Self-publishing
http://mysterysuspence.blogspot.com/2012/01/self-publishing-what-do-you-think.html
Agenda
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Why self-publish?
Brief overview of ebook retailers, aggregators, formats.
Brief overview of Smashwords.
Practical: preparing a Word manuscript for publication on
Smashwords
Materials needed
• Microsoft Word
– I’m used to 2010, but any version should be OK
• Project files
– A Word manuscript prepared for print
– Sample Word documents
– http://bit/ly/saoimselfpub
“Vanity publishing” isn’t a pejorative anymore
WHY SELF-PUBLISH?
http://www.publishyourownebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/AAP-Ebook-Revenue-Growth.jpg
In the words of Mark Coker (founder):
“We’re entering a new phase of rapid evolution in
publishing”
Bookselling moving to the web
Web
Brick &
Mortar
Today?
Ebooks to overtake print
Ebooks
Today?
Print books
Global ebook market to eclipse US market
Global
U.S.
Today?
Power of publishing shifting to authors
Author
Publisher
Today?
Number of books published indie vs. traditional
Indie
books
New trad.
books
Today?
And to further complicate things
The devil’s in the e-details…
Reading moving to screens
Should I ‘just’ do an ebook?
We’re far from a paperless environment
Traditional publishers still have value
Wrong reasons
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Rejected by agents and publishers
Traditional takes too long
Traditional is too complicated to learn
Self-publishing print is too costly
http://www.publishyourownebooks.com/should-i-just-do-an-e-book/
Right reasons
• You’re passionate about your story.
• It’s been edited almost to a fault, by other than you.
• You are a serious writer, seeking to make a living as an author.
http://www.publishyourownebooks.com/should-i-just-do-an-e-book/
Right reasons
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You’re positive this is as good as you can be.
The book accentuates your brand or name.
You want to reach out to the world.
You have a well-honed marketing plan.
You’re willing to bust your butt to self-promote
http://www.publishyourownebooks.com/should-i-just-do-an-e-book/
“You don’t resort to e-publishing. You proactively
choose it.”
- Hope Clark
Online book stores
EBOOK RETAILERS
Ebook retailers
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Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Apple (requires ISBN)
Sony (requires ISBN)
Kobo
Google (only US)
Retailers becoming publishers
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Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing
Barnes & Noble PubIT!
Apple iBookstore (need a Mac for direct publishing…)
Kobo Writing Life (released mid-2012)
Sony Publisher Portal*
Ebook retailers – many more
• Retailers withhold 30% of income until tax forms filed.
• Not a problem if tax treaty with US (South Africa - 0%)
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p901.pdf
Kindle Direct Publishing
Example workflow
kdp.amazon.com
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Open account on KDP
Company information (incl. tax)
Book details
Book categories (two)
Cover image
Upload file (DRM or not?)
Choose rights (worldwide)
Lending or not?
6. Upload file
Word
(.doc or .docx)
ePub
(.epub)
Plain Text
(.txt)
Mobipocket
(.mobi or .prc)
HTML
(.zip, .htm, or .html)
Adobe PDF
(.pdf)
Rich Text Format (.rtf)
https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A17W8UM0MMSQX6
Content Distribution
That is, the four ways to get your ebook sold &
delivered
Content Distribution
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Direct to customer
Direct to retailer
Via a distributor / aggregator
Via a “traditional” publisher
1. Direct to customer
High profit margin
Direct contact with readers
Retain all rights
 Customer service burden
 Credit card processing fees
 Tough to attract traffic
2. Direct to retailer
Good profit margins
Exposure to millions of readers
Real time reporting
Retain rights
 Time consuming to manage
 Not all retailers offer direct option
 Distributors may offer higher margins
3. Via a distributor
Good margin
Time-savings
Access to multiple retailers
Aggregated reporting and analytics
Retain rights
 Delayed reports from retailers
 7.5-10% commission on retail price
4. Via a publisher
 Advance, access to B&M retail
 Editing and revision
 Marketing and promotion, prestige
 Low royalties
 Reporting delayed up to six months
 Limited distribution
 Lose rights
 Can go out of print quickly
Ebook aggregators…
…to deal with multiple workflows for multiple
stores.
Ebook aggregators
• Instead of publishing directly to store
• Interface between author and stores
• Some offer print-on-demand and delivery, so not only ebooks
http://www.publishyourownebooks.com/ebook-aggregators-comparison-chart/#ixzz1wzg4u8rl
Why ebook aggregator?
