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    Self-Publishing for Perfectionists
    Self-Publishing for Perfectionists
    Self-Publishing for Perfectionists
    Ebook85 pages1 hour

    Self-Publishing for Perfectionists

    By Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese

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    About this ebook

    Being a self-published author means being an entrepreneur who is responsible for every part of your author business... and every part of your readers' experience.

    Let two award-winning, self-published authors teach you to avoid scams, unforced errors, and poor investments as you create and publish books that can proudly share shelf space with those from from traditional publishers.

     

    Learn how to:
    - Find the right type of editor
    - Avoid cover art pitfalls
    - Navigate ebook publishing platforms
    - Get into brick and mortar stores
    - Secure reviews
    - Market your book
    - And survive social media

    in this at times humorous, hands-on how-to designed to save you from yourself!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAvian30
    Release dateMar 31, 2020
    ISBN9781393698418
    Self-Publishing for Perfectionists
    Author

    Erin McRae

    Racheline Maltese can fly a plane, sail a boat, and ride a horse, but has no idea how to drive a car; she's based in Brooklyn. Erin McRae has a graduate degree in international affairs for which she focused on the role of social media in the Arab Spring; she's based in Washington DC. Together, they write romance about fame and public life. Like everyone in the 21st century, they met on the Internet. Sign up for Erin and Racheline's newsletter at: http://eepurl.com/65dMz Learn more at their website: http://Avian30.com

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      Book preview

      Self-Publishing for Perfectionists - Erin McRae

      Chapter 1: Introduction

      Welcome to our primer on self-publishing!

      Before we get started, we want you to know there are lots of different ways to self-publish. This book is about works for us and for our particular goals: producing books that provide readers and retailers the same experience they get from traditionally published books.

      We view self-publishing as an entrepreneurial activity that allows us to write—and profit from—the sort of fiction that excites us, even if traditional publishing structures aren’t currently sure how to find the right audience for our books. That’s okay! We’ve figured out how to find that audience, so we’ve decided to do it on our own.

      Why do we self-publish? There are three primary reasons.

      -  To have greater control over the subject matter, themes, and characters we want to write about. These include romances with unlikeable heroines, average-looking men, and queer people all over the place. Strange alternate universes, and books that don’t quite have enough magic to be SF/F but have a little too much magic to be straight up contemporary romance are also a thing. You don’t have to be writing anything that fits into these categories for this book to be useful to you, but we do want you to know that one reason to self-publish is content flexibility.

      -  To accelerate the timeline between when we write a story and when we can get it into the hands of readers. A traditional publishing timeline, even in the fast-paced romance space, still often takes more than a year from finishing a manuscript to publication. As self-publishers we can condense that timeline significantly, allowing us to publish books when they are timely and to pivot quickly as market interests shift.

      -  To maximize the profit we earn per book. Because we can set our own prices and because we do not have to earn out any advance from a traditional publisher, we are able to make 35% - 70% (compared to a typical 17.5% - 40%) of the list price on e-books and up to 30% of the list price on print books (compared to a typical 2% - 8% on traditionally published print books). Additionally, we are able to change our prices at will, allowing us to do flash sales and price promotions as market events warrant.

      We view ourselves as entrepreneurs, who are looking to put out a professional product that serves a need that the market has identified (romance novels) but isn’t adequately addressing (fewer titles that do the things we like to do that serve the audiences we like to serve).

      Not all self-publishers need to have this attitude. Some just want an audience and are less concerned with profit. Some are interested in publishing for friends and family, but don’t care about a significantly wider audience. Others are looking to publish non-fiction to support some aspect of their main business. And many, across all these philosophies of publishing, are interested in the status of being a published author.

      Historically, self-published authors have received less respect than traditionally published authors. This is a real thing, and even though it’s changing (particularly in the romance genre, which is responsible for well over $1 billion in sales each year and often sets trends for the broader publishing industry), it is a thing you need to deal with.

      If you decide that self-publishing isn’t for you, it’s perfectly acceptable to switch to traditional publishing. But please be aware that traditional publishers are almost never interested in previously published books—including self-published titles—unless they are wildly successful (think, hundreds of thousands of sales).

      Beware Vanity Presses

      If you pursue traditional publishing, it’s important that you always remember that money flows to the author. If a publisher congratulates you on accepting your manuscript, but then asks for any money whatsoever, you’ve encountered a scam or a vanity press.

      Yes, as self-publishers we often pay businesses and contractors to help us with parts of our production, distribution, and marketing process. Because we assume this financial risk, we also get to keep all of our profits outside this risk. In a traditional publishing model, the publisher assumes risk on books they think will earn their investment back and then some. If you are asked to subsidize publishing costs of any press claiming to be a traditional or hybrid publisher, please get a second opinion. Resources like Writer Beware (run by the Science Fiction Writers of America, but open to all) are invaluable in making these sorts of sensible decisions.

      Self-publishing is always at least partially a trial-and-error experience in finding what works for you, your books, and your business. Our goal with this book is to help you skip over some of the most frustrating parts of that process so you can focus on the fun parts: your writing and your readers. So buckle in, and let’s get started!

      Chapter 2: Editing

      You have a finished manuscript - congratulations! You’ve completed an absolutely necessary step of having a book. You probably know that editing your book is the next step. But what, exactly, does editing entail?

      There are multiple types of editing, each of which serves a different purpose and generally happens at different points in the editing and rewriting process.

      -  Developmental Editing

      -  Line editing

      -  Copy editing/proofreading

      -  Sensitivity/cultural reading/editing

      Each of these tasks require a different set of skills from an editor. Some editors do multiple types of editing; other editors specialize in just one form of editing. Most often, you may encounter editors who will do either developmental and line editing, or copy editing and proofreading. That’s because developmental and line editing are focused on the story you’re

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