Jesus Freaks for Writers discussion

Did you self publish? Traditional? How long did it take? Share your publishing story here!

I also published through KDP and Createspace. However, I am thinking about branching out a little bit soon. We'll see.

I went with KDP, and that was a huge scary step for me back in 2011. It was good as a first step, because it allowed me to get in contact with my first fans, (lovely people!!! :-) ) and yet still be able to do some switching, since e-books are easy to change.
I did a bit of that in the first book especially, changing out the beginning scene, (not sure which was better, but the second one made me feel like I was getting somewhere! ;-) ) as well as the covers. My first covers were less dynamic, and I redid them both this past year.
Still not sure that every move I make is totally essential, but with an e-book, it's okay to do tweaks.

I got brave and ordered my first "print copy" of my words ever produced, with a winner-code from NaNo over at Lulu. The feeling of having a "real book" was fantastic, and I now intend to have my next releases into CreateSpace as well as KDP.

As an advice thing: I'd recommend going with e-book first, it's so easy to change and get your feel right. Ordering a print copy is forever, and finding an awful mistake in the middle of it would be very discouraging!
(I had several great editorial readers comb my print copy, and I still found a few typos! But it was very satisfactory to have a basically clean manuscript inside that shiny cover. :-) )

Self-published through Lulu Press, CreateSpace, and KDP. A couple years or more for some projects, a few months for short stories.

As may be expected, I self-published through Createspace and KDP. :) Although, I wasn't extremely thrilled with Createspace (cheap, but limiting) and have been looking into a site called bookbaby to see if it's worth it to try publishing "Dragons' Bane" with them. There's a lot more options and it could actually be hardcover, but, if it comes down to cost, I'd stick with Createspace. It's cheap, it's easy, and it's pretty nice quality. :)
I had SUCH a hard time formatting my ebook though...can anyone walk me through how to properly do it? I got way too frustrated and just made a mess of it all...doesn't help that googling only produces like 100 different methods and do this/don't do this from different people...so confusing!

CreateSpace has templates you can use for formatting their print book, and I highly recommend using them ... but I suspect you're asking about kindle formatting.

The key with kindle is to keep it minimal. Sure, it's fun to play with fonts and such, but it doesn't transfer well in the file. You can mess with the size for chapter titles, but otherwise, keep it at 12pt. It is acceptable to use italics, boldface, strike-through, and underline.

Most important is making sure that the story is only in the document once.

What I've always done for kindle formatting, and I only had an issue with it once, with my first book, (Some tabs didn't want to stay put), was to just take my print book, remove all headers and footers, remove any fancy characters (You know, the winding sort), replacing the necessary ones with asterisks, and any blank space (which is only annoying on a kindle) and I make sure that each new chapter starts on a new page. (Control-enter). Also, I hyperlink the table of contents, which is actually quite easy if you have all of the chapters under the headings.

It actually doesn't take me more than a few hours to format my books ... (And, if you'd like, I could help you format your next book, it's something I enjoy doing.)

And since it seems that I've neglected to share my publishing story ... here goes. As with most everyone else, I go through Createspace and KDP, and I chose it because I had a code for a free proof copy from NaNo. I love the control that self-publication gives me, and I've personally never found it all that limiting. I have a cousin who designs most of my covers for me, since she's better at photoshop than I am.

My first book was published when I was sixteen, three and a half years ago. It was a bit of a whim, and while part of me wishes I'd waited and done a bit more polishing on the book, it's not a decision I've regretted.

I self published my book, The Warriors of Aragnar Trilogy #1, Wings of Honor last year. I first published the ebook through Book Baby, and then later published the paperback through The Book Patch. I agree, formatting your ebook for the Kindle can be a pain, but you just have to keep it simple. Of course, since I've published the ebook there have been some editing fixes and changes to the story that are current in the paperback, and even though I'd love to update the ebook, Book Baby charges a fee to do so. I'll probably update it eventually, but we'll see.
Self publishing has been great, but I'd love to branch out traditionally. A lot of people like my book, and there's several publishers I'm going to submit it too and see where it goes.

There are other self-pubbing aggregators that don't charge fees to update eBooks.

Then I will keep searching for one, that would be very nice.

Such as Lulu or KDP if you want examples.

Kendra wrote: "CreateSpace has templates you can use for formatting their print book, and I highly recommend using them ... but I suspect you're asking about kindle formatting.

The key with kindle is to keep it ..."

Hehe, yeah. I'm still not sure how it got in there twice...makes no sense to me. But that's fixed, now. :)

Yeah, 12/14pt font is easy enough...but all the tabbing and hyperlinks and whatnot was just frustrating and NOT working well for me. Trying to make the text reflowable for kindle...*shudder* I just made a mess of things. And then Microsoft Word had to go and be temperamental where unless I went back and fixed the wonky print formatting (this was after I'd submitted and saved my story doc on Createspace, thank goodness...but I couldn't get it back from there to Word again the same way it looked before) I had to work with what I had. And print formatting...scratch that, formatting at ALL is not easy for me, heh. But Microsoft Word might be the worst thing to try editing a document in...which is why I'm extremely glad I have Scrivener now.

