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How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

zhubert.com

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Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#21

Post by zhubert »

ilamont wrote: post #5

The author mentions getting a copy editor, but I would also advise hiring a development editor and/or getting feedback from beta readers. Quoting Stephen King (1): Show your piece to a number of people—ten, let us say. Listen carefully to what they tell you. Smile and nod a lot. Then review what was said very carefully. If your critics are all telling you the same thing about some facet of your story—a plot twist tha…

Howdy, author here. Completely agree on the early reader feedback. I went through two rounds of readers (alpha and beta) and it was immensely helpful in grinding down some of the rough edges of the book.

A development editor would be fantastic as well, I honestly just didn't know where to find one!

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#22

Post by thewhitetulip »

onion2k wrote: post #7
teach wrote: post #3

How to self-publish a paperback novel, that is. Looks like a lot of good advice! For my use case (self-publishing a digital-only book): I wrote "Learn Java the Hard Way" using Leanpub and I was pleased with the experience, but their build tools are closed-source and sort-of creaky and the tweak-compile-preview cycle is WAY too slow for my workflow. I intend to use Softcover for my next one. Recently I switched to Gum…

I'm writing a technical book at the moment and looking at a couple of ways to get it to print. Is there a particular reason why you're looking at Softcover, or is just "better than Leanpub"?

I have published two tech books on leanpub, if you like markdown then leanpub is great. Earlier it used to be free, but now they charge 99$ for carrying a book, their rates are awesome, you get something like 90% of tge book sales

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#23

Post by zhubert »

teach wrote: post #3

How to self-publish a paperback novel, that is. Looks like a lot of good advice! For my use case (self-publishing a digital-only book): I wrote "Learn Java the Hard Way" using Leanpub and I was pleased with the experience, but their build tools are closed-source and sort-of creaky and the tweak-compile-preview cycle is WAY too slow for my workflow. I intend to use Softcover for my next one. Recently I switched to Gum…

Does Gumroad have a solution for VAT? That was one of the things that lead me to use Amazon instead.

Happy to update the post with alternatives.

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#24

Post by zhubert »

ajeet_dhaliwal wrote: post #4

Thanks for this, it's interesting to see an article that goes from showing step zero all the way to selling on Amazon. I tried getting my novel published in 2012 and was rejected by many literary agents to the point I was having trouble finding any left that I had not submitted to. I considered self-publishing at the time but decided against it. I'll keep this bookmarked should I choose to self publish in the future.

I'm happy that this might to useful to you in the future!

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#25

Post by zhubert »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #14
bamie9l wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand, I didn't see any reference to Facebook aside from the standard social media links at the bottom.

I think he's referring to the "book club" on http://www.singularbook.com/ which is a link to Facebook. That homepage also has a 3MB image of the cover on it, bit excessive. Google reckon on saving 2.8MB by image optimisation (or 3.4MB when targetting desktop), https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=... .

I created the Facebook group for readers who are reading the novel as its released serially online (for free).

Each week I release three more chapters on the website (www.singularbook.com), not on Facebook. It was just something to do for fun :)

Yep, the cover image is a bit excessive. My gulpfile didn't have that image in it but I'll get that sorted out.

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#26

Post by zhubert »

Dotnaught wrote: post #10
dagenleg wrote: post #6

tldr: - use proprietary tool №1 - enslave yourself to Amazon - use proprietary tool №2 from Amazon

Others offering self-publishing advice stress using both Amazon CreateSpace and IngramSpark/Lightning Source for broader distribution. See: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/watchdog-ingram-spark-vs-cre...

This is good advice. My post will eventually include other markets as well, but I just haven't got that far along.

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#27

Post by j_s »

scandox wrote: post #16

Forget all the tooling. There are two battles: 1. To write the best book you possibly can 2. To print, market and sell that book Far and away the most important thing is No. 1, because No. 2 cannot happen effectively without that. And the bar is high - very high. So in many ways the battle is lost or won by the time you've put down your pen. Yes marketing and distribution are incredibly important. Design too. But non…

There is a danger that any nuance you've intended accompany your main point may be lost, since this is indeed how a lot of technical people think: "If you build it, they will come", meritocracy, etc. It is the reason there are a lot of great, undiscovered products out there. However, marketing is the biggest piece of financial success (this may not be the chosen goal). Pretty much all non-technical activity can be classified as marketing except for required business paperwork. Writing something is literally the starting line.

