This is why we can’t have nice things

Photo credit: Stewart via Flickr Creative Commons

There’s been a bit of craziness going on this week in the world of writers and book bloggers, and the fallout makes me sad. As usual, a few people behave badly and it ruins things for the rest of us. It’s frustrating, but I can’t be too angry about it because the reactions are, in my opinion, completely justified.

For those who haven’t been following it, there’s been a lot of drama over on GoodReads the last week or so regarding authors, reviews and book bloggers. I love GoodReads, and have always enjoyed the community there, but this is the Internet, after all. Drama was bound to happen one way or another. It’s the nature of the beast.

This particular drama stemmed from reviewers being attacked by authors who couldn’t handle critical reviews of their books. Many of these authors were indies, or self-published, but some were traditionally published as well. It blew up, as things online tend to do, and people started to “bully” these authors, which blew up even more as everything got completely out of hand and another group of people formed with the aim to stop these “bullies,” and by doing so basically became bullies themselves. (Here’s an article that explains it better than I can: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/foz-meadows/stop-the-gr-bullies-a-response_b_1690469.html) As a result, many book bloggers have decided to change their policies and no longer accept review requests from self-published authors, in an effort to protect themselves from future crazies.

As a self-published author myself, this is sad news. However, given the impetus for the policy changes, I can’t really fault them. Too many authors lately have been acting like children: attacking bloggers for giving honest reviews, pouting when they don’t review their books immediately, threatening to find their personal information and expose them. Grown-ups should not behave this way. Not only is it unprofessional, but that is not how you treat another human being. The Internet has stripped away our manners. People feel like they can say and do whatever they want online because they’re not faced with the people they’re talking to. Well, those are still people, and your mother raised you better than that. Don’t even get me started on how people behave when discussing politics. I may completely avoid the Internet in September and October!

But this post isn’t about politics. It’s about authors and book bloggers and how recent events have changed that dynamic.

I love book bloggers. Without them, I would have very few sales outside of my family and friends. And while I love that those family and friends enjoyed my book and posted good reviews about it, it’s the impartial reviews from bloggers and other readers that helps sell a book, even if those reviews aren’t all 5 stars. So I’m grateful to the critical reviewers just as much as to those who loved the book and gave it heaps of praise. (I still prefer the praise, of course. Who wouldn’t?) Having those less-than-glowing reviews help give my book credibility. As a reader, if I see a book with only a few reviews, and all of them 4 or 5 stars, my first instinct is to write it off because they’re probably all written by the author’s friends. So when I got my first 3-star review, I was actually kind of excited. I even have a couple of 2-stars now, though no 1-stars yet (knock on wood). As long as my overall rating is good, I feel like the variety of reviews gives my book a legitimacy that will hopefully attract more readers. The more reviews and exposure I get, the better, and book bloggers are essential for that because I’m terrible at promoting myself.

However, I don’t feel that book bloggers are my personal marketing tools, or that they have any obligation to me as the writer of a book they’ve been given to review. Book bloggers have lives outside of their blog. They have jobs and families like the rest of us, and can’t always read 24 hours a day. I can’t even imagine the sheer number of review requests some of them get, or the size of their TBR piles. Hell, my TBR pile is huge, and those are only the books that I bought or checked out from the library to read for fun. Imagine having that on top of piles of books you’ve been sent to read by publishers and authors. I read pretty fast (I’ve already read 65 books this year), and I think I would be overwhelmed with all of that staring me down day after day. Then to have to write a thoughtful, informative and entertaining review for each one? I wouldn’t be able to do it. And because I know I couldn’t do it, I have immense respect for those who do. Which is why I would never, in a million years, attack them for sharing their opinion or whine at them for not reviewing my book fast enough (or at all) after sending them a copy. I’ve sent out a lot of review requests in the months (nearly a year now!) since I released DESTINED, and while most bloggers were interested enough to ask for the ePub or Kindle file, not all have gotten around to reviewing it. I’m all right with that. I understood at the time I sent the requests that they have long lists of books to read, and that mine would most likely end up at the bottom of said list. My being self-published probably doesn’t help bump me up either, but again, I accept that. I’m happy they were interested enough to say yes, and that’s enough for me. If they ever get time to read it and decide to write a review, that’s icing on the cake. It doesn’t cost me anything to send that ePub or Kindle file, after all. And if they read it and don’t like it, and therefore decide against writing a review, I accept that as well. Most bloggers are very clear in their review policy that they may not review every book they read, or read every book they are given. Why is this concept so hard to grasp?

I will NEVER comment to a review on GoodReads or Amazon or any other book review site, good or bad. I will comment to a blogged review if it’s one I personally requested only to say thank you, unless the blogger or another commenter asks a specific question of me. If a reviewer mentions something in a review that I disagree with, I will keep it to myself. I’ve had reviewers—not bloggers, just general reader reviews— get character names wrong, mention things that didn’t actually happen (or question things that did happen, but that they seem to have missed), or criticize particular choices I made in the plot or pacing. Sometimes I agree with these criticisms, while other times I admit there is a temptation to reply and defend myself, especially if a critical point is based on something the reader missed or misunderstood. But I won’t do that because I don’t believe it’s my place to reply to reviews in that manner. GoodReads and other review sites are there for readers to share their opinions, not for authors to soothe their egos. If you’re going to be an author, you have to develop a thick skin about reviews. Not everyone is going to love your baby, no matter how amazing you think it is. Just like there will always be people who love something that others think is pure crap. That’s the great thing about books: there’s something out there for everyone.

