Category: how to self-publish

Reviews– Especially Honest Ones

~ Eli Rainwater

Lemur epitomizes how I feel today– ready to curl up and nap.

Y’all. I’m going to be honest. I know how important this is. I really do. But reviews are the thing I neglect the most, and I just can’t follow up on them. I’m the worst about giving them, and I’m the worst about asking for them, and I know I could just pay for them, but I keep hearing more and more horror stories about paid review sites. And let’s be honest– it’s a lot of money when you’re just starting out and already footing the bill for everything that goes into making your book.

So why are they important?

Well, reviews are considered to be a real representation of the public’s opinion of your product. Most of us use them as the hallmark for whether or not something might be up our alley, which is why it’s so important to have honest reviews. And it’s okay if you have negative reviews! Just because your book didn’t appeal to someone doesn’t mean it’s a bad book or you’re a bad writer, I say, even though my negative reviews trigger horrible imposter syndrome attacks and make me want to give up and never write again.

Handling negative reviews and what not to do

One of the hardest parts is reading the negative reviews and learning from them. Is this negative because it wasn’t to the reader’s taste? Or is it negative because the reader had a hard time getting through the book due to structural issues? How many other readers felt the same way? If you consistently get the same feedback, then those issues might be something you want to adjust. In my case, the most consistent verbal and written feedback I got was that I had too much world-building, too many characters, and rushed some of the key action sequences. It sucked reading and hearing that, and I didn’t want to even open my laptop for a week after the harshest review came in. But I made myself do it, and I incorporated what I learned from my readers into the next book. You’re going to do that too because even though studies all over the place confirm that we are more likely to have a negative reaction to negative feedback than a positive reaction to positive feedback, you are still a good author, and I believe in you!

But you know what you are not going to do? You are not going to attack anyone who leaves a negative review, and you are not going to complain about them online or ask your fans to go after them. If someone does not like your book, then that’s their opinion. They are entitled to that opinion. Cyberbullying someone because they dared to say something about your precious work is one of the worst things you can do. It calls your maturity and professionalism into question, and the one thing you, an artist who puts their work into the public eye, cannot be is thin-skinned. Cry, rant, scream, curse the reviewer’s name to the gods in the privacy of your own home. Do not take it online. I see a disturbing number of one star reviews that simply state that the reason for the review is because of the author’s reaction to other negative reviews. If you legitimately believe that you can address something about the review and get more insight, do so in a calm, professional, and thoughtful manner.

Why honest reviews are so important.

Of course, your friends and family want to leave glowing, five-star reviews. But imagine if you look up a book, see all of these rave comments, and when you start to read it, the plot’s all over the place, the writing is hard to get through, or any of a million things that you did not expect. People look to reviews as a way to set expectations, and most are actually not turned off by negative reviews unless they’re consistent. And let’s be honest– most authors, including me, didn’t write a five-star piece on their first try.

Reviews can be bought or cajoled, so when an unknown author has nothing but five-star reviews on their first work, it raises red flags. You run the risk of being overlooked by readers who distrust your work, and Amazon and Google have steps in place to try to curtail false reviews. In fact, Amazon filed a lawsuit against four and five-star review sellers. The last thing you want is for Amazon to bury your book because it thinks you’re gaming the system.

So what is the magic number?

According to a study by Northwestern University, 4.2-4.5 is the sweet spot. Like I said, a negative review is not a bad thing. It reinforces the authenticity of your readers and work, and if someone believes that real people read your book, then you have a better chance of gaining a new reader. When you ask your friends, family, and readers to leave reviews, stress to them that they don’t have to make it five stars just because it’s your book. They’ll help you more by leaving an honest review instead.

What It Takes to Make Your Book

~ Eli Rainwater

I’m not talking about the writing… I mean the actual physical (or ebook) copy. In my opinion, this is where the true value of a hybrid publisher comes in, and if you can afford it and find one that will do a good job and is worth the cost, go for it!

So what do you have to do? Well, you have a few choices. You can go with the printer’s book-building tool if they offer one (IngramSpark has a tool that’s infinitely easier for me than trying to get the cover exactly right within their template), or you can piece it all together yourself.