• If non-US resident
(e.g. B&N requires US bank account / tax ID)
• Don’t have the hardware or software required to publish your
ebook directly (e.g. Apple requires a Mac).
• Don’t know how to technically format the manuscript (e.g. to
epub validation)
http://www.publishyourownebooks.com/ebook-aggregators-comparison-chart/#ixzz1wzg4u8rl
Ebook aggregators
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Smashwords
Lulu
BookBaby
Ebookit
FastPencil
Xinxii
Ebook aggregators
http://www.publishyourownebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/screenshot.318.jpg
Assuming you’ve chosen an aggregator…
… the aggregator will sell your ebook in multiple
formats.
The principal ebook (end) formats
For instance, Aldiko on your Android smartphone
EPUB-COMPLIANT READERS
Epub-compliant readers
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Adobe Digital Editions (Windows, Mac)
Aldiko (Android)
Calibre (Windows, Mac, GNU/Linux)
Google Books (Web app, Android, iOS)
iBooks (iOS)
Readium (Chrome)
For instance, InDesign supports EPUB export
EPUB-COMPLIANT AUTHORING TOOLS
Epub-compliant authoring tools
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Adobe InDesign
Calibre
iBooks Author
oXygen XML Editor
Pages
Sigil
Word (manual labour required…)
One format to rule them all…
HTML as the common denominator
For instance – the inside of an EPUB book:
If you publish through Smashwords
You’ll only need to work with a Word / OpenOffice document
(Which can have its own problems…)
About Smashwords
• Global ebook distributor
– Authors, publishers, readers and major ebook retailers
• Ideal for novels, personal memoirs, poetry, short and long-form
fiction, and non-fiction.
About Smashwords
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Readers: one purchase, multiple formats.
40,000+ authors globally
125,000+ ebooks published
You control the pricing, sampling and marketing
About Smashwords
• Receive 85% of the net sales (Through Smashwords.com)
• 70.5% for affiliate sales
• Earn 60% of the list price for sales through retailers
– Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and the Diesel eBook
Store, etc.
Smashwords Features
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Consolidated sales reporting
Centralized metadata management
ISBN management
Ebook conversion (9 formats)
Updates to book and metadata
Marketing and selling tools
Smashwords Overview
Upload
– Author/publisher uploads a Microsoft Word file
– Free conversion to 9 ebook formats
– Ready for immediate sale online
Distribute
– To major retailers
Profit?
- Receive 85% of net = 60% list from major retailers
Four steps to publish through Smashwords
(With many teensy tiny steps in between… the
devil’s in the details)
1. Word processor & manuscript
2 – Formatting guidelines
3. Word .doc to Meatgrinder
Automates the conversion process.
Step 4: Distribution
Assuming you have a Word-formatted
manuscript…
… you’ll have to fix it.
Workshop
Format a Word manuscript for publication on
Smashwords
My first project
• In your project files, look for the Word document called
manuscript.doc
• This document was prepared for print publication – pre-layout
(so not stuck in an InDesign file)
• Our goal is to “fix” it for publication on Smashwords.
Overview
1. General notes on formatting
A) Making Word Behave
B) Formatting
C) Building Navigation
D) Front Matter
E) The End of Your Book
2. Post-formatting
3. Uploading Your Book to Smashwords
4. How to Market Your Book
Steps…
Step 1: Make a back up
Step 2: Activate Word’s Show/Hide
Step 3: Turn off Word’s “AutoCorrect” and “AutoFormat” features
Step 4: Eliminate text boxes
Step 5: The Nuclear Method
Step 6: Unify Manuscript around Normal paragraph style
Step 7: Managing and modifying paragraph styles, fonts
Step 7a. How to choose the best paragraph separation method (first line indent or block?)
Step 7b: How to implement your chosen paragraph separation method
Step 7b-a: How to define a proper first line indent
Step 7b-b: How to define trailing “after” space for block paragraphs
Step 7b-c: Special tips for poetry, cookbooks and learning materials
Step 7b-d: How to define proper line spacing
Step 8: Check your normalized text
Step 9: Why you should never use tabs or the space bar for indents
Step 10: Managing paragraph returns
Step 11: Managing hyperlinks
Step 12: Designating chapter breaks, page breaks, section breaks
Step 13: Working with images
Step 14: Text justification
Step 14a: Centering text
Step 15: Managing font sizes
Step 16: Style formatting, symbols and glyphs
Step 17: Headers and footers
Step 18: Margins, page sizes and indents
Step 19: Add the Heading style to your Chapter headers (optional)
Step 20: Building navigation into the manuscript
Step 20a: Creating the NCX
Step 20b: Creating the linked Table of Contents
Step 20c: Advanced link building (Footnotes, Endnotes)
Step 20d: Troubleshooting and testing
Step 21: Front matter
Step 21a: Blurbs (optional)
Step 21b: Title and copyright page (required!)
