life, writing

Publishing Plight

Lori

wecover9titleI haven’t done any substantial writing in <gasp> about 20 months, other than some poems, blogging, and editing my work. In May 2015 we moved across country and rented a townhouse until we could find a home to buy. So, we never really got settled.

We finally moved into our new home in August this year. It took a while to get settled, and two months later, I entered my novel in Kindle Scout (during most of the month of October and some of September). I didn’t get selected for publication by Kindle, so I decided to self-publish. The book is already edited and has a cover, so why not?

Who knew that uploading the already finished product to ebook would be so daunting? Not to mention trying to format for print books On Demand.homeavecover3

I know some of you who have done this for a time must think I’m dense. Perhaps I am, but my 22-page memoir was much easier to upload to ebook than this 87,000-word novel. In addition I have the tedious print book to format.

So, I won’t be around as much until I get all this figured out, but I hope you’ll come back to see my finished product. I’m excited to hear what people think of my two flawed characters, Ava and Meg. I’m hoping to have it available by this coming weekend (if I get this formatting smoothed out). If anyone would like an Advanced Review Copy to read for review, please contact me at gnl61@aim.com.

UPDATE: The novel has now been published. You can find it here.

 

Published by Lori

Observer, thinker, learner, analyzer, and author. Love dogs. Enjoy cooking, laughing and spiritual centering.

19 thoughts on “Publishing Plight”

  1. I found it impossible to self upload my book to createspace and save a ton of money so I paid the extra fee by sending on disc which they no longer allow. A second problem is my cartoon book is pictures and had to pay more because it is not simple text with congruent gutters(margins) and the cartoons are of different size so I had to pay to have each of 100 cartoons set up page by page. I could not self load pictures myself. And naturally all pictures and no text creates extra charge as well. Then 100 pages of full color is expensive too.All this
    more than doubled the normal cost to set up print on demand book. I am not complaing about this because the extra costs are legitimate but it cost me over $2,000 as opposed to $750 for a book of text like a novel but this is what I wanted so I pay. Another problem is that a 00 page full color book costs creatspace about $10, they want to make at least a dollar or so and amazon tacks on $4 more dollars so to get 87 cents royalty I must charge over $15 for a book and very very very few people will pay that for a full color 100 page cartoon book and have sold about a dozen. I saved a little by making my own cover and back cover. Createspace was very patient and helpful through the process and I am satisfied.

    I am fairly decent proof reader but I always let some one proof read as our eyes and brain see what is supposed to be there as opposed to what was actually typed so I recommend letting some one else as “one more” look over did not work for me. In the future I will pay the extra money for formatting. It is not worth going insane.

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    1. Wow Carl, what a pain. Thankfully, mine is just black & white print for a novel. I’m trying to figure out how to upload my book cover now. I haven’t tried uploading yet, so I’ll see if CreateSpace rejects or accepts my formatting. I have uploaded my ebook and that should be ready sooner.

      You really did have a rough go of it. You are exactly right about our eyes and brain seeing what is supposed to be there as opposed to what is actually there. After uploading my ebook (but not going live yet), I found mistakes and had to re-upload several times already. I’m so afraid to go live in case I’ve missed more.

      Thank you for sharing your experience. Hopefully, someone else can do it for you next time and you won’t have to deal with it.

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  2. There’s no easy part to the publishing process. I’ve done lots of formatting. It was daunting at first, but you learn tricks along the way that make it easier and easier. Hang in there. And I haven’t forgotten about you…I promise!

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    1. Hi Lorna. I find it to be like writing. I can take courses on how to do it forever, but until I actually practice it, I’ll never get good at it. Goes that way for formatting, too, but I like writing much better. I was hoping to give you a release date for my novel by the time you post about my anthology. I’m shooting for Monday, Nov. 21, but that is super tentative. Every time I think I’m ready, I find out I forgot to do something else or find a mistake. 😛

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    1. Ha, well Jill, I never said I had patience. My husband and dog can tell by the curse words around here. LOL. You’ve had to be patient waiting on your own book, and now, NaNoWriMo. I dream of writing again one day. 😛

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    1. Hi Anneli. Yes, I’m going to use Createspace. I’m done with formatting the text. I’m working on the cover now. Even the ebook gave me trouble. I kept finding mistakes and had to re-upload. I think that one is ready, but needs one more look-over. This is so daunting. 😛

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  7. I have no idea how anyone finds the time to write, and I’ve been unemployed for over a year! I guess when something is burning to get onto the page it’s hard to fight it, but you do have a ton going on. Good luck with formatting! Sounds very tedious, but you’ll get through it 😉

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