Physical Books

If you’re trying to do it all yourself, you need to know your exact page count and be able to create a printable cover using Illustrator or a comparable software. There are some decent free print editing software programs out there, but they’re clunkier than Illustrator and require a lot more patience and effort. Your files also need to be exactly the way you want them. One of the pros here is that you are in complete control over all of the formatting, including drop caps, indentation, layout, and style.

As I said, I use IngramSpark’s book-building tool. Here’s my process:

  • I write everything in Google Docs so that I can work on it anywhere (including on my phone)
  • Switch it over to Pages so I can get the formatting exactly the way I want it (if you have a PC then Caliber or Kindle Create work too)
  • Export it as a word doc and an epub (I cannot stress enough how important it is to make sure that you save both versions of your book)
  • Use the IS tool to build out the front and back content like the copyright, acknowledgments, a page listing my works, and the author page;
  • Make my indexes, glossaries, and punctuation guides as a text insert that goes into the table of contents
  • Build the copyright and acknowledgment pages exactly the way I want them along with any additional front page copy and make sure to disable the table of contents button so they’re not added

Make sure that you give yourself plenty of time because you have to build the book chapter by chapter. Pros are you can name the chapters anything you want and include numbers, and the preview screen helps you find errors in the layout and content chapter by chapter. Cons are it takes forever and some of the decorative formatting, like drop caps, is harder to pull off unless you know HTML and CSS. There is a way to directly edit the code if you’re comfortable with it though.

If you use the book-building tool, document everything while you create the book! I mean, take screenshots of where everything is placed, write down the color codes for the cover and any fonts you use, write down the font and size, and make sure you have everything that you will need to recreate the book in multiple places and keep it as consistent as possible. Because I didn’t do that with Welcome to Jessie’s, the paperback and hardback are slightly different. Then when I did Where the Ogrekin Roam, I forgot to write it all down when I built out the hardback. Once it’s submitted, you can’t go back into the files until after they are processed and either approved or rejected. It was over three days before I was able to get back into them again– which caused another delay in my publishing schedule.

EBook

I learned the hard way with Welcome to Jessie’s not to export the epub from Google Docs, especially when building it in Draft2Digital. It was a lot harder to create the table of contents, and the formatting was more difficult to work with. D2D also just has very little flexibility when it comes to building your book. My other issue was that the previews did not accurately show the finished product. I was not happy when I found the layout errors in the finished ebooks. They’re not terrible; I’m probably the only one who knows they’re there. It still irked me.

I decided to submit directly to Amazon, Apple, and Barnes & Noble and use Draft2Digital for library and international platforms for Where the Ogrekin Roam. Remember a few paragraphs ago when I said to make sure you save everything as an ePub and Doc? This is why. Kindle Create is really intuitive, but you have to upload the docx. The other thing I ran up against is formatting. I don’t know why the formatting options are greyed out unless it’s because I exported the docx from Pages, but any drop caps that included a quotation mark are a mess.

The Cover

With the physical book and ebook, make sure your cover is the right size and displays all of your information. If the title, author, or any of the information you want to put on the cover is too close to the edge, it might get cut off in the bleed– the section printers use to make sure the cover art extends all the way to the edge or beyond of the cover itself. This article on figuring out pixels to inches for different trim sizes is really aimed at children’s books and their illustrations, but I found that it was a good rule of thumb when I first tried to build out my cover in Gimp (the free photo editing software I use instead of Photoshop). I really overshot it with Welcome to Jessie’s, as anyone who looks at the ebook can tell, but that’s because I didn’t follow my gut and overthought the entire process.

By the way, make sure you take breaks, come back and get a fresh look at your work, and don’t be afraid to ask for a second opinion. And always listen to your gut instincts! Remember you got into this because you love writing, and chances are you love reading too. You know what your readers want because you know what you want.

