Publishing your story

#1
So, when I started writing, I never thought I'd get to the point where I had to consider whether to publish my work or not. Now, I'm past that point, and I'm looking to self publish the first volume of my story on amazon. Right now, as I'm going through the process of editing, and preparing my book to publish, little things and problems keep popping up in my head.

For those who have gone through a similar process, I have a few questions for you,

1) How do you go about pricing your book? Is page count/word count at all a factor in your decision?

2) Is there a recommended font, font size, and/or line spacing for a novel?

3) Do you at all change some aspects in your story before publishing? Things like fixing a certain scene, or a specific section in the story.

4) How do you create a book cover, or how do you find someone to create a cover for you? I recently created a new cover for my story, but I'm unsure whether I can use it or not, since I'm not too sure whether what I did (taking portions of different images and combining them together into one image) is considered copy right, or artist infringement.

5) How do panels and tables appear in published amazon/kindle books? Will there be formatting issues, if I go from say word doc to whatever amazon is using?

6) should I change/improve my summary?

7) As the ultimate goal of self publishing, how much did your story make? And how responsive is the market to the type of genre usually seen on RRL? If it's uncomfortable to discuss, you don't have to state how much your story made, I kind of just wanted a general idea.

I'm sure more questions will pop up as I continue editing, but for now, these were the issues that consistently plagued me. All help is appreciated, thank you. Any advise that you may have, I will accept with open arms.

Also, a tradition I used to practice back when my story wasn't so popular, shameless advertising:

check out my work peeps - Change:New World.

RE: Publishing your story

#2
Well, I'm also in the pre-publishing stages. But, I can give you some feedback based on my own research and helping people with formatting their print editions.

'Lv1Slime' pid='817633' dateline='1478131436' Wrote: 1) How do you go about pricing your book? Is page count/word count at all a factor in your decision?

I can't answer this one. There's a few people around RRL that should be able to advise you on this.

If I remember right, word count is a factor - but I don't remember to what degree.

'Lv1Slime' pid='817633' dateline='1478131436' Wrote: 2) Is there a recommended font, font size, and/or line spacing for a novel?

Formatting is surprisingly important. If something is "wrong" people pick up on it and judge it as amateurish. There's a lot of articles and guides you can find via Google about these things, but here's some tips I've picked up.

  • Most important - make sure that your formatting is consistent throughout the book. Pick something and stick to it.

  • Left Justified (or just Justified, depending on the program) text is preferred.

  • Indents: These can be 0.25 or 0.5 inches - 0.25 is usually preferred.

  • No blank lines between paragraphs.

  • Font Size: 12

  • Line Spacing: 1.5

  • Font Type: For E-Books this doesn't matter terribly much. E-Book readers like Kindle allow the user to choose the font they're reading in - unless the author embeds the font in the PDF. This is more something you worry about for the print edition, in which case I direct you to this: 5 Favorite Fonts for Interior Book Design

  • Choose: Do you want the first paragraph of each chapter indented or not? Both are technically correct as long as you're only using one of the two methods.

  • For Print: All chapters need to begin on the right-hand page. This means you will need a PDF Viewer and you will have to go through and insert blank pages prior to some chapters. I can upload an example of my own work if you want me to.

  • For Print: Margins are determined by your page count and the dimensions of your book. CreateSpace has a page detailing estimate margins for varying page counts.

'Lv1Slime' pid='817633' dateline='1478131436' Wrote: 3) Do you at all change some aspects in your story before publishing? Things like fixing a certain scene, or a specific section in the story.

Yes. I'm actually doing a full re-write of my story prior to publishing. There are things that I left out in the draft I have posted on RRL and need to include in the published version.

Also, from a business standpoint, having new things in the published version should serve as an incentive for existing readers to buy your book. If it's exactly the same as it is on RRL - then there's no reason for them to buy it beyond supporting the author (you.)

'Lv1Slime' pid='817633' dateline='1478131436' Wrote: 4) How do you create a book cover, or how do you find someone to create a cover for you? I recently created a new cover for my story, but I'm unsure whether I can use it or not, since I'm not too sure whether what I did (taking portions of different images and combining them together into one image) is considered copy right, or artist infringement.

