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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

#31

Post by cableshaft »

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...

Okay cool, thanks. I have a friend who's a librarian and she strongly suggested not using CreateSpace because you won't get your book in as many places (i.e. not Barnes and Noble, not smaller bookstores, not libraries) through CreateSpace, but she didn't really know who else to use instead. I'll have to look into IngramSpark/Lightning Source.

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#32

Post by zhubert »

jeffwass wrote: post #29
zhubert wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I gave the 15 alpha readers a "finished" book, by which I mean, I thought it was ready to go, so I had already edited it myself a few times.

The consistent feedback I received from those readers weighed heavily on the major edit which followed. I had made some mistakes, no doubt about it. The work is now better for it.

I then gave the "finished" book to a much smaller group of beta readers and repeated the process. Then I went through the book a few times myself to improve the flow. Finally, it went to the copyeditor.

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#34

Post by zitterbewegung »

I self published a book of my poetry on Kindle Direct publishing 5 years ago see http://a.co/iw4r1jq I also used lulu to make a physical copy. For lulu I think I used Microsoft word and for kindle you could just make a HTML document to be published . The tooling in this article is great but as other people have pointed out marketing your book is more important. The article should be titled how to typeset a novel in 2017.

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#35

Post by zhubert »

scandox wrote: post #30
j_s wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 y…

I definitely agree with your initial post, I'm just not able to offer advice on how to write a good book as I may, or may not, know how :)

In the writing groups I've participated in, there seem to be a number of authors that are scared off by the process of getting their work out there. I'm hopeful that this post will help them overcome the technical hurdles in doing so.

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#37

Post by j_s »

scandox wrote: post #30
j_s wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 y…

I really appreciate the practical advice you're sharing as someone in the trenches of this specific process. What is the first action that should be taken by someone wanting to self-publish?

Something about getting the product in front of a critical audience ASAP to prevent wasting time creating something that even marketing can't save?

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#38

Post by crb3 »

MLR wrote: post #18

I've been toying with the idea of a site for original written works, in the same vein as current fanfiction sites or Deviantart. I imagine it would end up working along the shareware model, x chapters here for free and purchase access to the full story, or something along those lines - though if there is a market for it you could use it as a streamlining process for publishing houses I suppose Is anybody aware of a s…

Not with your proposed marketing mechanism, but there's https://www.fictionpress.com/ -- a spinoff of https://www.fanfiction.net/.

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#39

Post by ilamont »

zhubert wrote: post #32
jeffwass wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I gave the 15 alpha readers a "finished" book, by which I mean, I thought it was ready to go, so I had already edited it myself a few times. The consistent feedback I received from those readers weighed heavily on the major edit which followed. I had made some mistakes, no doubt about it. The work is now better for it. I then gave the "finished" book to a much smaller group of beta readers and repeated the process. T…

Thanks for sharing your experience about using beta readers. I think this is so important for any type of media creation, from books to music to videogames. I am actually developing a framework that explores this called Lean Media:

What is Lean Media? It’s an approach to creating media content that emphasizes low-cost production, careful observation/measurement of audience feedback, and fast iteration. Properly incubated and carefully scaled, Lean Media projects can attract loyal audiences and grow into successful works and brands.

(more information via http://leanmedia.org)

Would you be interested in being profiled on the blog about your approach to using beta readers? If so please email me at ian -at- leanmedia.org ... I think what you are doing would provide a great example!

Re: How to Self-Publish a Novel in 2017

#40

Post by SolaceQuantum »

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.

How can you the communication of your words is accurate without feedback of others expressing to you what was clear and unclear?

Like, damn, do you also argue that proper grammar and sentence structure is just "an average of what the masses like to read"? Because yes, that's what English is, its an average of what the masses communicate ideas with, within the mass of people who speak English.

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