An Introduction to Self-Publishing

Introduction

In the old days, publishing your book yourself meant preparing your manuscript and sending it to a publishing company that would print and bind it for you as long as you paid for a minimum number of books. You were then responsible for marketing that book yourself. Now, with the advent of electronic reading devices, publishing your own book has become a lot easier, not to mention a lot less expensive. What’s more, marketing an eBook is a lot easier, too. Plus, there are still some print options available as well, and some of those are what’s called “print on demand,” which means that someone will be able to order only one printed copy of your book with no problem.

There are a wide range of platforms available for self-publishing your book, and each of them has its particular set of pros and cons. Which one you should use depends in large part on your reasons for self-publishing to begin with. Some of these require you to prepare a document in a word processor and then convert it into a different format before you upload it to them, and some of them take care of the conversion process for you automatically. In either case, it’s important to prepare the document to begin with in such a way as to ensure that it will retain your desired formatting after the conversion process.

One of the main reasons many people have for self-publishing their books is to make money. If that’s your goal, then it’s a good idea to self-publish your book in as wide a variety of formats, and on as wide a variety of platforms, as your budget will allow. That way, you can be sure that your book will be exposed (and available) to as wide a market of potential customers as possible. If you’re only going to start with one platform, though, then you’re going to want to weigh the strengths and weaknesses of each one. We’re going to help you do just that, and we’re also going to help you see to it that your book is prepared for publication in the best possible format for each of these platforms. We’ll start with one of the most popular platforms for self-publishing in the world.

Kindle

Even major publishing companies release their books on the Kindle marketplace, and there’s a reason for that. More than any other brand, Kindle is responsible for the success of eBooks as a whole. Ever since the release of the original Kindle electronic reading device, people have been predicting that one day, printed books will be a thing of the past. That vision gets closer and closer to realization with each passing year. For our purposes here, however, the most interesting thing to note is that anyone can publish a book to the Kindle marketplace and start making money. You don’t have to submit a manuscript for approval first.

Getting Your Book Ready for Kindle

We’re going to assume you’ve already written your book, and that its current file format is in Microsoft Word. That will be the case with most of you. After at all, it’s unlikely that you’re going to be reading a report about self-publishing unless you’ve already written a book. Still, it’s possible that you haven’t yet done so, and if you haven’t, then that would certainly be a necessary first step.

Actually, if you haven’t yet written your book, and you’re reading this report before you do so, you might be a little bit ahead of the game. You’ll be able to incorporate the proper formatting techniques (which we’re about to teach you) as you write. Still, if your book is already finished, don’t despair. It isn’t going to be very difficult to back up and incorporate these suggestions.

Kindle is one service that does not require the conversion of your book into their particular format before you upload it to them. You will end up saving your file as a web page, and you will upload it to them as such. The pictures in your book (if there are any) will be saved automatically in a separate folder when you save your Word file as a web page, and that folder will be uploaded as well. From there, Kindle will convert your book into a format their devices can read, which is going to have an extension of .kf8 (older Kindle devices used an extension of .azw).

Proper Formatting

As we mentioned before, in order to make sure that the finished product looks the way you want it to after Kindle converts your file into an eBook, you need to format it properly to begin with. The most important parts of this process involve understanding which formatting options are going to carry over from your word processor into your eBook. Luckily, most of these are the same across the board. Therefore, we urge you to pay particular attention to these details, even if you think you might ultimately end up publishing in some other format. Before we go down the list of which kinds of formatting options will carry over, though, we should point out that while spell and grammar checkers are your friends, you should also manually proofread your text to make sure the automatic checkers didn’t miss anything before you publish your book.

One of the formatting options that will carry over into your eBook is the use of tables, so don’t be afraid to use them when appropriate to the content of your book. Another best practice is to insert a page break at the end of every chapter that you write. This will prevent your text from running together, and page breaks are one type of formatting which will definitely carry over into your eBook. Other types of formatting which will carry over into your eBook include bold, italics, indentations, and headings. Plus, these are great ways to make your text stand out, which, in turn, makes it easier to read. Formatting options which will not carry over, and should therefore be avoided, include special fonts, bullet points, and page headers and footers.

