Tag: eBooks

The Field – From Word Doc to Paperback, Part Seven

Posted on by Ian Dawson

Here are a few takeaways and final thoughts I have about self-publishing The Field:

It’s important for your own creative sanity that once you make the leap from your novel being your baby to publishing it either as an eBook, a paperback, or both, it is now a viable, marketable product.  This means that you have to put distance between you the author and you’re the person trying to market and sell what is a now a viable commodity.

This distancing will also help you in the event your get a negative review or criticism you don’t like.  The person may not have liked your product, but they still bought the product and you reap the benefits either way.  By taking this more objective and business-like approach to each work, you can then free up your mind to write the next book, and the next, and the next.

Distancing yourself emotionally from your completed project will also help you think more clearly when it comes to the marketing and sales aspects of your work.  It’s not at all helpful if you get wrapped up in a minute detail that occurs during the publishing process and your obsess over something that in the end has an easy fix. Case in point: I talked in a previous post about the paperback being priced at $14.63 due to production costs. I agonized over this for half a week, sure that my book was now doomed for failure because it was too expensive. Then, a Book Baby rep suggested I create a promo code to decrease the price.  Boom.  Problem solved.

I had I been thinking like a salesperson and been more pragmatic than emotional, I could have solved the problem without the needless drama. Leave the drama for the page not the publishing.

Know that if you are self-publishing that you are going to have to do almost everything yourself.  Yes, there are sites like Book Baby that will guide you, but when it comes to getting the word out to a wide swath of people, just know that you are the best marketing tool there is.  So use social media, your own website, co-workers, family, and friends to get the initial word out.  If you want to, you can enlist the aid of a marketing company – like I did with Smith Publicity – to spread the word farther.  But again, while they will be assisting with press releases and other aspects, the project is still driven by me and my knowledge and passion for the project.

There are also dozens of videos on YouTube as well as blogs that can give you insights into how to market your book either inexpensively or for free.

Also, make sure that you have the means to afford all the aspects of doing this yourself.  There are inexpensive and even free alternatives if you want to publish your eBook on Amazon or even on your own blog chapter by chapter.  Don’t go into debt or sacrifice eating or bills to do this. And if you do, make sure you budget and keep track of all your expenses.

So, what would I do differently.  Well, for the next book I will definitely publish the eBook and paperback as part of the same project.  The reason: it’s cheaper.  I could have paid 50% less if I had gone with one of the packages offered through Book Baby that allows you to do both.  But I thought just an eBook was easy money.  As of this post I have sold more paperbacks than eBooks, so that shows what I know!

I also learned that the best strategy is to budget your time in an efficient manner, especially if self-publishing is a side business and not your full-time occupation.  I work six days a week at my main job, so everything involving the book is like having a second job. It’s important to give yourself some downtime and not burn yourself out with everything that now needs to be done on top of all your other responsibilities.  Your novel won’t get published any faster if your agonizing over pricing at 4am.  Trust me. It’s not worth losing sleep over.

And that’s my self-publishing journey.  It was definitely worth all the time, effort, and expense, and I will definitely be doing it again soon.  If you have any questions, comments, or further advice you’d like to share, please feel free to leave a comment.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks for reading!

The Field – From Word Doc to Paperback, Part Four

Posted on by Ian Dawson

Yes, yes.  I’ll admit it.  Yesterday’s post was pretty technical.  Metadata. Pricing.  Websites.  While they aren’t exactly sexy topics, they are important parts of the self-publishing puzzle, which is why it’s a good idea to know about them.  So, today, let’s talk about a few more exciting topics.

So, you’ve submitted your manuscript, your cover, and input all the important info needed to launch your eBook on various sites. Well, while you’re toiling away at your website, a busy group of people in another part of the country are converting your Word doc or other files into a polished and professional-looking eBook.

The nice thing about Book Baby (and I’m sure other self-publishing sites do it, too) is that they constantly email you to let you know the progress of your book.  You can also check the status of your project on their website as well.  I was very excited to get the email announcing that my proofs were ready for me to view.  I will confess that when I opened the file for the first time and started to go through the pages I jumped up and down (I really did this, I’m not lying). It was an exciting feeling to finally see what I had written converted into a format for others to read and enjoy on their tablets or phones.

That part done and approved, I had to wait for the book’s official release onto Amazon and other sites in order to move on to the next step: reviews.

