Tag Archives: Kindle

A Step-by-Step Guide to the Publishing Process

  By girlnone | 20 May, 2013 - 3:12 pm | , ,
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I’ve been doing a lot of freelancing lately, and I’ve noticed a fair bit of confusion over how books are actually created. Clients wanted to hire an editor or book designer at the wrong point in the process–a mistake that could end up costing them extra money and time.

How Books Are Made

1. Finish a first draft. While you could bring in outside help in the form of beta readers or editors before the manuscript is finished, I don’t think it’s a good idea. It’s pretty much impossible to critique a work in progress, and you risk losing your creative momentum by sharing your work too soon. Hiring anyone at this stage is a waste of money, because your first editor should always be yourself.

2. Proofread and edit the draft. There are different approaches to self-editing–the one pass, the cyclical, etc. Do what works for you. A lot of writers recommend allowing the book to “rest” for a little while after finishing the first draft, but that’s up to you. Read for continuity, pacing, and character development. Fix major flaws, and restructure if necessary. Any glaring typos or mistakes should be corrected. The goal of this stage is to polish your draft and make it presentable for your beta readers.

3. Get a second opinion. While beta readers aren’t a required part of the publishing process, I do think they help. Two to three readers is a good number. Choose people who like the kinds of books you write and ask for their honest opinion. While they may fix a typo you missed, they aren’t proofreaders.

4. Revise. Use the (hopefully constructive) criticism from your critique partners to inform a final edit of your book. If all of them have the same issue with your book, then you should probably fix it. At the end of the day, however, it’s your book and you should go with your instincts.

At this point, the paths of the indie author and traditional publisher diverge. Let’s stick with the indie writer for now.

5a. Hire an editor. A good editor will make your book the best version of itself. You can find freelancers on sites like odesk and elance (or you could hire me!). Be aware that you will need to shell out some not-inconsiderable cash, but, as the old saying goes, you get what you pay for. Ask for samples of previous work and request a trial edit of the first 3-5 pages of your book.

Note that there are really three types of editor. Acquisitions editors work for publishers or magazines. They decide what to buy for their imprints. This is not the type of editor you’re looking for. A developmental editor works with you in the early stages of planning a book or helps you untangle what seems like a hopeless mess of a novel. They are big-picture people. Line editors or copyeditors go through your work line-by-line, correcting grammar and syntax, commenting on word choice, and making notes about the overall structure and story elements. Make sure you are specific about what you need when hiring someone!

6a. Revise again. After you get your marked-up manuscript from your editor, you’ll want to go through it one more time to incorporate your editor’s suggestions and corrections. At this point, you could hire a proofreader to do a final cleanup and QC for your book. If you have the budget for it, I’d recommend doing it. A proofreader will only look for grammar and spelling errors, and they should cost less than an editor.

7a. Design the cover. Unless you are a professional graphic designer, don’t do this yourself. Humans are visual creatures, and book covers are your biggest marketing tool. When you hire an artist, make sure to give them an idea of what you want. Examples of other book covers you admire helps! Be prepared to pay between $50 and $250 for your cover depending on the complexity of the work. Licensing fees for stock photos are expensive; custom illustrations or graphics are even pricier.

8a. Format the book. You can’t just put a Word document up for sale on Amazon. eBook formatting isn’t too hard to learn, but it is time consuming. If you’d rather not do it yourself, you’ll need to hire someone. I’ve noticed a number of sites who charge outrageous fees just to convert your manuscript to an .epub or .mobi file; don’t pay these people. A formatter should create a linked table of contents and design a pleasing, easy-to-read style for your book. They may also convert your files into .pdf, .epub, and .mobi, although be aware that most publishing platforms like KDP and Nook Press do the conversion for you when you upload your book.

If you want to publish a print version as well as an eBook, please realize that those are two different jobs. Negotiate a package deal with your formatter to do both versions. Print formatting involves creating front matter (title pages, copyright pages, etc.), adding pagination, and resizing margins and gutters.

9a. Publish! 

Celebrate by enjoying some canned vegetables. Go on, Miss Victory insists.

Celebrate by enjoying some canned vegetables. Go on, Miss Victory insists.

