So you're an author?
The trials and tribulations of going from manuscript to published book.
When you start writing your first book, you don’t necessarily think of yourself as an author. You're telling a story— fictional or real, personal or researched— and imagine that once it’s done, somehow people will flock to read it. You don’t tend to think of what lies ahead on the road to release, and probably for the better.
In the old days, you’d write a book, send the manuscript to publishing houses, where someone might see the promise of profits and bring you on board. The rest would very much be a hands-off affair for you as the author: the formatting, the editing, the proofreading, the typesetting, the advertising, the distribution…the publisher took care of things. Sure, it wasn’t as straightforward as knocking on a publisher’s door to land a deal, but competition was far less fierce than today, and the market less congested. Alas, those days are mostly gone. Some might say for the better, others might say for worse, but mostly gone they are nonetheless. In a sea of writers vying for publication, the chances of finding a reputable publishing house willing to invest in you are now slim to none.
Entrepreneurs recognized this early and began to establish "self-publishing" platforms; places for writers to become their own publishers. In theory, like the difference between a supermarket and a farmers’ fair, where growers and producers sell their wares directly to visitors, instead of having to jump through various hoops to get space on a shelf somewhere.
Sounds great, right? You write, you sell, you reap. Only that’s not how it works.
What few people will tell you is that not only will you be doing all the heavy lifting yourself, but the farmers' fair organizers will still take their cut for you displaying your merchandise on their tables. But I am leaping ahead.
Here's the thing: anyone can write a book. I am not talking about talent or eloquence, but about the act of writing a novel, novella, short story, or some non-fiction publication. If you have a computer or a phone, you're good to go. I am not going to dive into the subject of having AI write a book for you, which is of course another sad reality of today's crowded literary world. What I am talking about is an actual, self-authored product.
People tend to think that once you've written it, it magically appears for purchase on the usual platforms, you reap the rewards, and call yourself an author. Pish, pash, posh. But that’s kind of like going straight from conception to the moment the child is born, ignoring anything en everything in between. In reality, as we all know, the process is far more daunting and far less glamorous. Conception might be the fun part, but everything along the road to the child’s birth is nothing short of a labour of love, commitment, and at times downright agony. The same applies to the journey from the moment where the spark of a writer’s creation is lit, to the moment s/he releases it into the virtual wild of book sales.
Let’s say you've spent the last few months, years, or decades creating your Magnum Opus, the distilled (or raw) total of your literary efforts to share with the masses. Ready to retire on a small (owned) tropical island, basking in due fame, fortune, and royalties gained from your magnificent creation, you already imagine yourself at book signings, being the subject of everyone's desire to share the limelight and perhaps shake the hand of THE author responsible for the attraction that sees people queueing around the block for a mere glimpse at its creator.
If any of the above sounds even remotely familiar, it's time to wake up, smell the dung, and get ready for the rocky, endless road of publishing in a world where everyone (literally in their thousands) shares the same dream. Below, I have tried to outline the steps of my own publishing journey thus far. Sadly, I must also admit that the challenges accompanying these steps, no matter how many books I write (put it down to some undiagnosed learning disability or the human tendency to suppress bad memories), remain much the same today, just as they were when I released my first book. But, as with every journey, let’s start with the first step:
So, you’ve written a book; on paper, on your phone, a laptop, tablet, it hardly matters. Congratulations, you’ve done it! Celebrate the moment you finish your manuscript, because what follows is far less pleasurable.
Once you've finished writing, it's time to look at proper editing. You go over your book again and again, looking for coherence, plot holes, narrative, story structure, use of punctuation, and all the other wonderful bits that can adversely impact the reader experience. Some parts may require complete rewrites, others partial changes, as alterations in one place can trigger further requirements down the line. Yes, there are other AI-based avenues, many of which offer creative rewrites of whatever you throw at them. Whilst useful, they do interfere with your narrative, creating the risk of reader disconnect due to unnatural departures from personal style. Once you’re happy with the entire manuscript, you need to spell-check (unless you do this as you go, but I find it disrupts my creative flow). MS Word's tools are arguably useless, and apps like Grammarly focus predominantly on business correspondence (unless that's what you want). Either way, once you've found what works for you, and have completed repeat spell-checks using different applications (different apps or services will detect different things; sometimes even between repeat runs of the same app!), it’s time for formatting. Some say, you should format you should format your pages before typing the first word (if using software), but I find this a little premature, given that you likely haven’t decided on the final layout this early in the game.
So, next up comes formatting for publication, one of the most irritating and frustrating tasks in the entire publishing journey, because for each publishing platform, the requirements and subsequent results are different!