So while I’m disappointed that there will be fewer book bloggers out there willing to read my next release (if I ever finish editing the damn thing), I don’t blame them for needing to change their policies. Self-publishing is a wonderful thing, but it’s a double-edged sword. It’s fabulous because anyone can publish a book, but at the same time… anyone can publish a book. Not everyone that publishes is ready for what comes next. Once you hit that “publish” button and send your book out into the world, you also give up control over what happens to it. You’ve done your part, now it’s time for readers to do theirs: read it and, if so moved, discuss it with other readers. Take any criticism that comes along (silently) and use it to make your next book better. That’s what I’m doing. All I can do now is hope that, by the time I release my next book, some of this drama has died down and bloggers will be more open to accepting self-published books again.

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Marketing and promotion

When I decided to self-publish, I knew it wasn't going to be easy, and I knew I wasn't going to be an overnight bestseller (or even ever a bestseller, unless I was incredibly lucky). And I knew that my biggest struggle was going to be promoting and marketing myself. Despite minoring in Marketing in college, it's not my forte. I think that's due to my introverted nature: I'm not good at asking people to buy my book.

An example: I was at dinner with my parents a week or so ago, and our waitress caught sight of the book I was reading on my phone (the Kindle app was on the cover image at the time) and got all excited because she recognized it: it was written by her aunt, Jeaniene Frost. Small world, huh? After that, my parents urged me to tell her about my book the next time she came back to the table. I felt uncomfortable doing so, partly because she said she doesn't usually read books. But even if she was a big reader, I'd have felt awkward pushing my book on her. I don't like when people hard sell to me, so I'm overly sensitive to doing it with others. In the end, my father did it for me, and she acted like she was interested in checking it out, though I really doubt she remembered my name five minutes later.

Promoting online is a little easier, but I find it difficult to find places to do so. The big places are too expensive, and many of the others are booked solid far in advance. I have one small promotion set to go at the beginning of February, so I hope that generates some interest, and I've done a few giveaways. I know some authors are having success with Amazon's KDP Select program, but I don't like the exclusivity requirement, and since Destined is my only book right now, it wouldn't benefit me in terms of generating interest in backlist. I had an ad on GoodReads that didn't really do much, and ads on Facebook that I turn on and off occasionally. They get me a lot of likes on my Facebook page, and seem to generate a few sales, but in the end, the cost of the ad ends up more than the royalties I get from the sales. Still, it's books I might not have sold otherwise, so I'll take what I can get. I have a bunch of requests out for book blog reviews, and while many said they were interested, only a few have read it yet. Those that have gave it 4-5 stars, so I keep hoping more will get to it soon. Reviews are key, and the more I can get, the better. I only wish more people would review on Amazon. I get a lot of ratings and reviews on GoodReads, but only have 8 on Amazon.

I know the best promotion is publishing more books, so that's what I'm trying to work on. I have one with a beta reader right now, another that's on hold so I can get some distance from it before editing some more, and a third I've recently dusted off. It still needs an ending, but it has one thing going for it the other two don't: it has a TITLE. (For me, this is a big thing. Titles stump me like nobody's business.) It's also kind of a dystopia, which is big right now, so I feel like it would be smart to take advantage of the trend while it's hot. I would never write specifically to fit a current trend, but since the book is already (mostly) written, I might as well make the most of it, right?

I just wish there was some magical, easy way to get people to see my book. But there isn't, so I will continue to slog on, and try to find more time to get a second book out there. If only I didn't need my day job, then I'd have all the time in the world.

Any other authors out there with advice on promotion that worked for them? Or readers who'd like to share how they find books? I know personally, most of my book discoveries come from GoodReads, with the occasional suggestion from Amazon's "also bought" lists or book blogs For those of you on GoodReads, how do you feel when an author sends you a message promoting his/her book? I'm leery of doing that, but it's an option I consider now and then.

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More promotion frustration

The good news first: I got my first book blogger review yesterday, and it was 5 stars! http://www.bittenbyparanormalromance.com/2011/09/review-destined-by-allison-kraft.html

I was very excited to read it, and the blog has a fairly large following, so I was anxious to see how the review impacted my sales. Unfortunately… not so much. I know it’s only the next day, but I only sold one Kindle book yesterday, and the Nook, Smashwords and paperback stats didn’t change. So that’s frustrating. Maybe I’m just too impatient, or maybe that blog wasn’t the right audience for Destined. (It’s a paranormal romance blog, but with emphasis on erotic romance. I submitted mine on the off chance they didn’t mind “clean” romance as well, and got lucky that a reviewer happened to be looking for something like that. She loved the book, but if the blog’s followers all prefer erotic romance, then that could be why no one’s buying.)

It’s frustrating to know you have a good product out there, yet can’t seem to get anyone to look at it. I’ve sent it to a bunch of reviewers, got some positive responses that sound like they’re going to read it eventually (many just haven’t responded at all, one way or the other) and joined a bunch of GoodReads groups and other reading-centric message boards. Problem is, in order for the latter to get you anywhere, you have to be an active member of the community, and that takes a lot of time. Time I don’t really have unless I stop working on my next book.

I’ve been getting such good feedback on the book so far. Granted, most of it is from friends and family, but even though they might be more prone to liking it because they know me, they’ve been very positive; more than they needed to be. Like staying up half the night to finish it because they couldn’t stop reading, or saying it made them cry. One lent it to a friend (who doesn’t know me), and that friend liked it enough that she went back and re-read the ending, and said that she was up late one night because she couldn’t stop thinking about parts of it. I love to hear these things, because it tells me that I wrote something that people are genuinely enjoying. I just wish I knew some magic promotion formula to get others to know it exists!