So what about writers who want to go the traditional route? The first four steps are identical–write a first draft, edit it yourself, send it to your beta readers, and revise it again. After that, things become radically different.

5b. Query agents or publishers. Send a one-page letter to an agent or publisher who specializes in your type of book. If they’re intrigued, they’ll ask for the first three chapter or possibly the entire manuscript. Do not query an unfinished fiction manuscript! You may have to repeat this process many, many times until someone says yes to your book.

6b. If working with an agent, she will shop your book to publishers. This is a passive step; your agent will be doing most of the work here. In a perfect world, your book will start a bidding war between major publishing houses. Your agent–whose paycheck is determined by the size of the book deal she scores for you–should be championing your book and negotiating the best contract possible.

7b. Accept an offer. If you receive an offer that you’re happy with, you’ll sign on the dotted line. Make sure that you’re getting a fair shake; your agent should be on your side, but you might want the contract reviewed by an intellectual property lawyer. You’ll receive your advance in increments (less your agent’s fee, of course): typically, the advance is broken up into halves, thirds, or quarters, paid at set milestones. You’ll receive a check on signing, and then, depending on your contract, another check when the book is delivered, printed in hardback, and sometimes when printed in paperback.

8b. Editing and proofing. An editor at your publishing house (or, more likely, a freelancer subcontracted by your publisher; few houses have the money to keep in-house, full-time editorial staff anymore) will look at your book for structural issues, pacing and plot problems, character development, word choice and narrative flow, etc. It’s ultimately up to you to accept or reject these changes, but editors usually know whereof they speak. After you’ve revised your manuscript, it goes to a copyeditor or a proofreader to catch typos. Once the final round of proofing is complete, your manuscript is ready to become a book. 

9b. Layout, cover design, and marketing. You probably won’t have much say in what your book looks like. Although you have some input, ultimately the cover design is determined by the marketing department. They know what sells in your genre. While your book is being designed, the marketing department is busy convincing bookstores to order it. At the end of this process, you’ll receive a galley proof to review and sign off on.

10b. Publicity push. Depending on the budget for your book’s publicity, it is often offered as an ARC (Advanced Readering Copy) to reviewers. These days, digital ARCs are offered on sites like NetGalley, too.

11b. Printing and shipping. At this point, your books is finally (finally!) ready to hit the shelves of your local Barnes & Noble. The entire process, from sale to shelf, usually take a year or more. Most of it is hands-off for the writer, so I hope you’ve been using your time wisely by writing another book. Right?

For a hilarious infographic version of the traditional book publishing process, check this out!

Digital Rights Management, Piracy, and You

  By girlnone | 26 June, 2012 - 11:30 am |
1 Comment

*Note: I am writing this post from approximately six inches off the ground. My faithless desk chair, which has been sinking a little lower every day over the past month, has chosen today to finally give up and, in the words of Eddie Izzard, collapse slowly like a flan in a cupboard. I really don’t want to have to get a new chair at this juncture, but I think it may be necessary since the replacement cylinder costs about as much as a new chair. #thisiswhywecan’thavenicethings

When I was in high school and college, peer-to-peer file-sharing services like Napster and Audiogalaxy were the coolest things on the planet. I had, literally, all the music ever at my fingertips, and it was FREE. I downloaded songs from bands I would never had heard of otherwise, but when I found something I really liked, I went out and bought the album. I discovered my favorite band, Spoon, on Audiogalaxy, and I’ve faithfully attended their shows and bought their CDs ever since.

At least you’ve maintained your cultural relevancy!

Sure, maybe some big studio rock bands lost sales, but indie artists were able to reach audiences who might never have heard them otherwise. In 2000, Metallica decided they’d had enough of people enjoying their music, so they sued Napster–and won. Although the file-sharing site was shut down, like the hydra, two more spawned in its place. The legislation didn’t put an end to digital piracy; it just made the pirates sneakier. Today, you can watch movies on your computer the day they premiere in theaters (my 14-year-old cousin hasn’t been to the movies in a year, but he’s seen more new releases than I have), and I confess to obsessively watching Criminal Minds on youtube.