Readers’ Favorite (https://readersfavorite.com) is a site that works with Book Baby and allows you to do a number of helpful things with your book.  You can sign up for their Press Release program, you can participate in their Book Exchange Program, and you can have your book reviewed.  Now, you have to pay for the reviews, but I found this was a helpful way to get new eyes on my book and to get some legitimate reviews to use on my Amazon page and website.  I paid for three reviews, having no clue what I would get.

About a week later I got all three reviews back and they were all very positive, five-star reviews!  But, me being a skeptic about things, I did do some digging to find other reviews written by these particular reviewers and they weren’t just handing out five-star reviews across the board.  That added to the legitimacy of their reviews, which was a good thing!

I set up a profile on Readers’ Favorite, and then took the time to add myself to a few others as well.  I worked on my Amazon Author’s Profile and my Goodreads Author Program Profile (https://www.goodreads.com/author/program?rel=nofollow) to get my name and book out there.  The more ground you cover the better.

The Field by Ian Dawson was officially launched as an eBook on July 4, 2018, and I was pretty excited.  But other than my family, friends, and co-workers, how could I get others to buy the book?  In a word: Publicity.  In more words, stop by for tomorrow’s post!

The Field – From Word Doc to Paperback, Part Two

Posted on by Ian Dawson

My mind was made up, I was going to self-publish The Fieldas an eBook.  I began to research different methods and companies that specialize in taking a manuscript and turning it into a professional finished product.  I came upon www.BookBaby.com and after a few clicks knew that they were the company I wanted to partner with.

I emailed my editor, Kathleen, and told her that after long last I was going to publish my novel.  She suggested I reach out to cover artist Steven Novak at http://www.novakillustration.com.  I did and after a couple email exchanges, I decided to use his services for my book cover.

Things were starting to fall into place.

Steven sent me a list of what he needed in order to get an idea of how the cover should look.  This being my first time doing this, I went WAY overboard with the materials I sent him.  Luckily, I’m sure he has dealt with first-time authors before so he whittled my over-the-top ramblings into an initial cover concept.  We then worked over the next two days to fine-tune the cover into what the final cover became:

TheField

I was very excited with the final product, and was excited to share it with people.  Now that I had the cover, I could take that and the manuscript and begin the process on Book Baby of creating an eBook.  And that’s exactly what I did, but before I did anything, I copyrighted my manuscript.  This is a very important thing to do that I highly recommend to all self-publishers. While you do retain the rights to your work when you publish with Book Baby, it’s always good to have the official copyright on your side as well just in case.  Visit the site here: https://www.copyright.gov/registration/ (FYI, it doesn’t let you do it on the weekends or holidays)

Copyright in, I submitted my manuscript and cover to Book Baby.  There is a lot of other extra information that it’s important to have on-hand as you go through the process:  a short description of your book, a long description of your book, and metadata keywords.

They use this information on the various sites like Amazon, Apple iBooks, and Barnes & Noble.  Some use the short version of your novel’s description, others use the longer version.  Think of either one as the blurb that you would want on the back of your novel if it was a hard cover or paperback.

My original short description:

When fourteen-year-old Daniel Robinson is abducted during a summer game of hide-and-seek, his life quickly changes from one of fun to one of survival.  Daniel must find the courage and strength to escape his two captors and get back home no matter what it takes.  Will Daniel make it out alive, or is this one nightmare too real to escape?

My original long description:

A summer of adventure becomes a summer of terror when fourteen-year-old Daniel Robinson is abducted by two older boys during a game of hide-and-seek with his best friend Kyle.  Daniel soon finds himself at the mercy of his captors, doing whatever he can to survive and escape before his fate is sealed.  Can Daniel make it out alive, or is this one nightmare too real to escape?

As Kyle comes to the realization that something bad may have happened to Daniel, he sets out to find his best friend and bring him back to safety.  With nothing but his teenage instincts to guide him, will Kyle’s quest to find his best friend result in a happy ending or end in tragedy? 

In his first novel, author Ian Dawson draws from his real-life experiences to create an action-adventure story about unconditional friendship, courage, and determination.

Welcome to The Field.

Metadata are keywords that Amazon and other sites use to categorize your novel based on its content.  That way people looking for books about the topic you have written about are likely to have it pop up when they search. Once Book Baby has these three things, they tweak them to make them for better search optimization on the various sites.  Tomorrow I will let you know what metadata Book Baby and I decided on, and how I decided on the pricing for my eBook.