Well, enough whining. Time to go work on editing that second book. The sooner I can have it ready to publish, the better my chances of being noticed. They say the bet promotion is to have more than one book out for people to discover. Thank goodness I already have a few finished, because if I had to start writing the next one from scratch, who knows how long it would take me to finish at this rate!

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All right Smashwords, you win

I resisted for as long as I could. I really, really didn’t want to have to deal with Smashwords to get my book out there, but the more I researched alternate sales avenues, the more I came to realize: there aren’t any alternate sales avenues. At least, none that work very well.

I gave up on Google Books today. They’re impossible to deal with, they give away too much of the book for free, and I haven’t been able to get them to do the one thing I wanted: sell my ebook! So I sent them a request today to remove my book and account. It isn’t worth the hassle. Kobo is just as bad. Despite multiple emails, I have never received a response to my inquiries about publishing directly to them. So again, I give up.

Smashwords won. I spent all freaking day converting my book to Word format. It was tedious and I have a massive headache, but for the most part, it came out well. I had to give up on some of the fancier things in my hand-coded ebooks: the fancy chapter titles (images – too big a hassle in Word) and the footnotes in the research notes section at the end. So the book is more plain-looking, but it does the job. My only issue so far is that, for some reason, the formatting in the HTML (the read online) edition is still screwy. It won’t center anything except the headings. Very irritating. Though it was worse the first time I submitted it. That time, anything I styled in anything other than the Default (OpenOffice’s version of “Normal”) paragraph style was showing up in a different font than the rest of the book. It looked awful. Again, only in HTML format. So I fixed that, but ended up losing my centered text in the process. Frankly, my head hurts too much to care at this point. As long as the ePub and other formats look fine (which they do), I don’t really care that much about the HTML one. That’s not the version other stores will be selling – it’s only viewable at Smashwords, and most people aren’t going to buy through that site. I have to pick my battles, and I’m tired, so I’ll give up that one.

Still, the best version of my ebook is going to be what people buy directly from Amazon or Barnes & Noble, because I was able to publish Kindle and Nook on my own, using the files I hand-formatted.  But at least now everyone can buy my book, regardless of which reader they prefer. I felt like I was discriminating against the other ereaders by only offering Kindle and Nook. Now I feel better, and maybe once it’s on those other sites, my sales will pick up a little! Here’s hoping it doesn’t take forever to pass Premium Catalog approval. I’ve heard that can takes weeks sometimes.

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Print isn’t dead

Perhaps I’m not the norm here, but judging by my sales so far, print is definitely not dead yet. I have 15 sales – not a ton, I realize, but it’s a start – and of those 15, 7 are print copies. (7 print, 7 Kindle and 1 Nook) I’m finding that as I promote the book to people I know, more often than not, they don’t have an ereader, and therefore wouldn’t have been able to get my book if I wasn’t offering a paperback edition.

I guess the lesson to other self-publishers is: offer a print edition.

It really isn’t hard. There are print-on-demand companies like CreateSpace and Lulu that make the process relatively painless, and it’s not too expensive to get it going. Personally, I used CreateSpace, and the only cost I’ve incurred so far is the $39 Pro Plan (which lets me get higher royalties and makes their Extended Distribution available if I choose to utilize it later on). The ISBN was free, and I created the PDF and cover myself, so there was no cost there. Now, if you don’t have the software or experience to do those things on your own, you’ll have to outsource, but you need a cover even for an ebook, so you’ll have already faced that issue anyway. And making a PDF of the interior isn’t that difficult. I used Adobe InDesign, but I’m pretty sure word processing programs like Word can do it as well.

Point is, if you self-publish and choose to only publish ebooks, you’re probably losing some sales. Not everyone is on board the ebook bandwagon yet, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel right lecturing them on how you can still read ebooks on your computer via apps like Kindle for PC (or Nook for PC). Personally, I can’t read anything longer than a blog post on a computer screen without getting a horrific eye strain headache. That’s why I prefer my Kindle and don’t use my iPad as an ereader. Backlit LCD is not kind on the eyes, and I think that’s why a lot of people are resistant to ebooks.

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Self-promotion is hard

As I was getting ready to start this post, I spotted something pretty darn exciting: someone gave Destined 5 stars over on GoodReads!  What’s even more exciting is, it’s not a friend or family member!  Unfortunately, most people that see I have one 5 star rating will assume it’s a friend and disregard it, which sucks, but what can you do? Hopefully more ratings and reviews will start coming in as people have time to finish reading. I wish there was a way to mark the rating with a “I don’t know this person, I swear!” notation. ;)

Anyway, great rating aside, things are going pretty slowly so far. I had a bunch of sales right after I announced to my friends that I had published, then the sales stopped. I haven’t had a single sale yet in September, and it’s starting to bum me out a little. I knew this was going to be hard, so I expected things would be slow at first, but expecting it and actually experiencing it aren’t the same. Frankly, it sucks.

My problem, however, is that I’m terrible at self-promotion. I shouldn’t be: I minored in marketing in college and worked for a few years in the promotion department of a record label. I know how promotion works. I just can’t seem to do it when I’m promoting myself  I think I’m too self-conscious. I guess what I need to do is get online and start researching ways to get my book out there.