Book covers are insanely important. From the artwork to the typography, it can make or break your book.

If the typography on the cover - especially the book name - is too small, the thumbnail will be unreadable. If browsers can't read the thumbnail for a book they usually skip it entirely. Potential readers look at a cover for 2 seconds at most while skimming the store. This means that your cover needs contrast of light/dark and/or color + legible typography in order to grab peoples' attention.

What you did is probably copyright infringement, but I can't say for sure without seeing your cover.

If you're working with a limited budget, I recommend taking a look at this website and opting for a premade cover until you can afford a custom one.

While on the subject of covers, here's a good article about cover design.

'Lv1Slime' pid='817633' dateline='1478131436' Wrote: 5) How do panels and tables appear in published amazon/kindle books? Will there be formatting issues, if I go from say word doc to whatever amazon is using?

I don't write LitRPG so I can't say for certain. Someone else will have to touch on this.

'Lv1Slime' pid='817633' dateline='1478131436' Wrote: 6) should I change/improve my summary?

Several points -

  • Make sure you have a blurb not a summary. There is a difference.

  • If you're asking if it should be changed/improved, it probably should be.

  • Here's a helpful article about writing blurbs: Writing Blurbs for Novels

Difference Between a Blurb and a Synopsis

Synopsis Wrote: A synopsis is primarily used by an author when submitting a new project to an agent or publisher, as most require an overview of what the work is about. A synopsis needs to convey the feel of the story to readers. If the story is a romance, then the synopsis should be romantic. If it’s a comedy, then your synopsis needs to be funny.

Blurb Wrote: A book blurb is a selling tool, and one of the most important. The sole purpose of the blurb is to pique the reader’s interest so they feel as if they must read this book. It should hint at the plot, without giving anything away. Words are what matter in a blurb, powerful words that invoke images and resonate with readers. Name the main characters and introduce a question or mystery that needs to be solved, without telling how it ends. The book blurb must be short and dramatic.
Looking for stuff to read? Click below to navigate to my stories.

https://i.imgur.com/r6iTizF.jpg

RE: Publishing your story

#3
'Luciferia' pid='817634' dateline='1478133349' Wrote: Well, I'm also in the pre-publishing stages. But, I can give you some feedback based on my own research and helping people with formatting their print editions.

'Lv1Slime' pid='817633' dateline='1478131436' Wrote: 1) How do you go about pricing your book? Is page count/word count at all a factor in your decision?

I can't answer this one. There's a few people around RRL that should be able to advise you on this.

If I remember right, word count is a factor - but I don't remember to what degree.

'Lv1Slime' pid='817633' dateline='1478131436' Wrote: 2) Is there a recommended font, font size, and/or line spacing for a novel?

Formatting is surprisingly important. If something is "wrong" people pick up on it and judge it as amateurish. There's a lot of articles and guides you can find via Google about these things, but here's some tips I've picked up.

  • Most important - make sure that your formatting is consistent throughout the book. Pick something and stick to it.

  • Left Justified (or just Justified, depending on the program) text is preferred.

  • Indents: These can be 0.25 or 0.5 inches - 0.25 is usually preferred.

  • No blank lines between paragraphs.

  • Font Size: 12

  • Line Spacing: 1.5

  • Font Type: For E-Books this doesn't matter terribly much. E-Book readers like Kindle allow the user to choose the font they're reading in - unless the author embeds the font in the PDF. This is more something you worry about for the print edition, in which case I direct you to this: 5 Favorite Fonts for Interior Book Design

  • Choose: Do you want the first paragraph of each chapter indented or not? Both are technically correct as long as you're only using one of the two methods.

  • For Print: All chapters need to begin on the right-hand page. This means you will need a PDF Viewer and you will have to go through and insert blank pages prior to some chapters. I can upload an example of my own work if you want me to.

  • For Print: Margins are determined by your page count and the dimensions of your book. CreateSpace has a page detailing estimate margins for varying page counts.

'Lv1Slime' pid='817633' dateline='1478131436' Wrote: 3) Do you at all change some aspects in your story before publishing? Things like fixing a certain scene, or a specific section in the story.

