Excerpt

Introduction to Indie Publishing

"Write, write, and write some more." If content is king in developing a publishing strategy then a connected series is queen, and quality is the foundation for that empire. One repeated mantra is that Self Publishing is a marathon, not a sprint."

– Dianna Love, NYT and USA TODAY Bestselling Author

If you have come to this book with the idea that you can write a manuscript over a few months, share it with your closest friends, get someone with an English degree to check grammar, and then put it up on Amazon and sell millions, I'm afraid you will be sorely disappointed. Yes, you can put up anything you've written on Amazon, Kobo, Nook, Google Play, iBooks, and many more places with relative ease. You can announce it to the world on social media, and even go on blog tours to let everyone know how wonderful it is. But selling beyond your friends and family is NOT likely.

In the early days of self-publishing (2010-2012) there were a number of books that were poorly executed, but with good stories, that sold well. But those days are long gone. With over half a million indie books being put up every year, readers have become wary of trying new authors. They have formed mental checklists that help them determine if a new book is going to be worth their time. This list includes evaluating the cover, reading the blurb, checking the sample or "Look Inside" feature, checking the reviews, and looking at the author page to see what else he/she has written. To sell well today, you need to pass all those tests.

That is what this book is about—how to make your book the best it can be, how to package it so that people will at least click on the cover to learn more, and how to write descriptions that draw readers in and want to take a chance on an unknown author. Then once the reader takes a chance on you, you must deliver to their expectations—expectations for story, formatting, and navigation. AND, if the reader likes your book, they will want to immediately buy another book from you. If you don't have another book now, or coming soon, you will quickly be forgotten.

This first chapter will provide a quick overview of the entire publishing process to give you the scope of requirements. Subsequent chapters will then go into much more detail to ensure you can do this on your own and create/package the best book possible.

But before we get into that let's make sure we are on the same page in terms of understanding what indie publishing is all about and how it differs from traditional publishing.

Self-Publishing – This is a process by which an individual handles all the aspects of publishing his/her book. It does not necessarily mean she does it all herself. She may have a team of people she contracts. The key is she is the publisher.

Indie Publishing – This has become synonymous with "self-publishing." Over the past three years or so, this term is preferred by most people who self-publish. Anyone who takes on the tasks of publishing is an indie publisher.

This also applies to a person or group of people who form a publishing company outside of the major publishers and acquire books. Independent publishing is nothing new. From Virginia and Leonard Woolf starting up Hogarth Press to the early days of Farrar, Straus and Giroux championing now-iconic authors that other publishers wouldn't touch, DIY publishing has long been responsible for some of our best literature. Today, you often see "indie presses" or "indie publishers" who represent poetry or certain niche markets not embraced by big publishers, like narrative history, memoirs, spiritual self-help, and niche markets for fiction.

Today, most small presses or niche presses call themselves "indie" publishers. This includes well-known literary publishers like Tin House, Melville House, and Coffee House Press to new presses that grew out of online zines, such as Ugly Duckling Press in Oregon now with over 200 titles. Also, genre presses such as Entangled, Aberdeen, Poisoned Pen, any many others.

Let's Break Down These Steps to the Key Components

They key to indie publishing, just as in traditional publishing, is developing a team that you trust to do the jobs you can't or are not willing to do yourself. Although all the above items are handled in-house with traditional publishers and small presses, each person has a set of skills and things they know how to do. You need to develop that same approach.

For example, if you are a graphic designer in your day job and you know Adobe Photoshop inside and out, then you might feel comfortable taking on cover design yourself. Even if you are comfortable with the tools, you will still need to invest some time in learning how the design impacts your genre, your branding, if you are doing series etc. Designing book covers is a different knowledge base than designing a commercial brochure for a business.

If you have a good marketing background, you may be fine with developing a marketing plan and implementing it yourself. Again, you need to find out what works for selling books vs cars or houses or refrigerators.

For every aspect of the publishing process there are people available to help you implement it. The key is determining who they are, what you can afford, and whom you can trust. There are plenty of people out there who offer services not worth your time or money.