So far, I’ve promoted it to my friends, told my family (and by extension, some of those friends and family have told their friends, which was incredibly nice of them), bought an ad on GoodReads, started a GoodReads giveaway, signed up for a bunch of sites like authorsden.com and Shelfari, and put up a post on Absolute Write in their promotion thread. But that’s not very much, and I know I need to do more.

I think of all of those, I’m getting the most mileage from the giveaway. I already have over 300 people requesting it and 83 users adding it to their shelves. The problem with that is none of them are going to buy the book until the giveaway is over, if they ever buy it at all. I’m not complaining: I’ll take whatever exposure I can get! But more sales sure would be nice.

I need more reviews. That’s going to help the most, I’m sure. But I can’t ask people to review the book without feeling like an obnoxious nag. It also might help is people tag it on Amazon (there’s a section on each book listing where users can select tags that apply to the book. In my case, I have it tagged with variations of paranormal romance, time travel, vampires, etc.) I’ve read that more tags can equal more visibility when people are searching for something to read. But again, I can’t seem to bring myself to ask my friends to go do that. What I probably should do is find bloggers who do reviews and see if any are interested in reviewing mine. I can gift them a copy of the ebook pretty easily, either through Amazon or by emailing it directly.

I don’t want to pay for a lot of advertising: I don’t think it works as well, and it’s expensive. I only did it on GoodReads because I know at least there, everyone that sees the ads already love to read. I wish I could afford one of the bigger ads they have (the flash ones on the main pages), because those are the ads I personally notice and sometimes click on. I never click the smaller ads, so it doesn’t surprise me much that mine hasn’t gotten many clicks yet. *sigh* So frustrating!

Anyone out there have tips on promotions methods that have worked for you?

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The highs and lows of publishing

Destined has been officially released now for almost a week. It’s exciting. And scary. And just about everything in between. But overall, it’s a good feeling to finally have it out there, and have people interested in it. Granted, for now most of those people are friends and family, but everyone has to start somewhere, right?

First bit of news: I have a giveaway!  This one is on GoodReads, but I may consider doing one on my site/blog later on for those who aren’t members of GR. I can’t get their widget to show right due to my site formatting, so here’s the link: http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/14178-destined

It’s exciting to see the number of people requesting go up every day. And some of those people also add my book to their to-read list, which is even better. It means they were interested enough in it that, if they don’t win, they’re more likely to buy a copy. Pretty good publicity for something that is only going to cost me two books and postage! I also have a paid ad on the site, one of those pay-per-click ones. So far it’s only been clicked once, but it only started yesterday.

As for the lows, thankfully, there haven’t been many yet *knock on wood* That first night of sleeplessness once I’d announced the book publicly and was freaking out over it wasn’t fun, but I imagine it’s something every writer goes through. And it only lasted the one night, which was a relief. I also need to stop myself from compulsively checking sales stats every few hours. That is going to get annoying. I have a mildly obsessive personality, so that’s not helping matters. Again, probably something most new writers do, especially self-published ones. I’m sure I’m not alone in my neuroses.

Another bad thing: despite my numerous (and I do mean numerous) editing and proofing passes, I missed a typo. It’s on the first page of Chapter 8, some rogue T that ended up before the word relieved (so it says “trelieved”). That’s one downside to using InDesign for laying out the book: spell check isn’t automatic. You have to tell it when to run, and since I have each chapter as its own file, I would have had to run it on each file (there are over 20). I started to do that, but around Chapter 5 or 6, got tired of it finding nothing but words that weren’t actually wrong (names, places, foreign words, etc.), and gave up. I see now I should have stuck with it. My original draft was written in Works, which does check spelling as you go, but I think that was a part I changed after I’d started putting the book together, which is why it slipped past me. Ah well. I’m only human, right? And big-picture, it appears to be the only typo I missed, and is only in the paperback (ebooks are fine), so that’s good. Major publishers have typos, too, and usually more than just one. Still, lesson learned: definitely have another person read your book before you publish. It’s advice I read more times than I can count, but I ignored it because I know I’m a good proofreader, and thought that as long as I read it through multiple times, I’d find everything. Live and learn.

Yet another bad thing: I discovered last night that someone has taken one of my blog posts and copy/pasted it into their own blog. No link back to me, though my name is in the subject line. I think that’s because the RSS feed for my blog tacks the title of the blog at the start of every subject. Anyway, it’s annoying, but I’m working on dealing with it. It’s clearly a blog set up just to copy other blog posts that reference Kindle (it’s called Kindle Info 101) and other ereader-related news. What ticked me off is that they’ve made it nearly impossible to contact the blog owner. The contact form doesn’t work: you get a “failed to send” message when you try to submit. And while each post has a link to log in and leave a comment, the blog doesn’t have user registration enabled, so you really can’t leave a comment. In the end I had to do a WHOIS search on the domain name to get the email address for the site owner. Naturally, whoever’s behind the site doesn’t want to be found, so they used an identity protection service to register the domain. I sent an email anyway, asking that they remove my post, and if I don’t hear back (I don’t suspect I will), I’ll contact the identity protection site’s admin. They have a contact email to file copyright infringement claims. I hope I don’t have to take it that far, though. I’m not entirely sure it counts as infringement, since my name technically is on the post (in the title). It’s not explicitly credited to me, and the post doesn’t link to my original blog post, but that may only count as being rude, not illegal. I guess we’ll see what happens. It’s only one post, so it’s not that big a deal. It just irks me. I’ve been plagiarized in the past (someone took things I wrote online and posted them on another site as though they were the author), so I’m extra sensitive to it.

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It’s out!

Destined is finally available for sale!