Yes. I'm actually doing a full re-write of my story prior to publishing. There are things that I left out in the draft I have posted on RRL and need to include in the published version.

Also, from a business standpoint, having new things in the published version should serve as an incentive for existing readers to buy your book. If it's exactly the same as it is on RRL - then there's no reason for them to buy it beyond supporting the author (you.)

'Lv1Slime' pid='817633' dateline='1478131436' Wrote: 4) How do you create a book cover, or how do you find someone to create a cover for you? I recently created a new cover for my story, but I'm unsure whether I can use it or not, since I'm not too sure whether what I did (taking portions of different images and combining them together into one image) is considered copy right, or artist infringement.

Book covers are insanely important. From the artwork to the typography, it can make or break your book.

If the typography on the cover - especially the book name - is too small, the thumbnail will be unreadable. If browsers can't read the thumbnail for a book they usually skip it entirely. Potential readers look at a cover for 2 seconds at most while skimming the store. This means that your cover needs contrast of light/dark and/or color + legible typography in order to grab peoples' attention.

What you did is probably copyright infringement, but I can't say for sure without seeing your cover.

If you're working with a limited budget, I recommend taking a look at this website and opting for a premade cover until you can afford a custom one.

While on the subject of covers, here's a good article about cover design.

'Lv1Slime' pid='817633' dateline='1478131436' Wrote: 5) How do panels and tables appear in published amazon/kindle books? Will there be formatting issues, if I go from say word doc to whatever amazon is using?

I don't write LitRPG so I can't say for certain. Someone else will have to touch on this.

'Lv1Slime' pid='817633' dateline='1478131436' Wrote: 6) should I change/improve my summary?

Several points -

  • Make sure you have a blurb not a summary. There is a difference.

  • If you're asking if it should be changed/improved, it probably should be.

  • Here's a helpful article about writing blurbs: Writing Blurbs for Novels

Difference Between a Blurb and a Synopsis

Synopsis Wrote: A synopsis is primarily used by an author when submitting a new project to an agent or publisher, as most require an overview of what the work is about. A synopsis needs to convey the feel of the story to readers. If the story is a romance, then the synopsis should be romantic. If it’s a comedy, then your synopsis needs to be funny.

Blurb Wrote: A book blurb is a selling tool, and one of the most important. The sole purpose of the blurb is to pique the reader’s interest so they feel as if they must read this book. It should hint at the plot, without giving anything away. Words are what matter in a blurb, powerful words that invoke images and resonate with readers. Name the main characters and introduce a question or mystery that needs to be solved, without telling how it ends. The book blurb must be short and dramatic.

Thank you for the response. I did not know that there was so much I had to worry about. Its a little bit overwhelming somehow, haha.

RE: Publishing your story

#4
'Lv1Slime' pid='817636' dateline='1478134589' Wrote: Thank you for the response. I did not know that there was so much I had to worry about. Its a little bit overwhelming somehow, haha.

No problem!

There's a lot that goes into publishing (that many people don't realize.) :P

Part of the allure of traditional publishing is that we, the authors, don't have to deal with much of the finer details like this because the publishing house takes care of it. However, we also lose so many rights and freedoms over our work if we go with traditional publishing - and the royalties from sales are significantly less too.

Something else I forgot to mention about formatting;

Page Numbers

Usually you don't want page numbers on the front matter of the book. They should start on the first page of chapter 1.

How you achieve this varies from program-to-program.

Personally, I use Scrivener for my writing and for my formatting - it's also what I used to format Blaise's book for paperback.

What I do in Scrivener is I have two presets that I made for exporting (I can export as PDF, rtf, doc, docx, etc.)

Preset 1: Front Matter - I have page numbers removed from this completely, and it's set up in such a way that each of my front matter documents are placed "as is" without drawing extra formatting from Scrivener.

Preset 2: Chapters - Page numbers are re-enabled on this preset, and I just check off which documents I'm including (and remove the front matter from being included.)

I export both as PDF files and then use PDFsam Basic to merge the two PDF's together.