I'd love any sort of help with formatting!! It's kind of frustrating that I can't seem to get it right...yet everyone else seems to have no trouble with it, heh. The print book, though...I think I'm going to stick with the pros on that one, if only because I'm not a design artist and I can't make my interior as pretty as they made it for me, or add a little dragon at the beginning of each chapter, etc. :p

I'm published through CreateSpace and KDP too. My books are in Smashwords as well, but I'm not sure it's worth it. On kindle formatting, Smashwords has a style guide that walks you through formatting a document for ebook conversion. It's been awhile since I got the link to it, so I don't remember what it is, but I think it was a free download on smashwords.com.

This is the link:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52
Smashwords or not, the guide is invaluable.

I agree. There's no way I could have formatted an ebook without it. Thanks for finding the link!

Oh, see, I tried reading that thing and going off of it...it's what landed me in my formatting mess. The 'nuclear' thing? Nope. Just messed everything up. Like 10 times...

I never used the nuclear method. What I've done to clean up documents, with my two published books and my friend's book, is use find and replace to strip the formatting. I used it to get rid of tabs, section breaks, and line breaks, and I made styles to keep the text standard and put the indent in that. I have separate ones for the text and for chapter headings and things. That's always given me a nice clean document to work with, and from there I use the Smashwords Style Guide. Really, what is necessary is a good understanding of Microsoft Word, which I gained through the Style Guide, Where Do I Start? An Overview of Indie Publishing, and just playing around with it and Googling random things, like what the text symbol for a line break is. Word can be very frustrating, but it works if you can figure out how to beat it.

That's exactly what I do as well, and I have a document with a summary of the formatting steps I need to take.

Now I tend to write with formatting in mind, keeping it simple from the start. I haven't actually published a book since I started doing that, but I imagine it'll make things easier when I do. Hopefully I'll be able to find out in a few months...which means I should go work on book 3 of my fantasy trilogy right now...

Morgan wrote: "I never used the nuclear method. What I've done to clean up documents, with my two published books and my friend's book, is use find and replace to strip the formatting. I used it to get rid of tab..."

Oh yes, Word is a PAIN to work with. It didn't want to keep any of my formatting the way I had it...I tried it without doing the nuclear method too, but couldn't get the pages to look right or the text reflowable...

Did you start from a manuscript document or a print copy one? A manuscript document should already be reflowable, while I can't imagine the pain of starting from a print book. Honestly, while I've had a good deal of trouble with print books, ebooks haven't ever really given me trouble.

Morgan wrote: "Did you start from a manuscript document or a print copy one? A manuscript document should already be reflowable, while I can't imagine the pain of starting from a print book. Honestly, while I've ..."

Print. I didn't exactly distinguish between a manuscript and print version, which could have been part of my problem...

Probably. There's a lot of complicated formatting in a print version, which is why for ebooks it's best to start with a basic printer paper sized document with little to no formatting. I always create a new document when I start the print formatting. Ebooks have a separate document from the manuscript too.

Morgan wrote: "Probably. There's a lot of complicated formatting in a print version, which is why for ebooks it's best to start with a basic printer paper sized document with little to no formatting. I always cre..."

That's smart; I will definitely do that before I start trying to format my next book!

Hopefully that helps! Formatting is no fun at all when it's a nightmare.

I self-published through WestbowPress, and had a very positive experience although the fees really start to add up.
I wrote my very first words last March and by December I was holding the very first copy in my hands. Surreal!
www.boogsandbeanmom.com

Wow, I totally missed this thread way back in September. My own self-publishing journey has lots of twists and turns. I initially wanted to be traditionally published and I was blessed to meet with two editors at Bethany House Publishers, who encouraged me to send in my manuscript for The Blade Heir. Once it was completed, I sent it in and they told me it wasn't something they could publish because their catalog was heavily focuses on historical Christian romance. So after that I decided to self-publish since I had been doing extensive research on it and I wanted to have more creative control of my books than through a traditional contract.

One of the tough parts about self-publishing is if you want to put a quality product that looks professional, you need some money to hire editors, book designers, formatting, etc. So I decided to try a crowdfunding campaign last summer to raise some funds to get the book off the ground. I definitely learned a lot from that venture and it was a tough going, but the support I received allowed me to pay for the cover and editing, so that was nice. Long story short, I published in August and I'm going full steam on this indie publishing train! It's tough work, but totally worth it if you're passionate about writing and the brand you want to build.

That's awesome! That's one thing I've heard, definitely positive, that self-publishing gives you a lot more control. It would be nice to have the support and financing of a publishing house, but I think I'd rather go with doing it my self

Hey guys! I didn't know where to put this...so yeah... Anyway, I'm looking to publish a short story through creatspace.com soon here.

Currently looking for a few beta readers. Anyone like simply sweet, non-magical fairytales? My story is about 20,000 words long and based loosely on Cinderella. I'm searching for overall opinions of the story and help with polishing. If anyone's interested...applications are up, :D Read more here: http://shantellemaryh.blogspot.com/20...

Thanks!! :-)

That's so exciting, Shantelle!! I wish I could beta read, but my schedule won't allow that... I'll pray though! :)

Lena wrote: "That's so exciting, Shantelle!! I wish I could beta read, but my schedule won't allow that... I'll pray though! :)"

Thank you, Lena!! Prayers are appreciated!! :-)