Print: $9.99 at CreateSpace for now. It’s supposed to be on Amazon as well, but for some reason it hasn’t shown up there yet.

eBook: $2.99 for Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble NOOK 

It’s also available for Kindle at Amazon UK and Amazon.de (in English)

I’m looking into getting a general ePub version available for those who have other types of readers.

 

*happy dance*

 

All in all, this was a relatively painless process.  Sure, formatting the books was time-consuming (I started seriously working on self-pubbing in late April), but it was fulfilling to see the finished product. My only complaint would be that once I finally hit that magic button to publish the book, the wait seemed to last forever. I think part of that was my own impatience, though.

The Kindle DTP site was fastest. Within less than 24 hours, the book was available on Amazon’s site for Kindle. It’s still a little weird to search for, though. It only seems to show up if you search for my name. When I do a search for “Destined,” I get a whole big list of books and mine is somewhere buried deep down in the list of results. I guess that’s what I get for using a single word as my title.

I uploaded my file to PubIt for Nook at the same time as the Kindle DTP file, but it only showed up on bn.com today. I was starting to wonder if it would ever show up there! So Nook took more like 72 hours. I don’t know if that’s the norm, or just my bad luck or what. But at least it’s there! I can’t say the same for CreateSpace. I published there on Wednesday as well (first thing in the morning, so sooner than the ebooks, which I did after work that afternoon), and while it’s available to purchase from CreateSpace directly, it has yet to show up on Amazon. From what I’ve been reading, it can take up to a week for that to happen, though most people seem to have seen theirs show up sooner than that. Again, my bad luck, probably.

Another tiny gripe with CreateSpace: they were always really quick to print and ship my proofs. Both times, it would ship less than 24 hours after I ordered it. But when I finally published, I ordered a small batch of books for myself (only 5 for now), and although I ordered it first thing Wednesday, they didn’t ship until today. So again with the waiting. IT’s not that big a deal, really. I guess I just got used to how quick they were with the proofs, and thought they’d be that fast all the time.

But like I said before, all in all, I’m happy with the publishing process. Now for the hard part: promotion. I’m still waiting for GoodReads to approve me as an author so I can set up a giveaway there. I’ll be sure to announce it here and on my website whenever that does happen. Everyone likes free books, right?

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Cover tips for print

I mentioned in a previous post that when I first uploaded my book to CreateSpace, I got a message that the cover had transparent layers, and that flattening them had resulted in a color shift. I debated leaving it and waiting to see if it really did look any different or not (some accounts I found online claimed they got the same message, but that the cover looked fine). But in the end, the perfectionist in me won out and I looked up how to flatten the cover myself, so that I would be sure everything would look exactly how I wanted it.

In case anyone else comes across a similar problem, this is what I learned:

When saving a file in PDF format that is compatible with Adobe 5 or higher, transparency and layers are retained. This is supposed to be to avoid shifts and changed colors from the flattening process, and since a lot of PDFs are only viewed online and not printed, it works fine. But some printers (apparently, CS is one of them) have to have the file flattened completely before they print, so a PDF with transparent layers is a problem. They can flatten it themselves, but sometimes this results in the previously-mentioned color shift (where a layer moves slightly and has that blurred/double-vision/3D-without-the-glasses look). Depending on what program you’re using, you can sometimes flatten the image before saving it to a PDF (Photoshop is one that lets you do this), but not all can. In my case, I was using a combination of Photoshop and Illustrator to do my cover. I did the background image in Photoshop, then used Illustrator to do the text and other elements, because Illustrator is a vector program and therefore gives me better end resolution, as well as more freedom with the text layout and other elements.

Anyway, I tried a few different things to get my PDF flat, and after some trial and error, came up with a way that worked for me. First, rather than placing the background PSD file (the Photoshop file with all the layers) directly into my Illustrator file, I saved the background as a high-res TIFF. This flattened the layers in the background, but still gave me a high-resolution image, which is necessary to maintain good print quality. I found later that this step was necessary, because when I was using the PSD, I was getting weird lines everywhere from Adobe trying to flatten it all into the PDF later. Flattening the background on its own and using a TIFF got rid of those lines.

Then, I exported my cover to a PDF as I had before. I tried exporting directly to an Adobe 4-compatible file, which is supposed to flatten everything, but I didn’t like how the end result looked. I had the line problem again, for one, and it made me nervous. So instead I kept the default PDF settings, then opened the resulting PDF in Acrobat Professional (I don’t think this works in Adobe Reader, sadly). Under the Advanced menu, I went to PDF Optimizer, clicked on the Transparency field on the left side of the box that came up, and selected “High Resolution” from the Preset options. Then OK. Give it a new name so you don’t overwrite the non-flattened file (in case something goes wonky and you need to try it again), and there you have it: a flattened PDF. Of course, this is just what worked for me. Other programs will have other ways of flattening, and for some, exporting straight to an Adobe 4-compatible file may work just fine. But if it doesn’t, flattening in Acrobat worked for me, so it might work for you as well.

One other note: for some reason, after flattening a PDF, you might see faint lines around certain parts of the image. This freaked me out at first, but it turns out most of the time, they’re just glitches in how your monitor is processing the file, and not problems with the file itself. (In other words, the phantom lines are just that: phantoms. They won’t print.) The best way to be sure this is the case with your file is to zoom in on an area that has a line. If the width of the line doesn’t change, or it goes away at higher magnifications, than it’s an issue with the monitor’s output, and not a line in the actual file. If the line stays there and increases in size along with everything else, then you have a problem. This is what happened to me before I flattened my PSD file: I had a thin line where one layer met another, and it would have printed that way if I hadn’t fixed it. But if your lines are the same size at 1600% magnification as they are at 100%, then you can breathe easy. It will print just fine. (Or at least, it will print without the lines.)

