[stylist] Self-Publishing Update: the Interior of the Book

Sun Mar 10 21:36:07 UTC 2013

Hi Friends,

Most of you already know that I am about to self-publish my novel The Heart
of Applebutter Hill. Since some other Stylist members are thinking about
this option, I have been writing periodic, if not regular, updates in the
hopes that sharing my experiences will prove useful to others in terms of
getting an idea what is involved. The book should be out in a month or so.
In this e-mail, I'll talk about where we're at with the interior. The cover
and the website info will shortly follow in separate e-mails. 

I'm going to use Create Space for print & Kindle, and Smashwords for the
other e-book formats, which include Blio. Create Space is first, and it has
three basic approaches: 

1. The free method allows people who have preformatted manuscripts and/or
book covers to upload them to their site 

2. A variety of packages in three categories (Standard Value Solutions,
Total Design Freedom Solutions & Total Design Freedom Solutions for
Children's Books). If you want to spend the money, they'll do everything
from multiple rounds of copy editing, formatting, signature cover design,
press releases and a video in their $4,853 "Total Design Freedom Marketing
Pro" package. For just about that much you can get a package that includes
illustrating children's books.

3. An a la carte option, in which you pick and choose between the free and
paid services. I'm attaching a .docx of four Total Design Freedom packages
with both the package total and the a la cart prices as of January. There
are other options  online. 

I'm trying to do some of it for free and purchase a minimum of services a la
carte. I want to take advantage of their free Interior Reviewer. Purchasing
copies of the POD books is not as cheap for authors as I had hoped, and they
don't give you a price break unless you order 5,000 copies. The price is
dependent on the size and page count.  For mine which is 6" x 9" and circa
340 pages, it's about $4.50, per copy (approx, and I'm not sure about
shipping.). I would like to save money on the things I can, so I can buy
more copies for promotional use.

I asked about using Create Space generated interiors with other publishers,
since there are many who offer discounts. The answer is, no. They allow you
to use the front cover image in promotions, but you can't take either the
cover or the interior to a third-party publisher. Two of the issues here
are:

1. Different printing services have different requirements for the "print
ready" files they work with,

2. Different versions of a book need different ISBNs. 

The ISBN is the International Standard Book Number. Create Space will give
you one that makes them the publishing imprint of record, or you can buy
them directly through Bowker. One way or the other, all ISBNs in the US come
through Bowker. Obviously, if you buy your own ISBNs and have the basic
formatting, you can go to anyone. I saw a deal somewhere that cost $250 for
10 ISBNs.

I wrote to ask Create Space about the accessibility of the Interior
Reviewer, which points out formatting problems visually. I expressed my
fears that I might not be able to use it with Jaws. They wrote back saying
that they would do it for me, if I provided them with a preformatted Word
document: preformatted means to their spe    cifications, not the way most
of us go about formatting. They also said that their uploader doesn't work
with some advanced formatting methods, but didn't define them. 

I don't have anything all that advanced going on in my novel - just a
different font and size for chapter titles, a different format for poetry &
lyrics and vertically centered copyright and dedication pages. I have done
so much work trying to figure out how to use Word's advanced formatting
(Styles), which is mandatory. I am very close to having something I think
might work. I'm going to see if their uploader can deal with it, before
admitting defeat and turning the job over to them. 

I read about the Interior Reviewer enough to tell that there is a menu list
of the problems, so it might be workable with Jaws after all. You can't use
it until you commit to which of the 3 ISBN options you are going to use. 

I expect to get the free one, which is necessary to take advantage of some
of Create Space's advanced distribution services and necessary to get an
LCCN (Library of Congress Control Number). The LCCN is necessary to get
distribution through Baker and Taylor - the book distribution company used
by schools and colleges. Since I'm niche-marketing my novel as a tool for
diversity and anti-bullying initiatives in secondary schools and colleges, I
want to do this. You can do it privately, but it just feels like more hassle
than I can handle, and it would cost more with no foreseeable benefit.
Before I give the Interior Reviewer a try, however, there's the matter of
the cover, but that'll have to wait till next time. 

-- The Heart of Applebutter Hill, a novel on a mission:
DonnaWHill.com

Read Donna's articles on Suite 101:
http://suite101 <http://suite101.com/donna-w-hill> .com/donna-w-hill

Connect with Donna on
Twitter:
www.twitter.com/dewhill
LinkedIn:
www.linkedin.com/in/dwh99
FaceBook:
www.facebook.com/donna.w.hill

Hear clips from "The Last Straw" at:
cdbaby.com/cd/donnahill

Apple I-Tunes
phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playListId=259244374

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: CS packages, 1-7-13.docx
Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
Size: 13500 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/stylist_nfbnet.org/attachments/20130310/26758e23/attachment.docx>