Using Pictures in eBooks

We should say a word or two here about the use of images in eBooks. They should always be in JPEG format, which uses a file extension of .JPG. The reason this is the preferred digital format for pictures is that it takes up the least amount of space while at the same time preserving the highest amount of quality in your photographs. Another rule of thumb here is that you should never copy and paste them. Rather, you should insert them directly. That way, you can be sure that there will be no problems when the files are being saved into the folder we’ve talked about.

One of the reasons that the Kindle is such a popular platform on which to self-publish is that they offer a number of free apps which make it possible to read their books on a number of different types of devices. The reason we mention that in this particular context is so you will know that if one of your readers is using one of those apps, he or she will see your pictures in full color. Of course, the Kindle Fire will display your images in full color as well. Other Kindle devices will display your images in sixteen different shades of gray in order to provide tremendous clarity and contrast.

Creating Front and Back Matter

Which type of front matter you’re going to want to create will depend on the nature of your book. At the very least, we highly recommend that you create a title page. This page should display the title of your book with your name underneath it. You might also choose to create a copyright page, a dedication, a preface, and a prologue.

Whichever of these pieces of front matter you choose to create, you should put them in that order. Also, please remember to include a page break at the end of each of them. Done correctly, front matter can make your book look a lot more professional.

As for back matter, you’re going to have a lot more flexibility when it comes to the order in which the information is presented. While we recommend that front matter be presented in the order we’ve outlined above, you are free to present any back matter you create in whichever order you as the author feel makes the most sense.

One piece of back matter you shouldn’t even create, though, at least for an eBook, is an index. The reason for this is that in an eBook, page numbers change depending on how the readers decide to format the text. However, bibliographies, appendices, and glossaries can all add tremendous value to your book, provided they are appropriate given your subject.

Formatting Paragraphs

After your eBook is converted into its proper format, paragraphs will display in justified alignment by default. If you want to manually indent the first line of any of your paragraphs, you must avoid the use of the Tab key, as this is another type of formatting which won’t carry over through the conversion process. Instead, you should use the default paragraph formatting built into Microsoft Word in order to indent your paragraphs. It’s not at all difficult to do. You just click on “Page Layout,” and then specify the amount of indentation underneath the “indent” option.” You can also use the ruler at the top of your screen to change the indentation. If you don’t see it, click on “View,” then check the ruler option.

Creating a Table of Contents

One of the most important pieces of front matter you can create for your eBook is a table of contents. Remember, in an eBook, page numbers change when people change the size of the text. Therefore, it’s important that your table of contents is “active.” What that means is that, in this case, rather than a table of contents that tells your reader which page to turn to find a specific chapter, you’re going to give them a link to click on that will take them directly to it. The process for creating an active table of contents will vary depending on whether you’re using a PC or a MAC.

We’ll talk about how to create an active table of contents on a MAC first. On a MAC, you’ll need to set up a series of bookmarks, and then create hyperlinks to those bookmarks. You just insert a bookmark at the beginning of each chapter, and then label it something that you’ll remember. We suggest an abbreviated form of the title of the chapter. Next, highlight the title of the chapter in the table of contents itself, and insert a link to the corresponding bookmark which you just created. Repeat this process for each additional chapter, and you’ll have your table of contents.

On a PC, the process for creating an active table of contents is actually a little bit easier. On the “insert” menu, click “indexes and tables.” On the “table of contents” tab, click “show outlining toolbar.” Choose the options you want to apply, then click, “ok.” Now, highlight the title of your first chapter, and apply the “lead-in emphasis” heading style to that text. Click on “update table of contents” on the toolbar you chose to show a moment ago, and then click “ok.” Repeat these last couple of steps with each additional chapter title, and you’ll be done creating your table of contents!

Defining Your Guide Items

Up until now, everything we’ve told you can be applied to the creation of eBooks for any format or platform. Guide items are specific to Kindle, but we’ll go over them briefly because many of your will choose this format. Kindle readers can go to your beginning, table of contents, and your cover image from anywhere in the document. When you upload a cover image, its corresponding guide item will be defined automatically. To define those of your beginning and table of contents, simply insert bookmarks labeled, “start,” and “TOC,” respectively.

