Publish Yourself
Create & Sell Your Own E-Books
By J.M. Snyder
Published by JMS Books LLC at Smashwords
This book is available in print.
Visit jms-books.com for more information.
Copyright 2011 J.M. Snyder
ISBN 9781611522099
For more titles by J.M. Snyder at Smashwords visit https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/jmsnyder
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Cover Credits: Andriy Kravchenko
Used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.
Cover Design: J.M. Snyder
All rights reserved.
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The author/publisher of this book has used her best efforts in preparing this guide. The author/publisher makes no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy, applicability, fitness, or completeness of the contents of this guide. The author/publisher disclaims any warranties (express or implied), merchantability, or fitness for any particular purpose. The author/publisher shall in no event be held liable for any loss or other damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential or other damages.
Published in the United States of America.
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Table of Contents
Section III: Your E-Book Content
Section IV: Creating Your E-Books
Section V: Publishing Your E-Books
Appendix: Links to Websites Mentioned in This Book
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Section I: Introduction
When someone learns I publish e-books, one of the first questions I’m asked is simply, “How?” I’ve given advice on the subject to many authors seeking to self-publish their stories in electronic format, but my general replies never seemed to be enough. People want in-depth explanations, from start to finish, on how to format their stories into e-books: how to lay out the books so others can access them, how to convert the books into a variety of e-book formats, and where to sell the finished product.
After one too many e-mails soliciting advice, I realized what seemed second-nature to me wasn’t necessarily as intuitive to others, so I decided to write this book. Be warned—it isn’t the end-all, be-all of publishing guides. It isn’t going to make you millions overnight so you can quit your day job and write full-time. Hell, it may not even tell you anything you don’t already know. But it will explain to you in no-nonsense detail how I personally create an e-book from beginning to end, how I format a book into nine of the most common electronic formats, and where I publish my stories online. Following the instructions in this book, you will be able to create and sell e-books, too.
Sure, there are other publishing guides out there, but many of them are overpriced and don’t offer any real assistance. I’ve never understood why someone who spent little or nothing creating an e-book thinks they should make $15 or more per copy. The beauty of an e-book is that there are few, if any, overhead costs, and 100% of what you earn, you keep. Many distributors have no set-up fees, conversion software can be found online for little or no cost, and the techno-savvy person can generate an e-book without spending much beyond what they’ve already paid setting up their home computer. So why spend an arm and a leg to learn how to do it?
You may think my sharing the process with you is tantamount to giving away trade secrets, but I don’t see it that way. There are always going to be writers who want to work with publishers—people who don’t want to bother with the creation and marketing of books, who don’t want to go through the hassle of dealing directly with multiple distributors, who don’t want to muck about with cover art and interior design and whatnot. People who only want to write and will leave the messy and sometimes complicated business of getting their words into print to someone else.
This book isn’t for those writers.
Instead, it’s for people like myself who enjoy controlling every aspect of writing, from a story’s inception through to seeing it published. People who want to learn how to format their own stories, who want to track their own sales, who want a more hands-on approach than what is offered through traditional publishing venues. People who have already self-published a book in print but now want to explore the budding world of e-publishing. People who want to keep more of their profits.
People who believe in their own stories and are going to get their books out there for readers regardless of whether or not a publisher decides to take them on.
This book is for you.
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Basic Assumptions
In writing this book, I have made some very basic assumptions about you, the reader. In order to benefit from the advice and suggestions herein, you must:
Already have a book or story written and edited, ready for publication. If not, stop reading and get to work!
Know your way around a computer. Be familiar with a word processing program—I use Microsoft Word, but the same functions are available with any similar program.
Be comfortable downloading and installing software to your computer, such as FTP and e-book creation programs.
Know you’ll have to spend money to make money. Self-publishing isn’t exactly free—you will have to buy cover images (or hire a cover artist), promotional services, copyrights, and ISBNs. While some of the software available online to assist you with creating e-books is free to use, a few programs I mention here are inexpensive shareware.