In other news, my proof is coming today, and if it' looks good, then I’m going to set my release date for this Friday! Woo!

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My ePub file is finally awesome

But before I get to that: I’ve uploaded the final part of my book excerpt, Chapter Three! I’ve also re-uploaded chapters 1 & 2 because I made some minor changes in them as I was going through my print proof. My second proof was ordered today, so barring anything crazy with that, I hope to be ready to publish by the end of next week. Exciting!

Now, on to the original point of this post. While I wait for that second proof to print and ship to me, I’ve been going through the ebook files to make sure they’re all clean and perfect and ready to go. I want to be able to publish all versions at once, so as soon as the print edition is good, I’m going to hit the button on everything. Which means I need to make sure my Kindle and ePub files are as sparkling and wonderful as possible.

I’ve been going through the ePub first (for Nook, since that seems to be the only platform I can publish to on my own right now), and found a few errors. Easy enough to fix, but as I was looking them over in the Nook for PC and Adobe Digital Editions readers, I noticed some other things that weren’t working quite right. First, in Adobe Digital Editions, the table of contents pane was empty, with a message that the book didn’t have a TOC. Well, that’s not true! I spent quite a lot of time coding a toc.ncx file so my TOC would show up in any reader! Google to the rescue: it turned out I had a tiny bit of that code wrong. In case anyone comes across a similar problem, here’s what fixed it for me:

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The importance of the proof

When I submitted my files for the print edition of Destined, I was sure they were prefect, and that I wasn't going to have to make any corrections. Even better, CreateSpace was having a promotion where the first proof was free (plus shipping), so I thought I was going to get this done pretty cheaply. Ha.

Despite the numerous edits I've done (NUMEROUS), I still managed to miss things. There's something about reading on actual paper, I think, that makes it easier to spot errors. Up until now, I'd been proofing either on the computer, on my iPad, or on the Kindle/Nook. eInk is nearly as good as paper, but it's still not quite the same, because you're still reading on a device. Or maybe I just wasn't looking closely enough before, who knows. Point is, reading through that first print proof was good, because I caught more than I expected.

The weirdest mistake I hadn't noticed before (partly because it's only in the print version)? Backwards apostrophes!  Somehow, when I was writing the book in Microsoft Works, it auto-formatted some of the apostrophes wrong, and I never noticed. They're small, so unless you look closely, you can't really tell. But it's there, and now that I've spotted them, they're driving me nuts. Thank goodness for find/replace, because there's no way I would have caught them all with my naked eye!

My story's probably a good lesson in favor of hiring an outside editor, but I'm stubborn about editing my own stuff. Besides, all these editing passes I've done have turned up more than just mistakes: they've shown me parts of the book that can be improved, and I think the end result is much better for it. It was time-consuming, but worth it. Call me a control freak, but I still prefer to do everything myself.

Now all that's left is doing one last skim to make sure the changes I made don't have errors, and finally getting that author photo taken, so I can put it on the cover before I submit for the second proof. Then while I'm waiting for the proof to ship, I can go through the ebooks to make sure they're still okay. (A lot of the changes I made were more than formatting, so I had to change the Kindle and ePub as well.)

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It’s here!

The proof of my print edition arrived today! It's all shiny and pretty and I'm in love with it. I haven't had a chance to really go through it to look for errors, but the quick scan I did looks good, so I'm hopeful.

I'd prefer not to have to resubmit and buy another proof, but if I do find something inside that needs fixing, I may also tweak the cover a little. For one thing, it printed a tad bit darker than I intended. I find that problem crops up a lot with printing—something will look perfect on a monitor, but will print dark. Still, it's only a slight bit darker, and I doubt anyone but me would even notice. I also may change the description on the back. I used the one from my website, but have since edited it a little (nothing drastic, just a few words here and there), and now that I'm looking at the book, I'm wondering if it isn't too wordy. The font size is a little small due to the length, and a bit light as well (it's white on black). I could cut down the amount of text and therefore make the font bigger and/or bolder, without taking up more space. And if I'm going to be doing that, I really should get an author photo taken to add to the back cover. I don't have one right now, and I don't think it's too big a deal for it to not be there, but if I'm going to be resubmitting, might as well add it, right?

I have to say, I'm really impressed with the quality of the book. Coming from a POD, I was worried it was going to look "homemade," but it really doesn't. If I didn't know any better, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between it and a traditionally-published trade paperback! The one thing that glares at me right now is the lack of publisher name/logo on the spine. Every book has that, and since I chose not to start my own company right now, I don't have a publisher name to use there. Hm. Maybe I should come up with a logo for myself and put it there instead?

For those of you who are considering self-publishing and are wondering which POD to use, I highly recommend CreateSpace. Great quality product, quick and easy process, no complaints at all so far. And by buying the $39 pro plan, I'm able to keep the selling price under $10 and still make a small profit on each book I sell through Amazon.com. (I'd have to go up to $11 or more to profit on the extended distribution channels, but I have no plans to use those now, so it's not a concern to me.)

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Coming into the home stretch

First bit of happiness: my print proof shipped yesterday! Depending on how fast the shipping is, I may have it in my hands by the weekend. Patience is not my strongest suit, so this is just about killing me. Best thing about it, though, is that if all goes well, and I don’t have to make any major corrections, there’s a good chance I’ll be able to release in all formats before the end of the month. Which means my book will be out in time for my mother’s birthday on the 29th. I think that’s a birthday present she’ll really like, especially since she has NO clue I’m doing this yet. I’ve been very stealthy.

