blow your own horn. (But don’t lie!)

And obviously, if every other Western romance is charging $5.99, it’s probably a bad idea to price yours at $12.99. Which brings us to…

Royalties, Or, Don't Expect Too Much

Some distributors, like Amazon’s CreateSpace, will give you the illusion that you can set your own list price and pick what your royalty percentage will be. Do not be fooled. Even CreateSpace gives its authors a suggested list price; PubIt! will simply set one for you. Your take will probably be within 30 to 60 percent of your list price, which, if you start out at about $2.99 a copy, is about $0.80 per book sold.

But don’t worry about it. For every Amanda Hocking, there are a million authors — even famous ones — struggling from paycheck to paycheck. And completing a novel is a remarkable achievement in and of itself.


This page was last modified 22:09, 29 March 2012 by amyzimmerman. Based on work by jyakku.

All text and artwork shared under a Creative Commons License.
 
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