Step 21c: Add a Smashwords license statement below copyright page
Step 22: The end of your book
Step 23: Preparing your cover image
Step 24: Review requirements for Premium Catalog distribution
Step 25: How to upload your book
Step 26: How AutoVetter works
Step 27: After you publish – check your work
Step 27a: Check for EPUBCHECK compliance (important!)
Step 28: Read the Smashwords Book Marketing Guide (how to market any book)
Step 29: Read the Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success (best-practices of successful authors)
Ebooks are different from print books
Don’t try to make your book look exactly like print.
Ebooks are different from print books
• Ebooks look different on every device.
• Most ereading applications allow you to change font face, size,
line spacing.
So stop trying to format for print.
Or, fix manuscripts that were formatted for print…
FIVE COMMON FORMATTING MISTAKES
1. Indents
• Never use tabs & spaces to create indents
• Avoid using tabs & spaces for positioning elements
http://img.ehowcdn.com/article-new/ehow/images/a07/u2/na/block-indent-word-800x800.jpg
2. Paragraph returns
• Never use more than four paragraph returns
• Usually creates blank pages on smaller devices
http://img.ehowcdn.com/article-new/ds-photo/getty/article/129/20/55910388_XS.jpg
3. Paragraph separation
• Either first-line paragraph indents
or
• Block paragraph method
4. Fonts and styles
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Use standard fonts
Avoid coloured fonts
Avoid kerning fonts
Avoid compressing / expanding fonts
Avoid very large fonts (e.g. +16pt)
As few paragraph styles as possible
5. Copyright page
• Basically, the required front matter must be present for your
manuscript to be accepted.
These “common” mistakes
Are often those that make conversion (and metadata
management) a pain.
A)
MAKING WORD BEHAVE
Oh Word… I’d like to have a word with you.
• Word’s word processing facilities are extensive and useful
• However, current trade ebook formats are still pretty primitive
• Word inserts glyphs (visible and hidden) and other document
objects that make conversion difficult, if not impossible.
Step 1: Make a back up
• Save as…
• Do this often (use date as marker)
• Disable “track changes”
Step 2 - Activate Word’s Show/Hide
• You want to see all paragraph returns, extra spaces, tabs, field
codes etc.
• Basically, any hidden formatting.
Step 3 – Disable autocorrect/ autoformat
Step 4 – Eliminate text boxes
• Text boxes break ebooks
• View: print layout
“Step 5” – The nuclear method
• Removing all possible formatting from your manuscript.
• Free from hidden formatting / corrupted styling.
• Select all, copy
• Paste in Notepad*
• Paste back into Word
B)
FORMATTING
Step 6: Normal paragraph style
• Many pre-set paragraph styles in Word
• Change everything to normal to avoid inconsistent formatting
• Normal becomes your standard style; any styles you create are
based on the normal style from here on.
Step 7: Managing paragraph styles & fonts
• What you see is (not always) what you get.
• If the underlying paragraph style is e.g. 12pt Arial
– And you change it manually to 14pt
– The underlying paragraph style is still 12pt Arial…
…which makes conversion unpredictable.
Step 7a. Best paragraph separation method (first line indent or
block?)
• First line indents (most fiction, narrative non-fiction)
• Block paragraphs (most non-fiction)
Step 7b: Chosen paragraph separation method
First line-indent
paras
Block paras
Step 7b-d: Proper line spacing
• Either single or 1.5.
• At: field should be blank
• Never exactly / at least
Step 7b-d: Proper line spacing
Step 8: Check your normalized text
• Everything in normal paragraph style?
• Fix issues that cropped up.
Step 9: Never use tabs or space for indents
• HTML treats whitespace differently
• Most ebook formats are based on HTML
• Manage indents with paragraph style, not with tabs/spaces.
Removing tabs / spaces used as indents
• Manually: very time-consuming.