Amazon, for example, likes MS Word or eBooks created using its proprietary tool 'Kindle Create', but not so much PDFs. The challenge here is that, because of eBooks generally being 'reflowable' (the text and layout of an eBook automatically adjust to fit the screen size, orientation, and font settings of the device you are reading on), whatever your book looks like on your screen may be completely different to its layout once you've uploaded it for consumption on other devices. Unless you don't really care, there is an entire labyrinth to navigate to achieve the desired result: tabs, line breaks, page breaks, section breaks, chapter headings, illustrations or images, stylistic choices, indents...the list goes on and on. And each time you think you've got it right, I can bet my bottom dollar there'll still be one page that isn't, requiring you to go back and do it all over again. Yes, you can make your eBook non-reflowable by creating a ‘fixed-format’ PDF and choosing this option in Kindle Create, but this is ordinarily only recommended for image-heavy publications like magazines or textbooks, as it does affect readability on some devices and limits accessibility options. You’ll spend a while on all all of this, but then it is finally time for cover design and, with it, the potentially controversial choice of AI use, hiring an illustrator, or doing it yourself. Regardless of what you decide upon, this will also take some time and potentially money to get right.
That said, with a bit of luck, eventually you'll get to behold your masterpiece in all its Kindle glory, be it but in Amazon's previewer, which not only gives you a sense of the reader experience but, more importantly, lists all remaining formatting, spelling, and cover-related sins still hiding within your book. You can fix these in the preview, but some will require you to go back to your manuscript and address them before re-uploading it and going through the preview again (hint: do this during Amazon US low-traffic times, or your entertainment for the evening will be watching that pesky little rotating 'circle of eternal wait'). Eventually, though, it will be time to bring your labour of love to the people. Oh, hang on, did I mention ISBN, distribution, exclusivity, and royalties? eBooks thankfully don't require ISBNs (those unique book identifier numbers on a book's back cover), so that'll come later. But before you can submit your book for Amazon review, you need to decide how much to sell it for, under which royalty scheme, in which regions or countries, and whether you want to take advantage of Amazon's KDP Select benefits, which in turn means you can't sell your book anywhere other than Amazon. For the purpose of this article and from a business perspective, not to mention if you live outside the United States, retaining the freedom to sell your book wherever you want is probably the wiser choice.
This means, unless you would like to go through the pain of establishing an account with virtually every independent publishing platform and reseller out there (a dozen or more) and then reformat your book to their requirements (not to mention the need to establish a payment method for each to send you your royalties), you need to use an aggregator. An aggregator platform basically takes your book and distributes it to whatever resellers it has agreements with. One of the biggest, and for non-US residents easiest to use, is Draft2Digital.
They distribute to all major players (including Barnes & Noble, great for brick&mortar bookshelf presence!), as well as libraries and online lending services (you get to choose your distribution channels). You might ask why have the book on Amazon separately when Amazon is already included in D2D's distribution? The answer: I have seen issues with listings, so I prefer to have this one separate, especially given the sheer size of Amazon. Also, I have had positive experiences with Amazon's print-on-demand services, so if I already list my print book there, why not follow through with an Ebook version as well?
Anyway, while your Ebook is in review at Amazon, let's jump across to D2D to get it distributed to all those other resellers.
Once you've paid your account setup fee (yes, they do charge $20), you're good to go. D2D's setup is almost as straightforward as Amazon's, but since they are distributing to a wide spectrum of resellers, their focus is much more on Metadata and uniformity, which essentially translates into narrower criteria and prescriptive formatting options. Anyway, you fill in the metadata (the book details that go into each reseller's listing), decide on whether you want to bring your own ISBN or want a free one (more about that in a moment), and then proceed to again upload your manuscript and cover. The next step is where D2D is very different from Amazon, in that, yes, it generates a preview, but one that you can only adjust using its 8 or however many templates it has on offer. Each template comes with a different font, slightly different formatting (think paragraphs, dialogue visuals, chapter titles, etc.), and an overall theme reflecting the chosen genre or book type (i.e., D2D generic, Romance, Thriller, Textbook, etc.). You don't get to play around with these much, so if you've published a non-reflowing eBook on Amazon, this version will definitely look different.
The previewer also doesn't comment on any hidden spelling or graphics "sins", meaning it's up to you to make sure all is well in that department (also meaning you'll still be hopping back and forth between fixing and re-uploading your manuscript). The rest is relatively straightforward. The one sticky point is that you'll find out about any mistakes or issues of non-compliance only after first D2D and then the resellers have reviewed your book. It can take days or longer to find out whether your work has been approved or still "needs attention", so even if you're in a hurry to get your book out, patience is required.
Anyway, now that your eBook is live, why not follow up with a paperback? After all, believe it or not, paperbacks still outsell eBooks around 4 to 1! Alas, for you as the author, there's some good and some bad news.
The 'good' news: you'll get to do much of the process described for eBook publishing again.
The bad news: Print book royalties are terrible.
Ok, I lied. There is no good news.