Uploading Your Book

Once you’ve save your book in Word as filtered web page, you’re ready to upload it to the Kindle marketplace. Assuming you’ve already created an account, all that remains is to upload the files, enter the title and description, and click “save and publish.” Within a couple of days, all of the features of your book should be available in the Kindle Store. We’ve spent a lot of time on Kindle for two reasons. First, it’s the most popular (and potentially lucrative) platform. Second, the process for getting your book ready for conversion is virtually identical regardless of which format you end up using.

Nook

The second most popular eBook reader on the market is the “Nook” from Barnes and Noble. As we mentioned a moment ago, the process for formatting your book for self-publishing on the Nook is virtually identical to that of getting it ready for the Kindle. There are a few key differences, though, so we’re going to look at those. One of the main differences is that like many other platforms, Nook readers use the .epub format. Fortunately, Nook offers a free tool for you to use to convert your file. Once your file has been converted, it’s a good idea to preview it in order to make sure that no formatting errors have crept in before you publish it. Nook offers a free tool for that purpose as well.

Setting Up Your Account

The Barnes & Noble site you’re going to need to set up a free account on in order to self-publish your book to the Nook platform is called Pubit! Having an account on that site affords you access to a lot more than the two free tools we’ve already mentioned, though. It also offers you access to a dashboard from which to manage both your content and your payments quickly and easily. Not only that, you’ll also have access to a large community of your fellow writers. Best of all, you’ll be provided with some simple but powerful tools to assist you with marketing your books. We’ll talk more about some of those tools in just a moment.

Editing Your Books

Even after you’ve placed your books for sale in the Nook system, you are still able to edit them. However, should you choose to do so, there are some things you’re going to need to know. For example, if you change the title of your book, you’re going to lose your reviews, sales ranking, and links from other products which were anchored to the old title. You should also be aware that updating a file on the Nook servers does not automatically update it on all Nook devices. Customers will either need to delete the book and download it again, or download it for the first time to a new device in order to receive the new version.

Marketing Your Books

We mentioned a moment ago that we would further discuss the tools Nook makes available to you in order to assist you with the marketing of your books. Learning to take advantage of these tools will serve you well across multiple publishing platforms. The most basic tool, of course, is the description of your book itself. You are usually granted between one hundred fifty and two hundred words in order to describe your book. You need to use those words to explain, as concisely and convincingly as possible, why your potential reader should buy your book. You will also have the opportunity to condense this description into a twenty to forty word headline, which you should try to make as punchy as possible. Above all, you should leave them wanting more.

Using a Cover Image

While the description you will write for your book is your most basic marketing tool, it isn’t your most important one. Your most important marketing tool is your cover image. Statistics have proven time and time again that regardless of which platform you’re using, eBooks with cover images sell far more copies than those without them. You just need to make sure that you have the rights to whatever image you use. Unless you’re a graphic artist, the simplest thing to do is to pay a professional to design a custom cover image for your eBook. It will need to be a .jpg file between five kilobytes and two megabytes in sizes. The sides need to be between seven hundred fifty and two thousand pixels in length.

Tap Into the Social Network

You will definitely benefit from developing relationships with other writers. Besides being able to encourage each other, when appropriate, you may even be able to cross promote each other’s books. If you find a partner whose readers may also be interested in what you have to say (and vice versa) then make sure to exchange covers and descriptions so you can mention each other’s works to your respective circles of readers. You should try to get your friends and family members in on this form of promotion as well. You can do all of this quite easily through Facebook and Twitter. Also, if you have a blog or a website, consider including a “Pubit! Badge” on it. This will give your visitors a graphical link directly to your product page.

Crafting Your Bio

It’s almost as important to make sure your bio is well-written as it is to carefully craft the description of your book. Often, your bio will make the difference in whether or not a person wants to read your book. If you’re a non-fiction writer, then you’re going to want to heavily emphasize your expertise. Relevant training, education, and personal experience should all be stressed. If you’ve joined any organizations or earned any awards which further establish you as an expert in your field, then these should be mentioned as well. Finally, if you’ve written any other books, then you’re also going to want to mention those in your bio.