While I wait for the proof, I’ve firmed up the Kindle and ePub versions for Amazon and B&N. I think they’re both ready to go once my print version is proofed and approved. I’m waiting for more information from Kobo about publishing to their site, and am debating whether or not to publish to Google Books as well.  Sony and Apple, sadly, aren’t in the cards right now. Both are too difficult to get into without using an aggregator, and I have no interest in dealing with Smashwords. The only other option to get into the iBookstore is Lulu, but after researching that for a while yesterday, I’ve decided it doesn’t look as do-able as I’d originally thought. If I could just use them to publish to Apple and nothing else, I would. But it looks like if I used them, they’d want to handle other versions as well, and I don’t want that. I’ll keep checking it out, though. If I could afford it, I’d buy a Mac and upload it myself, but that’s not financially viable right now, and it seems to be the only way to publish directly to them. Too bad an iPad isn’t good enough: that I have!

So now that my formatting is all done and the print proof is ordered, I find myself turning my attention to the upcoming release and necessary promotion that goes along with it. I have to say, it’s a little daunting. Being an introvert, the idea of going out there and promoting myself to strangers is not as comfy as I’d like. But I know it needs to be done!

So far, I’ve got the Facebook and Twitter accounts set up, and have been trying to stay active on both. Today, I set up a GoodReads account (http://www.goodreads.com/AllisonKraft), which I will be converting into an author page once DESTINED is released. Sadly, it doesn’t look like you can set yourself up as an author until there’s a book to link to.  Same goes for setting up an Author Central page at Amazon.com. I’m also considering doing a giveaway at GoodReads, and possibly buying some ad space there. I know personally, as a frequent user of the site, I have clicked on many ads and ended up adding quite a few to my TBR list, so I’m hoping advertising there will be a good investment.

That’s the easy stuff, though, because it doesn’t require too much effort on my part. But in order to really get my name and book out there, I’m going to have to find more active ways to put my book in front of people. Which means being more social. Eek!

I also really need to take a good author photo to use on all of these websites. I hate being photographed, and I never like pictures of me when I do allow them to be taken. This isn’t going to be fun. Too bad I can’t use my high school senior photo. I think that’s the last one I actually liked. I have a nice DSLR camera (photography is a hobby), and have tried photographing myself a few times with a tripod/remote combo, but haven’t liked any of the results. Frustrating.

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Release Date. Sort of.

One of the downsides I've found with self-publishing is that you can't really set a firm release date. When you're done editing and formatting and are ready to go, you submit your files to the various sites (Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, CreateSpace, etc.) and then wait for them to approve and publish your book. There's no guarantee exactly when that will happen, and you can't tell them to wait until a specific date to do it (at least, not that I've seen). So I can't really say "DESTINED will be out August 29th!" because I can't know for sure that it will be out then.

What I can say is that, if all goes well, I believe the book will be available for sale in both print and ebook format by the end of August. Print will be available on Amazon.com and from CreateSpace's estore for $9.99. The ebook will be available for Kindle at Amazon, Nook at B&N (price TBD, though most likely either $2.99 or $3.99) and I'm still researching the other outlets. It looks like Kobo finally has a way for authors to self-publish, so I'll be looking into that. As for Sony and Apple, I haven't researched Sony yet, and it sounds like I'm out of luck with Apple unless I either get a Mac or use Smashwords, neither of which I'm keen to do right now. I have an iPad, but apparently that's not enough. It's a shame they make it so difficult, because I have the ePub all formatted and ready to go!

Once I get my print proof back and can look it over, I'll be all set. I want all the formats to release around the same time, so right now I'm held up on the print proof. I see that the review process is done and I can order a proof, but there's a warning about transparency in my cover PDF, so I have to check that out when I get home from work before I order the proof and waste any more time. It says the flattening created a color shift, which makes me nervous. I thought the flattening was already done when I originally saved the PDF in Illustrator!

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Now for the not-as-fun part

I have my print version finally done. I changed my mind a few times regarding trim size and margins, so ended up re-formatting more than I’d have liked. But I finally have it where I want it, and it’s looking good. Which means I’m finally ready to get going on the actual publishing.

Before I do anything with the ebooks, I wanted to get things started with CreateSpace and get a proof on its way to me. And now I’ve hit a bit of a wall, because I’ve come up to the ISBN portion of the process, and I’m confused.

Originally, I was going to get the $10 custom ISBN, so I wouldn’t have to have CreateSpace listed as my publisher/printer. I wanted my own name, or a publishing company imprint name I made up, to be listed. I thought this would make it less obvious that I was self-publishing, and would just look more professional. But then I started reading around, and discovered that you can’t just make up an imprint name and use it: you have to actually set up a company. That could be a complicated process, even if I only do it as a sole propietorship, so I’m hesitant. On the other hand, I do plan on publishing more books in the future, so it might not be bad to have an imprint set up. I think I have to do more research on what’s involved in my state to do all of that.  So once again, my momentum has stalled.

I’m also going to have to do more ebook research on using an imprint there. If I do set something up, then I’ll want it listed on all versions of my book, naturally. I’m not sure how Amazon and B&N deal with that. (I’ve decided against using Smashwords. The only downside I can find to not using them, so far, is getting into the iBookstore. I don’t have a Mac, and SW looks to be the only other way to get a book in there. But I’ll worry about that later.)