Realize distributors will take a cut of your profits. But, in the long run, you may end up earning more than you spend, and more than you’d make with a publisher taking a percentage of your sales.
Realize your book isn’t going to sell thousands of copies. Self-published books rarely do, though authors can make a living on their own if they have multiple titles for sale and publish regularly. But you will need to be prepared to market your title and promote yourself heavily, both online and off. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t outgoing by nature or if you prefer not to mingle on social networking sites—you need to tell people about your book. Be ready to sell yourself and your book, or stop now.
Throughout this book I will mention websites and programs I use to help in the creation of an e-book. In the appendix you’ll find URLs for all programs and websites I mention. This list is current as of the publication date of this book. Please realize these URLs may change over time! If you try visiting one of the links and get an error, Google it to see if the program or site is still online.
Any program or site name whose link is included in the back of the book will be highlighted in BOLD BLUE text.
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My Self-Publishing Journey
Before we start, let me give you a little bit of background about myself. I’m sure you’re wondering where I get off presuming to tell people how to create and sell their own e-books. Many readers who know of my writing may not realize I actually started in self-publishing, releasing my first novel in 2002. For four long years I struggled to learn the business, focusing only on print titles and trying desperately to get them into bookstores and in front of readers. When I first heard of e-books, I thought I’d give them a try, but I didn’t expect much. How things change over time!
I grew up knowing I wanted to be a writer. In high school I subscribed to Writer’s Digest, which I believed to be the Bible for “Those Who Would Be Published.” In college I took every writing class and workshop offered, and began to send out my first tentative submissions. With each manuscript I mailed, my collection of rejection slips grew. I told myself I was ‘on my way.’
After college, I used the Internet to connect with other like-minded people interested in publishing. I discovered a variety of genres I never knew existed, including M/M fiction, or gay erotic romance. I was floored to find that, not only did other writers write these sorts of stories, but people actually read them! Without further thought, I leapt head-first into slash fan fiction, sure I had found my true calling.
Unfortunately, fan fiction is not a paying market. So I began to explore original gay erotic romance at a time before e-publishers began marketing it exclusively. There was nothing in the Writer’s Market to point me to where I could publish this stuff. I knew nothing of e-publishing at the time, except that there was a big to-do made when Stephen King published Riding the Bullet as an e-book. I bought it, being a fan, and promptly never read it. So I didn’t think e-publishing had much of a shelf life. If I couldn’t be bothered to read a story by my favorite author, who would care to read anything of mine?
Due to a lack of publishing venues, I chose the self-publishing route. It was the best way for me to go—my first novel was science fiction and I didn’t want to be pigeonholed into that genre; also, none of the sci-fi publishing houses listed gay fiction as a genre they considered, and my first novel definitely had plenty of hot gay sex in it. With no options seemingly available to me, I scraped my money together and released Operation Starseed through iUniverse.
Then came the marketing.
I wasn’t naïve—I knew I would need to promote my book if anyone was going to read it. But the subject matter made it difficult to talk about it where I lived. At my first author event, I sat on a panel among women who had written Southern cookbooks or personal testimonies to God. To say I didn’t quite fit in would be the understatement of the year! I bought ten copies of my book for the event, borrowing money from my father to afford them, and sold a total of one (I thought enough ahead to plant a friend in the audience). Obviously, this wasn’t the ideal way to sell books.
With that fiasco behind me, I began devouring any and all information I could find on self-promotion. There is a wealth of articles available online, covering everything from book signings to sell sheets to press releases. I read them all, took them to heart, and began a direct mail marketing campaign targeting gay/lesbian bookstores around the country. With my subsequent releases, that campaign seemed to work—I received small royalty checks on a quarterly basis, and felt I was once again ‘on my way’ to living the life of a published author.