Reviews

Reviews are another important marketing tool. It’s going to be a slow process at first to get reviews for your book. After all, you’re probably the only person who’s read it yet! There are several ways to do this though, and one of them is to make use of Barnes & Noble’s customer review system. When you get good feedback on there, you should mention it on your blog and your social networks. Another technique for getting reviews is to send free copies to book review bloggers. Nook gifting makes it easy for you to do this. Even if those reviewers don’t have Nooks, they can read their free copies on their other devices using free apps. You can also collect blurbs from other writers in your genre, and, as a last resort, there are book review sites that will review your book for a fee.

iBooks

The platform that Apple uses for their eBook distribution is called iBooks. As with the Nook, these are published in the ePub format. One of the main differences between this and other platforms is that, where other platforms have free apps which enable their books to be read on other devices, Apple does not. Still, the chief appeal of publishing in iBooks is that there are so many customers with Apple devices. One reason for that is simply that there are so many Apple devices. These books can be read on iPads, iPhones, and the iPod touch, all of which are extremely popular.

If you want to publish your book on Apple devices, then you’re going to need an ISBN number. Fortunately, it isn’t very hard to get one. As a matter of fact, there are plenty of services out there that, in addition to converting your book into the ePub format, will assign you an ISBN number as part of their process. Actually, you have to go through one of these services to get your book through the Apple approval process anyway, as they do not accept submissions from individual authors. These services require a cover image, and that image needs to be at least six hundred pixels tall. It needs to be shaped like a vertical rectangle, and it needs to include the book title and your name. No web addresses or nudity are allowed.

If you are creating your eBook on a MAC, then you can download the free iBooks Author software program and use it for the formatting and publishing of your eBook. Prior to publication, you will also need to set up an account with iTunes as a seller. There is an application process involved and it does take a few days for the application to be approved. Once it is approved, you can download the Apple’s publishing tool to upload and create the listing for your eBook.

Everything Else

In addition to the three electronic publishing options we have already discussed, there are several other devices and formats you might consider. Because these devices and formats give you access to such limited potential audiences, and because they really offer you no advantage in terms of marketing, it is highly recommended that you focus your initial efforts on the three major platforms (or at least one of them). Then, once you’ve got those bases covered, you can begin exploring some of your other options, including simply converting your book to .pdf format and marketing it yourself. That’s actually how eBooks were initially sold.

If you’re going to convert your book into a .pdf, you’re not going to need any special software. All major word processors will allow you to save your file directly in that format. You may never need to do this, though, because, as we mentioned, it’s a lot more difficult to market eBooks yourself than to upload them to major outlets. You are allowed to try, though. None of the major outlets require exclusive distribution agreements. Another advantage of the .pdf format worthy of consideration is that the same file can be read on the largest number of different devices.

Conversion for eBooks

As you’ve seen, the conversion process happens automatically if you’re publishing to one of the three major eBook outlets. However, if you’re publishing to other devices, in other formats, then you will need to use some type of file conversion utility. There are many of these available. Some of them are free, and some of them are rather expensive. One of the best free options is a piece of open source software called Calibre. Not only does Calibre handle eBook conversion, it also performs a number of other tasks which users of eBooks find useful. All of those other features revolve around various ways for users to organize and gain access to their content.

In terms of conversion itself, Calibre is able to handle a larger number of file formats than virtually any other similar piece of conversion software. Plus, the software is available in versions for both the PC and the MAC. In addition, the conversion process utilized by this software is more powerful than that of other solutions as well. For example, when you convert an eBook from one format into another using this tool, the text can be resized in the newly created document without causing any further formatting problems. It will also detect and create your book’s structure, such as your chapters and your table of contents. Finally, this conversion engine insert your book’s metadata into a virtual “book jacket.”

As far as some of the other features Calibre includes, many of them are really quite useful. For instance, the program itself is a versatile eBook reader. In fact, it can even gather news items from the world-wide-web and convert them into eBook format! Its library management tools allow for easy searching of your entire eBook collection, regardless of the format of those particular books. It will even find any missing descriptions and covers for your Ebooks automatically! You can even sync your eBook collection to a wide range of devices, with the software automatically selecting the best format for each of your individual titles prior to uploading them.