Anyone else out there have experience with using their own publishing imprint to self-publish? This is all making my head hurt!

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Formatting for Print

(If I could subtitle this post, it would be “I have found my newest nemesis: widows and orphans.”)

The family emergency that stalled my momentum a few weeks ago finally seems to be leveling out. My mother had surgery, but is back home recuperating now, and my schedule at the day job has gone more or less back to normal. This means I finally have my afternoons back to work on my novel. None too soon, either, because things at the day job aren’t going so well right now (summer is our slow season, and this particular summer is the slowest one yet), so I’m a little concerned that I may be searching for new employment soon. I hope not: I’ve been there over 10 years now, and while it’s not my dream job, I’m comfortable there and I really hate the thought of having to start over somewhere else. Of course, if I could one day write full-time, that would be ideal, but I’m a practical girl: I know most writers, even the traditionally-published ones, never reach that dream.

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ePub done! And Kindle TOC tips

Yesterday, I managed to get my book properly into ePub format. Woo! I still need to put it on a Nook and read through it (and possibly get it on my iPad and see if I can read it in iBooks), just to be sure the formatting is good, but a quick skim in Adobe Digital Editions looked promising. It was a real pain to do, partly because I’m such a control freak and had to do it all by hand, but also because, when I got frustrated with that method and actually tried a conversion program, it made a royal mess out of the whole thing. This is why I am such a control freak: if you want it done right, do it yourself.

I’ll do a post later about what I had to do to wrangle my nicely-polished Kindle HTML file into an equally-polished ePub, but rather than going off on a new subject right now, I want to finish what I promised last week and write up some tips on doing a Table of Contents for a Kindle ebook.

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Perfectionism is a Pain

I have my novel formatted for Kindle. I put it on my Kindle to read through and check for errors and other things that might need changing. Made my notes, fixed the problems, saved it again. Then re-uploaded it back to the Kindle to check over one last time. Found more errors and more things I wanted to fix. In the meantime, I found a few things in my research that needed to be changed: historical errors I’d made, some of which were pretty major and couldn’t be left in. I’ve applied this last round of changes to the file, and here’s where the problem comes in: I can’t just let it be. I have to put it back on my Kindle and read it again to be sure it’s perfect. It’s not so much that I’m worried I missed things the first two times. More, I’m worried that, in fixing the other errors, I’ve made new ones.

Since I’m self-publishing, I want to be very careful about the quality of what I put out. I want it to look polished and professional.  Hell, I want it to look better than professional, because let’s face it: a lot of commercial publishers put out pretty awful-looking ebooks. I want mine to be pristine, or as close to it as possible. But the way things are going now, I can see myself falling into an endless loop of edits, and I don’t want to do that.

I’m also worried that, when applying this last round of corrections, I mistakenly used the wrong HTML file.  I was using the one I had been editing all along, then discovered that, when I was converting it to Kindle format last time, I had copied it into another folder. So now I’m freaking out that that was the latest version, and I just edited an old file. Which means I definitely need to read through it again to be sure. *sigh*

At this rate, I’m never going to get the other formats done. I think I’m starting to understand now why it takes so long for a book to be commercially published!

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Self-Publishing for Print

I’m a research fanatic. When I get interested in something, or decide I want to do (or buy) something, I first get online and research the hell out of it. I love having as much information as possible before I make a decision, especially when that decision is going to impact my checkbook. I Google, I read message boards, stalk blogs, whatever I have to do to find the information I need. So when I made up my mind that I was going to give self-publishing a serious try, my first step was research.

Initially, I was researching ebooks. For a self-publisher nowadays, it’s become pretty easy to take your manuscript, format it, make up a cover and then submit it to Kindle DTP, Smashwords, or any other number of ebook sites. And because it’s all electronic, you can set the prices remarkably low. Hell, you can give the book away if you really want! So it’s understandable that most self-publishers only deal with ebooks when they start out. It’s easy, free to the author and cheap to the reader. Granted, there’s still a lot of time and work that goes into making a well-formatted ebook, but that’s another issue entirely.

The focus of my research today has been print. While most writers who self-pub do the majority of their sales through ebooks, print is still a factor. There are still a lot of people out there who don’t use ereaders, and don’t like to read books on their computer. I know this because, out of all my friends and family, the only people I know who use ereaders are myself and my mother. Everyone else reads paper books. So when it comes time for me to publish, I will be doing myself a great disservice if I only offer my novel in ebook format. My only guaranteed sales when I start are going to be from friends and family, and if they can’t buy my book in paper format, I lose all of those sales. Pretty stupid not to offer both versions, no?

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That pesky copyright page

One of the aspects of self-publishing that has had me oddly stumped has been the copyright page. This shouldn’t be difficult, yet for some reason, I’ve been stalled for weeks because I haven’t had anything on that page. I did numerous Google searches, scanned publishing blogs, dug through the Kindle DTP community forums… you name it, I looked.  But the only mentions of copyright I seemed to find were mentions of where to put the page, questions about the page not being linked properly in the TOC, and a ton of forum posts about obtaining copyright from the US Copyright Office. And while the latter amused me (as soon as you put words down on paper, it’s copyrighted, so in my opinion, it’s silly to shell out the money for an “official” copyright for a novel), none answered my question. All I wanted was someone to say “Hey, here’s a copyright page you can either adjust to your needs, or copy straight out.” I eventually found a few places that did that and was able to cobble something together, though what I mostly ended up doing was copying parts of the notice from print books I own.

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