But self-publishing through a company such as iUniverse was cost-prohibitive in many ways. The company does all of the dirty work involved in publishing a book—they lay out your book’s interior, they design the cover, they provide distribution, they physically print the books…and they charge accordingly. When they changed their contract to include a non-exclusivity clause, their prices rose to cover any losses. Suddenly the cost of self-publishing couldn’t be justified by the measly royalties I received in return. I had to find another avenue for publication or stop writing so damn much.
I still wasn’t sold on e-publishing. I didn’t even offer my books in electronic format at first, sure no one would be interested. So I looked around until I found Lulu, a print-on-demand (or POD) publisher who didn’t charge exorbitant fees because the author did all the work. I would be the one in charge of designing the book’s interior, the cover, etc. All I paid for was distribution and the purchase of an ISBN. With three books under my belt and a new wealth of marketing experience to draw on, I whole-heartedly jumped at the opportunity to continue self-publishing.
Given my track record with fan fiction, you would’ve thought I’d be more interested in electronic publication, but it wasn’t until I decided to explore short erotic fiction that I once again found an online audience. I started looking for venues for short fiction and found numerous contests, web-based journals, magazines, and anthologies seeking short stories—the hotter, the better. I turned my attention to shorter works and began the tedious submissions process all over again. To my surprise, there were fewer rejection slips this time around—apparently I had found in gay fiction my calling as a writer after all, and the publication of my short fiction helped boost the sales of my self-published novels.
Then an editor at an up-and-coming e-publisher contacted me about re-publishing my novels as e-books. I was skeptical—I had released the books in PDF format through Lulu, but because they weren’t widely available beyond that distributor’s website, I saw nothing in my sales figures to suggest co-venturing with a publisher would be worth my while. For one, I currently made 80% off all sales, and the standard e-book publisher’s royalty rate of 35%–40% paled in comparison.
But the marketing person in me decided to take a chance, and I sent the publisher a book I planned to self-publish. I negotiated to keep the print rights, and the book was released in both paperback and e-book formats simultaneously.
Suddenly, my sales skyrocketed.
Granted, the publisher had a bit more knowledge about the world of e-publishing than I did at the time, but I was still more than a little surprised at the amount of my first royalty check. My sales had increased 500% in the span of four months! I couldn’t believe it!
It was eye-opening, to say the least. With the publication of one e-book, my other titles were now being downloaded left and right. Apparently e-publishing was no longer the ‘red-headed stepchild’ Writer’s Digest and all the writing magazines made it out to be. My sales proved there was a strong reader base I had not yet tapped. I felt behind the times, and rushed to catch up.
Since then, I’ve worked with numerous e-publishers—publishing houses whose focus is on e-books. I’ve learned what I liked—and what I didn’t like—and, over time, began to drift back into self-publishing, this time with more first-hand knowledge of e-books and how they work. When my stories began coming out of contract with some of my e-publishers, I decided to put them into print myself and keep more of my profits.
At the request of a friend interested in having me publish his stories, this eventually morphed into JMS Books LLC, a small press I created in July 2010 to publish not only my own titles—in both print and electronic formats—but those of other authors whose writing I enjoyed, as well.
While Writer’s Digest and similar magazines geared toward writers still encourage authors to pursue publication with traditional publishers who pay large advances for print titles, I’m proof that you can earn a living self-publishing. In July 2011, one year after JMS Books LLC opened its doors, I quit my day job. Granted, I’m not moving to a summer home next door to J.K. Rowling any time soon, but I’m making ends meet as a “full-time writer.”
And for as long back as I can remember, that’s all I ever wanted to be.
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Self-publishing is not for everyone. You have to be your own editor, which some authors simply cannot do. You need an eye for design—you need to know what works visually on a page and what will attract a reader’s attention. You also need a good working knowledge of computers, to manipulate the documents to fit your designs. And you need to learn how to promote yourself.