I think we see piracy as a victimless crime, or rather, we see ourselves as cyber Robin Hoods, stealing from the bloated, rich record companies and movie studios and giving the entertainment to the people. It’s not that we believe creative works are without value, but when it comes to actually purchasing digital media, something in us rebels when we see that an ebook or a downloadable album costs the same as a physical copy. Usually, these downloads come loaded with digital rights management (DRM), which make it difficult or impossible to lend a copy to a friend or transfer the files–which you paid for, even though you could have stolen them–from one device to another. I’ve had to give up several chunks of my music collection when I used up my allotted number of licenses, and I’ve had to wrangle with Audible’s customer service when my audiobooks would no longer play on my computer due to a glitch with iTunes.

The idea of someone coming in my home and taking away my books because I’d read them too many times is absurd, and yet we’ve all too often resigned ourselves to the arcane and overly-restrictive rules of DRM. However, recent trends in publishing, as well as the groundswell of do-it-yourself artists and the anti-trust lawsuit against Apple, are beginning to shift the paradigm.

In 2007, Radiohead, no longer under contract with EMI, released In Rainbows as a set-your-own-price DRM-free digital download before the physical album was available for purchase. Fans paid for it. They bought it online, and then they bought the album (packaged with additional content) in the record shops. The following year, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, disillusioned with his record label, recorded an album and released it for free on his website. His career hasn’t exactly suffered (I love the fact that we can now call him Oscar-winning composer Trent Reznor), and he continues to write, record, and tour with a variety of projects.

This would make an neat tattoo, or at least a bumper sticker.

When I started writing my book during the interim between college and grad school, I was determined to follow the traditional path to getting published. That’s no longer the case. (See my first post for a more detailed look at why I’ve decided to go indie.) Since I’m not signed with a legacy publishing firm, I get to set the price of my ebooks–and keep a lion’s share of the profits. Authors already under contract don’t have that option, and even though most consumers have been grumbling about the price of ebooks, there seemed to be little we could do about it if we wanted to read mainstream fiction. The lending library system for ebooks is even more ridiculous; at my local library, only one patron at a time can “check out” a particular title, and until they “return” it or it becomes due, no one else can access it.

In April of this year, the Department of Justice announced a suit against Apple for colluding with publishers to fix prices. However, Apple’s defeat would be a win for another monopoly. Amazon wants to lower prices. It wants them so low that consumers would have to be crazy not to purchase ebooks in their proprietary format and read them on the Kindle. Both business models–so-called agency pricing from Apple and the bargain basement mentality of Amazon–are anti-competitive in different ways. I’ve no doubt that while agency pricing would fix the price of ebooks at or near the cost of a hardback, Amazon would cheerfully sell every ebook for $.99. (Check out these articles for more info; I’m paraphrasing many of their arguments.)

Warning: It is entirely possible to lose full days of your life in this place. Don’t let the nice lady fool you.

We’ll have to wait another year for the trial, but in that year, I predict a lot of changes are going to take place in the publishing industry. Three of the five legacy publishers named in the DoJ’s suit (HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette Book Group) have already settled, while Penguin and McMillan remain in the fight. However, Tor Books, a subsidiary of McMillan, announced that its entire catalog of ebooks is going DRM-free. J.K. Rowling recently launched Pottermore, a kind of digital wonderland for the Harry Potter universe, and the entire series is finally able for purchase as DRM-free ebooks. Rather than purchasing an entirely new library when you decide, for example, to switch from a Nook to a Kindle, you can simply convert your files using a free program like Calibre.

If it’s good enough for J.K. Rowling, it’s certainly good enough for me. DRM has done little to prevent piracy, but it has frustrated legitimate customers and made digital editions an undesirable alternative to their printed counterparts. To me, it’s a no-brainer; my work will be released DRM-free. I trust my readers (hi, guys!) to be responsible, and if they do pass a copy around to a friend, it will only help grow my audience in the long run. John Scalzi, author of Redshirts, blogged about the change at Tor and how it will positively impact writers and readers. I particularly liked this quote: ”I really do believe most people who can support the artists whose work they like will support them.”

If the work is good and the price is fair, people will pay it. That’s something that major retailers and publishers seem to have forgotten in their scramble to be king of digital media mountain. With pirated copies so easily available, why would we want to make it any more difficult for paying customers to own the things they purchased?

Music for this post: Nine Inch Nails, “The Hand That Feeds”