Additional Self-Publishing Options

Lulu

So far, we’ve discussed the route of submitting your book directly to major platforms on your own. You also have the option to use a service that will submit your book to multiple services for you. There are a few of these services out there, but the two most popular are Lulu and SmashWords. Both of them are free, and Lulu allows you to publish both digital and printed books. In fact, the printed books you can publish through Lulu can be any of a number of different sizes, and the can be bound in any of a number of different ways.

The number of pages your book contains will be one of the biggest determining factors in choosing which kind of format you’re going to want to publish it in. You may want to make it available to customers in both hardback and soft cover versions. There are multiple options for each type, and the formatting guidelines for each of those options are available for you to download on Lulu’s website. You just have to create an account and upload a properly formatted file. Then, Lulu will take it from there. Your book will be available for customers to order on a print-on-demand basis from Amazon.com if you add Lulu’s free distribution services, and you can pay a modest additional fee to make it available to other retailers, such as Barnes and Noble.

There are also a number of other services Lulu can provide on a fee-for-service basis. Though their most basic self-publishing packages are free, and probably sufficient for most hobby-level authors, writers with bigger ambitions would do well to take advantage of some of these other offerings. For instance, Lulu’s graphic artists can professionally design your book’s cover for you if you don’t want to use the do-it-yourself tools which they provide. They also provide editing services and formatting services. Many of these services are based on the word count of your book, and they are available as bundled packages also.

If you do not intend for your book to ever be ordered in print, it is still a good idea for you to self-publish through a service like Lulu. The reason for this is that they can make your book available in multiple sales channels at the same time. Currently, those sales channels include the Apple iBooks Store, the Nook Store, and Lulu.com itself. Remember, since you can’t submit to Apple directly as an individual, if you want to sell your books on that platform (and you should), then you’re going to have to submit them through Lulu or SmashWords anyway. Also, please note that neither service includes eBook distribution on the Kindle, so you should also submit your books to Amazon for Kindle distribution on your own.

For both eBooks and print books, Lulu also provides you with both paid and free marketing tools in order to help you boost your sales. On the free level, Lulu provides access to extensive tips from a number of marketing experts for you to read and implement on your own. If you’re willing to invest some money into the promotion of your book, Lulu also offers a number of ala carte services and promotional packages for you to choose from. Just keep in mind that there is no guarantee that these paid marketing efforts will generate any sales. It might be better to begin with some marketing efforts of your own before sailing out into deeper waters.

SmashWords

Some people would say that I’ve saved the best for last. Depending on what exactly your goals for self-publishing are, I may very well have. Though this site doesn’t offer any print publication options, its eBook publishing services are actually a little more extensive than those of its main competitor. For example, in addition to publishing on Apple products and the Nook, you will also be publishing to Sony eBook readers, Baker & Taylor, Kobo, Diesel, and others by default. Plus, there are more marketing tools available, and the process for publishing your eBook on this site is just as simple as if you were publishing it anywhere else.

The first step in that process is to sign up for a free account on the site. After you do so, they will send you a confirmation email, which will describe your next steps. One of those next steps will be to upload a properly formatted Word document. The formatting guidelines are very similar to those used when you’re publishing an eBook via other means. Next, you’ll need to upload your email your eBook and your cover image. Remember, you can pay somebody to design your cover image if you need to, and that would be a very good investment. For that matter, you can even pay someone to format you book for you. Your final step will simply be to click, “publish,” and then you’ll be off and running.

There are also other factors which make SmashWords such a great choice for eBook publishing. For instance, if one of your books sells via their retail platform, your royalty will equal eighty-five percent of its listed price! Also, you will be able to take advantage of both their consolidated sales reporting and their centralized metadata management. One of the best benefits of all, however, is the fact that you can get a free ISBN for your book by publishing it with this service. What’s more, since their conversion software supports nine different formats, your readers will be able to enjoy your book on virtually any type of device. There will be plenty of marketing tools at your disposal, and you’ll be able to update either your book or your metadata at any time.

Yet More Options

Of course, there are other options for self-publishing out there. Many of them require higher up-front fees than the options we’ve discussed. A good time to use one of these options would be if you plan to be able to sell a number of hard copies of your book yourself, perhaps at your speaking engagements. In any case, we wish you the best!