• Text replacement:
– Ctrl+H
– Edit: Replace
– “Find what” - ^t
– “Replace with” – nothing
Step 10: Managing paragraph returns ¶
• Pilcrow (¶ symbol)
– Indicates a paragraph return (or new line)
• Don’t use multiple ¶s to
– force page breaks / arrange text.
• Can create blank pages
• Can create gaps in text
• Generally: never use more than 4 ¶s
Step 11: Managing hyperlinks
• Can point outside your book or to sections inside your book
• Consider hyperlinks & touch devices..
• No affiliate links (violation of ToS)
Step 12: Chapter, page & section breaks
• Only PDF and RTF conserve page breaks
• Enter a ¶ or two before and after break
– For formats that don’t conserve page breaks
Step 13: Working with images
• Never insert images as links
Step 13: Working with images
• Plain text doesn’t support images
• Use .jpg or .png images
• Manuscript can’t be larger than 5MB
Step 13: Working with images
• No floating images
– Select “in line with text”
– Then “center” image
Step 14: Text justification
• Left-justified generally works best
• Centred works well (esp. title/copyright page)
• Word’s “justify” command might cause PDF problems
Step 14a: Centering text
• Create a custom style for centered text
– Avoid just using the “center” option
• Base this custom style on normal
Step 15: Managing font sizes
• Avoid frequent font size variations
• Try 12pt for body, 14 pt for title and headings
• Largest font size at 14 pt
Step 16: Style formatting, symbols and glyphs
• Italics, underlines work well across formats.
• Some symbols (®, £, ∞) may translate
• Generally, don’t use © symbol
Step 16: Style formatting, symbols and glyphs
• Graphical touches used to separate sections of book.
• Small, simple black images.
http://geekweekend.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/glyphs.gif
Step 17: Headers and footers
• Remain in PDF and RTF, disappear on all others
• Recommend to remove
• Definitely remove auto-page numbering
Step 18: Margins, page sizes and indents
• Use Word’s standard margins for printing
• 8.5x11 inch or A4? (60% US customers)
Step 18: Margins, page sizes and indents
• If indents are hard to manage, set indent in
paragraph settings
–Select all text
–Paragraph -> Left: and Right: indentation to 0
Step 19: Add heading style to chapter headers (optional)
• Some formats (e.g. EPUB, MOBI) automatically insert a page
break before each heading style
• Also helpful to generate a table of contents
Step 19: Add heading style to chapter headers (optional)
• Apply heading style only to single sentence
• Never apply heading style across more than two paragraph
returns (¶)
• Don’t use heading style for body text, front matter, table of
contents
Building navigation into your ebook – since you can’t literally turn pages.
NAVIGATION
Step 20: Building navigation into the manuscript
Primary navigation elements
1. NCX file
2. Linked table of contents (ToC)
3. Intra-book links (footnotes/endnotes…)
Step 20a: Creating the NCX
• This is the table of contents accessible via your ereader.
• NCX – Navigation Center eXtended
– Basically, an XML standard for navigating ebooks
– Think “ToC” when you read “NCX”
Adobe Digital Editions (PC)
NCX
Readium (Chrome browser)
NCX
iBooks (iPad/iPhone)
NCX
Step 20a: Creating the NCX
• Three possible steps
(to help Meatgrinder generate the NCX)
1. Start all chapters with “Chapter”
2. Create a linked table of contents
3. Let Meatgrinder guess
Working with hyperlinks can get messy
Step 20b: Creating the linked Table of Contents
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Not a Word-generated ToC
Entails the use of bookmarks hyperlinks
Select heading styles to select the text that should appear
Page number references irrelevant*
1. Type out your ToC
• Or select your ToC text via a style
– if you’ve been consistently applying
• Ensure text is in normal paragraph style
• Don’t add new lines to separate items
• Only add items you intend to link
Text of chapters in Word
Table of contents
Chapter 1: PROLOGUE
Chapter 2: DEDICATION
Chapter 3: PREFACE
Chapter 4: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Chapter 5: FOREWORD
5.1: REFLECTION
These will become hyperlinks
Table of contents
Chapter 1: PROLOGUE
Chapter 2: DEDICATION
Chapter 3: PREFACE
Chapter 4: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Chapter 5: FOREWORD
5.1: REFLECTION
2. Insert bookmarks
• These bookmarks are your targets
• Places in the book you want to link to
• Each bookmark has a unique name
– Try to use only alphanumeric characters
– Don’t use spaces
– Make names descriptive (see example)
Navigate to where you want to link
Then insert bookmark (Ctrl+Shift+F5)
Table of contents bookmark
Gets a special
name:
ref_TOC
Once all bookmarks have been inserted…
… we create (hyper)links to these bookmarks.