The result looks something like this (and my alignment on the copyright is still off, goddamnit) - OAU PDF

^Note that particular PDF is set up for the physical version, so there's a lot more front matter stuff and two blank pages inserted.
Looking for stuff to read? Click below to navigate to my stories.

https://i.imgur.com/r6iTizF.jpg

RE: Publishing your story

#5
'BlaiseCorvin' pid='817638' dateline='1478135574' Wrote: You have to ask yourself if you just want to publish, or if you actually want to make money.

If it's the former, then just swing away and you might get lucky.  If it's the latter, the fact you need to ask these questions means you're not even close to being ready yet.

It took me 20 years of writing, 3 years of research, and one year of ramp up including full-time promotion and enacting my business plan to get where I'm at (which isn't even all that impressive).

The last stat I saw said that most indie authors sell 100 books in their lifetime.  Amazon only pays you if you have $100 in sales, so most indie authors might get 2 payments per book.  Maybe one.


Edit:  You have almost 6k followers.  I would suggest going with option A.  With that amount of momentum, you'll make a lot in sales.  You almost have too many followers to really fail.

That said, if you want to put out something good, it's going to take you a few months of hard work and investigation.  I would suggest starting with a new cover,  a new blurb, and a professional edit.  You're looking at at least a $500 investment.

You'll probably want to allocate a few hundred dollars at least for marketing too.

You have a lot written, so you'll obviously want to figure out what should be in your first book and maybe do your own edit first.  For tables, I would suggest doing your research.

In my group, there are several best selling writers who used tables.  They'd be the ones to ask for advice.  I stayed away from tables on purpose in my series because I think they're ugly, and because it's easier to format without them.

Basically, publishing your own book /right/ is a lot like running your own business.  At this point you need to ask yourself if you just want to make some money as a hobby, or whether you want to make some serious cash and possibly write as a job.  However, writing as a job makes it a job.  I've spent dozens of hours this year just scouring Amazon, looking for market trends. 

You have enough readers you could probably go either way and still make a lot of sales.  The choice is yours, but if you want to put out a serious book, It's going to require a lot of time and a little money.

The other option you could explore would be to have someone do everything for you for a %.

Thank you. This was good advice. Honestly speaking, I was tackling this issue rather naively. I thought that a quick edit, and slapping together something and submitting it in amazon, was enough. Boy was I wrong. I am serious about publishing my book, and I do want to make it a good book, not just something that exists somewhere on the internet. For now, I think I'll take things slow, tackle each problem as it comes to me. For now, I've got my hands caught up in editing and proofreading the material I already have at hand. I'm thinking this process alone will take a few weeks, considering how much content I have for my first volume. That also brings me up to one question I had, is there such a thing as too much content? Going by the page counter on RRL, I have close to 1800 pages. A majority of that, save for like 10 chapters (out of 100), is all the first volume. The end result would be a rather massive book. Of course, I don't know how RRL pages, translate onto kindle or what have you, but I'm wondering if I have a little bit too much content?

RE: Publishing your story

#6
'Lv1Slime' pid='817644' dateline='1478144578' Wrote: That also brings me up to one question I had, is there such a thing as too much content? Going by the page counter on RRL, I have close to 1800 pages. A majority of that, save for like 10 chapters (out of 100), is all the first volume. The end result would be a rather massive book.

Run it through a word counter (Word, Scrivener, or https://wordcounter.net/)

The range for your standard fantasy novel (with a traditional publisher) is 60,000-120,000 words for a first novel.

With self-publishing you don't have to worry as much. Your book could be 20k words or 500k words - but if you're looking at something super long, just keep in mind that drives up the cost of physical editions.
Looking for stuff to read? Click below to navigate to my stories.

https://i.imgur.com/r6iTizF.jpg

RE: Publishing your story

#7
'Lv1Slime' pid='817644' dateline='1478144578' Wrote:
'BlaiseCorvin' pid='817638' dateline='1478135574' Wrote: You have to ask yourself if you just want to publish, or if you actually want to make money.

If it's the former, then just swing away and you might get lucky.  If it's the latter, the fact you need to ask these questions means you're not even close to being ready yet.

It took me 20 years of writing, 3 years of research, and one year of ramp up including full-time promotion and enacting my business plan to get where I'm at (which isn't even all that impressive).