Unless you’re Stephen King, the reality is your books won’t fly off the shelves by themselves. Most electronic publishers ask new authors to think about their marketing plan prior to publication. With either a traditional or e-book publisher, there will be initial sales from fans of your genre who don’t know your writing but are willing to take a chance on it because they’re intrigued by your book, and all publishers offer some level of marketing to announce new releases to the general public.
With self-publishing, you don’t have that to fall back on. You have to build the buzz for your book; you have to reach the audience intended for it. If you don’t want to devote long hours to marketing and promoting your own writing, then self-publishing is definitely not for you.
On the other hand, I have learned things through self-publishing I may not have bothered to find out otherwise. I know more about marketing, and have lost all shyness when it comes to talking up my books. I’ve learned to self-edit, which helps polish my writing and improve any submissions I send out. I’m savvy about what works and what doesn’t, in book marketing and design, both on and off line. These skills have become invaluable to me in promoting my work to editors and readers alike.
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What are E-Books?
When I started self-publishing in 2002, e-books existed but were not nearly as wide-spread as they are today. I knew traditional publishers were starting to experiment with downloading titles, but none of the major bookstores online yet marketed handheld e-readers. My few experiments in electronic publishing were met with insipid sales, at best. Granted, my self-published paperbacks didn’t fare much better, but I saw little or no profit in publishing e-books.
Part of the reason I never realized there was a growing e-book community online was the simple fact that I didn’t read e-books. I preferred printed volumes, and I think there’s a part of every writer who longs to see his or her name in print on an actual, physical book. It’s something you can set on your coffee table, or keep on a bookshelf, or show your parents to prove you’ve made it, you’re a real author. An e-book is intangible—there’s nothing to hold onto, nothing to show off. Before Amazon’s Kindle invaded everyday language, not many people even knew what an e-book was.
But in today’s technology-laden world, e-book sales have surpassed those of print titles in the marketplace to such an extent that traditional publishers and booksellers are scrambling to reinvent their business models. Libraries are including e-books in their offerings, and every day more online bookstores selling only in electronic format seem to crop up. Many cell phones now support e-books, and the two largest online bookstores—Amazon and Barnes & Noble—have revolutionized the industry with stand-alone e-reading devices. Even people who didn’t know e-books existed last year are jumping on the bandwagon.
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What exactly is an e-book, anyway?
In the simplest terms, an e-book is a story available for download. According to Wikipedia, the first e-book was a copy of the United States’ Declaration of Independence, typed into a teletype machine by Michael S. Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, in 1971. Software dedicated to reading e-books was first developed in 1993, two years before Amazon launched its online store. In 1998, the first ISBN was issued for an e-book, the same year the Rocket eBook reader was released. In 2000, Stephen King’s short story came out, and the rest is history.
E-books are revolutionizing the way people read…and publish. Before electronic formats, the only stories that would ever make it into print were novel-length—short stories were relegated to anthologies or magazines. Very few authors could make ends meet writing short fiction. Anyone who wanted to make money writing was at the mercy of the big publishing houses of New York—many great manuscripts were lost in slush piles or rejected numerous times. How many would-be authors lost faith in their writing when no one contracted their books? How many short stories were published in magazines with limited print runs and are no longer available?
As I said in the Introduction, there is very little overhead for someone who wants to publish an e-book. You need a book or story, of course. Software—to lay out the book, create a cover, format the electronic files, and upload them to a distributor’s site. And really, that’s about it. With the wide range of free software or low-cost shareware available online, you can easily publish your own titles with a starting investment of $100 or less. Why some publishers insist on charging so much for their electronic titles, sometimes pricing e-books at the same price they charge for the paperback edition, is beyond me.
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Why do e-books appeal to readers? Many like the ease of use electronic formats provide. Disabled readers can enjoy books they wouldn’t be able to read in print. Those of us who spend way too much on books can buy e-books without worrying about where to store them. They aren’t taking up space in your bedroom or closet, and if you have to move, you don’t have to worry about packing all those books into boxes or, more importantly, bribing friends and family to help you carry them.