3. Start linking text to bookmarks (except “ToC”)
Table of contents
Chapter 1: PROLOGUE
Chapter 2: DEDICATION
Chapter 3: PREFACE
Chapter 4: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Chapter 5: FOREWORD
5.1: REFLECTION
Highlight the link text, make it a hyperlink (Ctrl+K)
Once all text has been linked to bookmarks…
… test them in Word (Ctrl+click to follow link)
First and second pages of your book.
FRONT MATTER
Step 21a: Blurbs (optional)
• Testimonials, reviews, etc.
• Avoid adding too much content (samples, paging)
• If you do use them, place them before title & copyright page.
Step 21b: Title & copyright page
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Required for distribution
Includes copyright information (must include English)
Used to identify author/publisher
Can link to other books
• And a few other rules…
Sample title & copyright page
Step 21c: Smashwords license statement
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Below copyright page
All Smashwords titles are DRM-free
Hence, default license statement to minimize accidental piracy
Can also use a Creative Commons license.
Smashwords License Statement
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be
re-sold or given away to other people.
If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an
additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not
purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to
Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the
hard work of this author.
POST-FORMATTING
Step 23: Preparing cover image
• Recommend: hire a designer
– That also understands ebook covers
• Must be shaped like a book cover
• Generally 620x1000 pixels
• Various rules on content of cover
– No nudity
– No price
– No web address (Apple rejects these)
Step 24: Premium Catalogue distribution
• Standard catalogue distribution is limited
• Premium catalogue – larger ebook vendors (and often stricter
requirements)
Common disqualifiers
1. Book cover missing, doesn’t match dimensions, or missing title
& author name
2. Lowercase author names
3. Book description, title in ALL CAPS
4. Poor paragraphing (block vs. indent)
5. Missing an ISBN
Step 25: Uploading book
• Publish – attach book file and cover file.
• Pricing
– “Reader sets price” (only when purchased through SW)
– Price should end in $.99 (Apple)
• Start the conversion process.
• SW now checks books for inclusion in Premium Catalogue
Step 26: AutoVetter
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Analyses book: formatting errors
“Printed In” error.
Possible copyright error
Tabs, space bar spaces, textboxes and tables: critical errors
Approved? Ship to retailers once a week.
Step 27: After publishing, check ebooks
• Check each format for quality
• Deactivate irrelevant formats (e.g. .txt not suited for picture
books)
• EPUB most important format (sent to retailers)
– Adobe Digital Editions to check EPUB
• MOBI format popular for Kindle owners – dont’ deactivate.
– Kindle for PC/Mac to check MOBI
Step 27a : Epubcheck compliance
• For Apple’s iBookstore (very strict)
• Epubcheck (http://smashwords.com/epubcheck)
• Online validator to help check (http://validator.idpf.org/)
Step 27a : Epubcheck compliance
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Hyperlinks must have http://
Email address must have “mailto(mailto:emailaddy@email.com)
HTML and styling errors, due to hidden Word-generated content
Misidentified image files – e.g. GIF instead of JPEG.
Properties error - Examine properties in Word , remove strange HTML
characters
• PlayOrder error – Recreate table of contents
Further reading
Gary McLaren. Publish your own ebooks.
Mark Coker. Smashwords Style Guide.
David Gaugran. Let’s get digital: how to self-publish and why you
should.
Further reading
Guido Henkel. Take pride in your eBook formatting.
Further reading
• eBound. 2011. ‘An introduction to HTML and CSS for EPUB’.
Posted 10 June. This tutorial is based on EPUB2, not 3; nonetheless,
it covers the basics needed.
• O’Reilly. 2012. ‘What is EPUB 3? An introduction to the EPUB
specification for multimedia publishing’.You can preview it online,
but you must create an account on O’Reilly to download the free
ebook version.
Further reading
• eBook architects:
http://ebookarchitects.com/
• EPUBsecrets:
http://epubsecrets.com/
http://epubsecrets.com/resources
A list of resources that will help you create your ePUB files.
Further reading
• Tallent, J. 2009. ‘Kindle formatting: The complete guide’. Kindle
Formatting.
• Kolwalczyk, P. 2011. ‘Creating Epub ebooks with Sigil: #1getting started’. Teleread. Posted 7 October.