The last stat I saw said that most indie authors sell 100 books in their lifetime.  Amazon only pays you if you have $100 in sales, so most indie authors might get 2 payments per book.  Maybe one.


Edit:  You have almost 6k followers.  I would suggest going with option A.  With that amount of momentum, you'll make a lot in sales.  You almost have too many followers to really fail.

That said, if you want to put out something good, it's going to take you a few months of hard work and investigation.  I would suggest starting with a new cover,  a new blurb, and a professional edit.  You're looking at at least a $500 investment.

You'll probably want to allocate a few hundred dollars at least for marketing too.

You have a lot written, so you'll obviously want to figure out what should be in your first book and maybe do your own edit first.  For tables, I would suggest doing your research.

In my group, there are several best selling writers who used tables.  They'd be the ones to ask for advice.  I stayed away from tables on purpose in my series because I think they're ugly, and because it's easier to format without them.

Basically, publishing your own book /right/ is a lot like running your own business.  At this point you need to ask yourself if you just want to make some money as a hobby, or whether you want to make some serious cash and possibly write as a job.  However, writing as a job makes it a job.  I've spent dozens of hours this year just scouring Amazon, looking for market trends. 

You have enough readers you could probably go either way and still make a lot of sales.  The choice is yours, but if you want to put out a serious book, It's going to require a lot of time and a little money.

The other option you could explore would be to have someone do everything for you for a %.

Thank you. This was good advice. Honestly speaking, I was tackling this issue rather naively. I thought that a quick edit, and slapping together something and submitting it in amazon, was enough. Boy was I wrong. I am serious about publishing my book, and I do want to make it a good book, not just something that exists somewhere on the internet. For now, I think I'll take things slow, tackle each problem as it comes to me. For now, I've got my hands caught up in editing and proofreading the material I already have at hand. I'm thinking this process alone will take a few weeks, considering how much content I have for my first volume. That also brings me up to one question I had, is there such a thing as too much content? Going by the page counter on RRL, I have close to 1800 pages. A majority of that, save for like 10 chapters (out of 100), is all the first volume. The end result would be a rather massive book. Of course, I don't know how RRL pages, translate onto kindle or what have you, but I'm wondering if I have a little bit too much content?


I was just planning on lurking but since I'm in a unique position to answer that having just reached 100k words,

at 100,000 and small change I'm at 353 Pages on RRL


Harry Potty: 77k 
The Hobbit: 95k

are the two examples I'd think of. Anything less and I'd think you open yourself to losing alot of stars from complaints. I see a lot of reviews like that on amazon and its a shame.

RE: Publishing your story

#8
'BlaiseCorvin' pid='817649' dateline='1478150069' Wrote:
'Aternus' pid='817647' dateline='1478148902' Wrote: I was just planning on lurking but since I'm in a unique position to answer that having just reached 100k words,

at 100,000 and small change I'm at 353 Pages on RRL


Harry Potty: 77k 
The Hobbit: 95k

are the two examples I'd think of. Anything less and I'd think you open yourself to losing alot of stars from complaints. I see a lot of reviews like that on amazon and its a shame.

A pretty good rule of thumb is 100k words +/- 20k words.

My first book was 133k.

wow, then I'm way over the limit.

If I have around 1500 RRL pages for my first volume, then I'm looking at something around 400k - 500k words. Its ironic, because at the start, when I was writing this, I was imagining it to be somewhat similar to a japanese light novel (at least in length) I could split my volume into smaller books, but I don't know how that might affect the story in its entirety.


'BlaiseCorvin' pid='817646' dateline='1478148288' Wrote: Hmmm don't you write LitRPG?  You should promote your story in the submission forum in the LitRPG Society group so you'd be eligable to join the group (and get lots of advice).

*hint hint*

http://forum.royalroadl.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=8050

Now that Edward Castle published today, 6 of us are published, and 5/6 of us are best sellers.  I think EC will be soon too. :)

I might do this, how quickly does it take to gain eligibility.

Also another question, back when I first started writing my story, I didn't really consider it an issue, but do you think that having a japanese setting, like the story takes place in japan (well, a made up city in japan, but you get the point), will effect the response people will have to my story? I'm just now considering this, because compared to RRL, amazon has a more western audience.