An e-reader is easier to take with you on trips than a stack of paperbacks—there’s no more making room for your books in your suitcases when you travel. And with the wireless option available on Amazon’s Kindle, you can decide mid-flight to buy another book and be reading it in minutes. E-books are a product of our technologically-driven, on-the-go society, and like it or not, they’re definitely here to stay.
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Crash Course on E-Readers and E-Book Formats
There are a wide variety of e-book formats and e-reading devices available. This list is by no means exhaustive; rather, it’s meant to introduce you to the most common formats and e-readers available, as I will be referring to them throughout the book.
PLEASE NOTE: This list is only current as of this book’s original publication date. With each day, technology advances and e-books are on the cutting edge. The e-readers available today may change by the time you read this book.
Plain Text (.txt)
This is the simplest e-book format there is. Although it doesn’t preserve any formatting such as italicized or bold text, it is readable on any computer and files in TXT format are smaller in size than any other format. For the visually-impaired, plain text is the easiest format to read using screen reading software. However, it isn’t very aesthetically pleasing to sighted readers.
Hypertext Markup Language (.html, .htm)
If you’ve ever used a web browser such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari, you’re already familiar with HTML documents. They’re the most basic building block websites use to convey information to visitors. HTML files can be opened in any web browser, though different programs may display the files differently. Stories published on the web that aren’t available for download but rather are meant to be read online are usually in HTML format. You can format HTML files to include italics or bold text, different font sizes, various colors…even images can be displayed in the body of an e-book when saved in HTML format, as long as the image is linked to a local file or a picture on the internet.
E-books in HTML are easy to read—if the text is too small, you can increase the font size using the browser’s settings, and you can print the file if you want to read it on paper. Some HTML e-books are stored in zipped file archives (ZIP), which include the original HTML file and any images that may be linked in the file. If you download an HTML e-book that isn’t in a ZIP file but instead has the HTML or HTM extension, the images should be hyperlinked to a server online or they won’t display properly.
Electronic Publication (.epub)
As more e-readers and e-book applications for hand-held devices are created, the majority of them are using EPUB as the industry standard.
It’s a free and open format, and in its simplest form, an EPUB file is really a zipped file archive, though it has an EPUB extension (not ZIP). It can be opened using any zip utility such as WinZip or 7Zip. The archive contains all images displayed in the e-book as well as the e-book text contents, which are usually saved in XML, XHTML, or HTML format. There are also two other important files in an EPUB—the OPF (which contains the book’s metadata, file list, and reading order), and the NCX (which contains the table of contents for all the files). These two files allow e-readers and e-reading software to display chapters in the file as bookmarked links which can be easily accessed by readers.
An EPUB file must be structured in just the right way to ensure it doesn’t contain errors that may prevent the text from displaying properly. There are many tools out there to validate EPUB files, including websites that offer services to users who want to upload a file to check it for errors. While you can build or edit an EPUB file yourself using ZIP file software, there are programs available that will create a valid EPUB file for you. If you create an EPUB file from scratch, you have to save the documents in the ZIP file in a certain order, which is easier said than done. If you wish to create an EPUB file and aren’t familiar with the coding required, the best alternative is to download a program to facilitate the conversion for you.
Apple’s iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo Books are among the distributors who use EPUB files exclusively. If you want to get your book to the widest audience possible, it’s in your best interest to publish in EPUB format.
Adobe Portable Document Format (.pdf)
The most common method to transfer documents online is in Adobe Portable Document Format, or PDF. There are two different programs available from Adobe Systems—PDF Reader only allows you to read PDF documents, and is probably already installed on your computer. PDF Creator is the full version of the program which allows you to create and edit PDF files. In the past, you had to dish out a pretty penny to purchase the Creator program or you couldn’t generate your own PDFs. Now, however, there are many free programs available that will make PDF files for you.