You can make above $2 on a $2.99 eBook, but you'll make about the same on a $18.99 print version. Brutal.
Once you've published your eBook, both Amazon and aggregators offer automation when it comes to turning it into a paperback. Sounds promising, only that it usually doesn't live up to expectations. Imagine you order a paperback, only to get a printout of the eBook version? Personally, I don't see this as value for money. To me, a print book is where layout and formatting should really come out to play: Chapter headings and other design features that you simply cannot get in an eBook.
Of course, you don't have to, but if you agree, this is where you once again face the dilemma of your design squaring up against the formatting and layout gremlins of automation. For Amazon, your manuscript must conform to its guidelines. Some aspects, such as margins, depend on page count, but you can use various online calculators for that on your road of trial and error. Pagination, table of contents, headers and footers, etc. (all the things you didn't have to worry about for your eBook) will become banes of your existence - the stuff your nightmares will feature for days.
But before you get there, you need to generate yet another cover. For Kindle, the front cover suffices (after all, an eBook doesn't have a back or a spine), but for the paperback, you need a wrap-around version. For this, you have two options: you can use Amazon's cover maker, make one yourself, or pay someone for the service. Amazon's cover maker is quick, but it lacks design options, meaning your book cover may never look the way you imagined it. I am not going to go into hiring an illustrator, as that is self-explanatory. However, if you decide to make one yourself, you'll first need some tools:
Software or an online service, and a template containing the measurements. The former is entirely your choice; the latter requires you to enter pertinent details into an Amazon calculator, which then allows you to download a blank wrap-around cover version with details of required dimensions. Once you have that, you can design to your heart's content.
Amazon requires both cover and manuscript before allowing you to preview your print book, but eventually you'll find yourself back at the previewer, ready to address residual 'sins' and ponder what could have gone wrong between transferring the beautiful paperback draft displayed on your computer and the design fail you're looking at in Amazon's version.
But worry not, you'll get there. Before the world knows your pain, you'll determine pricing, royalties, and all the other compulsory details.
Oh wait, I promised to talk about ISBNs.
As mentioned, an ISBN is a unique book identifier. Each print book needs one, and they are centrally managed by an ISBN authority in the United States. If you want to release your book in your country of residence, you can also get national ISBNs for that. The process and authority vary between countries, but usually involve the national library or similar.
Let’s just say it's an entire subset of chores, A) provided you want to go down that path, and B) you live in a country where you can trust legal copyright enforcement. In fact, if you're outside the US, the national route is the only way to get an ISBN without going through a "broker". You see, Bowker, the exclusive official agency for assigning ISBNs in the United States and its territories, sells its ISBNs individually or in bulk. The more you buy, the cheaper they get. And since Bowker ISBNs cannot be bought by non-US residents, there are 'brokers' who buy them in bulk and then resell them. Not all brokers, however, are alike. You see, when a book ISBN gets registered, the details not only contain the author, the book title etc., but also the publisher. Depending on ISBN broker, they may consequently list your book with their own publishing entity's name in the ISBN registrar details. I don't know about you, but to me that just doesn't feel right. I am not going to talk about legal aspects or ISBN scam artists selling fake ISBNs. Those exist as well. It is therefore best to do your research thoroughly before spending your hard-earned cash.
Of course, you could always take a free ISBN from Amazon, but you can't reuse that if you want your print book available elsewhere. This, in turn, means you will have to get another one if you publish with an aggregator, but that will only go to confuse people or stores wishing to order a copy of your book, as it is now listed twice in the ISBN registry, and with different publisher names. Might look a bit sus, wouldn't you agree?
Best, therefore, to buy your own from a reputable service or your national provider, and be able to publish your paperback wherever you want.
So, you have obtained your ISBN, your manuscript checks out, as does your cover, you have entered all the details and settled on pricing and royalties, pressed the publish button, and your book has been approved.
Time to sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labour? Hardly.
Given the millions of books released every year, you're a tiny fish in a huge ocean; too tiny to get noticed by literally anyone, unless you advertise. You may be an author now, but one without sales. Time to transition into your role of publicist, advertising agency, and PR manager.
You will spend the next days, months, and years reminding people that you exist and that they should buy your book. You will find yourself building websites, chasing social media, creating or paying for book trailers, generating email lists, and writing blog articles like this one.
There are also ways to play around with book categories on Amazon, which may help you climb the almost infinite algorithm-generated ranks among thousands and thousands of competitors.
But more about THOSE journeys another time.
For now, you've achieved what you set out to do: Welcome to the wonderful world of authors and publishing, warts and all...well, a lot of warts, to be fair. You're part of the club. But what about that tropical island? Perhaps you'll get there, perhaps not. It's a bit like what Hollywood is for actors. We're all writers until we can prove our author status in hard currency.
Meanwhile, enjoy the writing part. There's nothing better.