Proof that "none of it is going to do much good unless the book really works" is not reliably true, by counter-example: https://www.google.com/#q=bad+books+bestsellers

Random technical example (fast NTFS filesystem metadata search) I almost lost because I forgot to bookmark it after reading the only HN comment I've ever seen mention it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13738309 And further, I just found the child comment sharing another utility!

Edit: Focusing more on preventing misinterpretation.

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#28

Post by thedz »

amelius wrote: post #19
ilamont wrote: post #5

The author mentions getting a copy editor, but I would also advise hiring a development editor and/or getting feedback from beta readers. Quoting Stephen King (1): Show your piece to a number of people—ten, let us say. Listen carefully to what they tell you. Smile and nod a lot. Then review what was said very carefully. If your critics are all telling you the same thing about some facet of your story—a plot twist tha…

With this approach, your novel becomes an average of what the masses like to read, rather than what you wanted to say. Engineered for the masses, so to speak. Which, of course, could explain why King is so successful.

IMO, this is an artistic fallacy that needs to die. Responding and adjusting to feedback doesn't undermine the integrity of a work or weaken its authenticity. Cycles of feedback and iteration are common to all work in every medium.

Obviously, you can take responding to feedback too far, but the idea of the artist-in-a-tower-birthing-a-fully-grown-work-whole is an inaccurate idea at best, and a damaging assumption at worst.

Like King says, ignore the outliers. But if no one understands a plot twist, or everyone dislikes something you really like, maybe take another swing at it. Iterate a little more. Creative output is the art of refinement as much as anything else.

(Good editors can also often help substitute for peer feedback)

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#29

Post by jeffwass »

zhubert wrote: post #21
ilamont wrote: post #5

The author mentions getting a copy editor, but I would also advise hiring a development editor and/or getting feedback from beta readers. Quoting Stephen King (1): Show your piece to a number of people—ten, let us say. Listen carefully to what they tell you. Smile and nod a lot. Then review what was said very carefully. If your critics are all telling you the same thing about some facet of your story—a plot twist tha…

Howdy, author here. Completely agree on the early reader feedback. I went through two rounds of readers (alpha and beta) and it was immensely helpful in grinding down some of the rough edges of the book. A development editor would be fantastic as well, I honestly just didn't know where to find one!

How did you work with your alpha readers?

Ie - did you wait for your first completed draft before showing them the whole thing, or did you show them chapter/scene works-in-progress as you wrote them?

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#30

Post by scandox »

j_s wrote: post #27
scandox wrote: post #16

Forget all the tooling. There are two battles: 1. To write the best book you possibly can 2. To print, market and sell that book Far and away the most important thing is No. 1, because No. 2 cannot happen effectively without that. And the bar is high - very high. So in many ways the battle is lost or won by the time you've put down your pen. Yes marketing and distribution are incredibly important. Design too. But non…

There is a danger that any nuance you've intended accompany your main point may be lost, since this is indeed how a lot of technical people think: "If you build it, they will come", meritocracy, etc. It is the reason there are a lot of great, undiscovered products out there. However, marketing is the biggest piece of financial success (this may not be the chosen goal). Pretty much all non-technical activity can be cl…

FWIW I work as a fiction editor for a publishing house. I only mention that because I'm really not that a technical person. I'm more on the arts side.

I accept that some bad books succeed, but this really is vanishingly rare. Subjectively even many so-called bad books have really excellent qualities - especially in narrative structure.

So there are Bad Books and then there are BADly written books.

I agree also with your point: build it and they will come doesn't work. Marketing is essential. But ask people to swallow an unreadable book - which is most books people write - and all the marketing in the world won't save you.

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