My last piece of advice here is to give yourself time. It takes hours, if not a few days, to build your book, and you have to build out each version– ebook, hardcover, paperback, copies in different languages, large print, etc. It takes longer if you don’t know what you’re doing, but don’t be afraid to learn as you go and take a lot of notes. My office walls are plastered with stickies for each step of the process. Make sure you have everything you need from the get-go– epub files, doc files, cover, a plan for the layout, and your ISBNs. There are really great tutorials all over the internet that teach you how to use different editing programs, layout programs, and the various book building tools. As you do it, you’ll get more comfortable and faster. Just make sure to build at least a month into your release schedule for the book creation and getting your physical proof. You always want that physical proof in your hands before you mass-order your books!

Navigating ISBNs, Copyrights, and the Library of Congress

~ Eli Rainwater

Sunny does not like sharing once he finds an article of black clothing he can cover with white hair.

Yes, this post is out of order. In my defense, the first time I published, I did everything through IngramSpark, so when I decided to branch out on my second book, I hit some obstacles that I would like to share. So let’s get started with ISBNs!

What is an ISBN?

ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number. In a nutshell, it’s the number assigned to your book, and it’s important to remember that each variation of your book (hardback, paperback, large print, audiobook, every language adaptation, ebook, etc). has to have an individual number. This is used by bookstores, retailers, and libraries to identify the formats of your book. Every country has an agency responsible for issuing ISBNs; in the US, it’s Bowker.

If you want to sell your book through retailers or distributors, you have to have an ISBN number for the physical versions of your book. As of now, most of the major retailers don’t require them for ebooks. Personally I got them anyway because if that changes, I would rather be prepared; it also makes my ebooks more discoverable. If you want your ebooks in libraries, then OverDrive, the largest ebook supplier used by libraries, requires it.

How Do I Get One?

You can simply apply for one online, but you have to be careful who you use. There are scam “agencies” out there who claim to sell ISBNs at lower rates, but the numbers are not valid. In order to sell ISBN numbers, the agency first has to purchase and register them through Bowker, and each agency’s site should have some kind of Bowker partner identifier. A huge red flag is any agency who claims to sell individual numbers (not in bulk) at a significant discount.

There is an exception to the discount rule, and that’s when an agency sells an ISBN at a significantly discounted rate in exchange for being listed as the publisher. Typically this is offered by agencies who also provide printing and distribution services. What this means is that whatever agency you use will be named on the imprint for your work, and you essentially lose the ability to list yourself as the publisher. It can also limit your distribution channels depending on the terms of the sale, so read the fine print very carefully and don’t be afraid to ask questions. If you’re just starting out and are more concerned with getting your book out there while working on a limited budget, this isn’t a bad option. Once you gain some recognition, you can republish the book with a new ISBN number under your own publishing name. In this article, there is a great section on the pros and cons of getting a publisher held ISBN instead of your own.

I bought my ISBNs through IngramSpark for $85 as part of the book set ups. It was easy, but one of the advantages of buying from Bowker is that you can buy in bulk for substantially better rates. It’s $295 for 10, $575 for 100, and $1500 for 1000. They never expire, so when you consider that you probably need at least two numbers per book, you can really save a lot in the long run.

This article helped me a lot when I started researching ISBN information for my first book, especially when it came down to whether or not to purchase an ebook ISBN and who to use.

Registering a Copyright

This doesn’t have to be a huge hurdle, but it really depends on how comfortable you are with bureaucratic paperwork. But first, let’s get into why you want to register your work with the copyright office (note: this is for the US– laws vary country by country, so if you’re uncertain, look up your country’s agency and laws or seek out legal aid).

Why Should I Register?

Technically, copyright protection starts when you begin to write and lasts for your lifetime plus seventy years, but filing the registration gives you a public claim to its ownership. Without that claim, it’s harder to pursue copyright infringement litigation if your work is plagiarized. It’s important to file within three months of publication to legally protect yourself.

Something I wish I had not paid for was having a third party agency register my first book’s copyright when I bought my first ebook ISBN numbers. I thought that everything would be taken care of, but all they did was create my account and complete the form. You still have to review the form, submit the application, and pay the $65 fee yourself on top of whatever fees you paid the agency. I don’t know if paying for that service did anything really valuable because I couldn’t find anything online that backed it up, so all I can say is spend that money at your own risk. I personally didn’t have any problems filling out the form on my second go round, but if you have trouble with that sort of thing, then maybe paying for a third party to handle all of that for you is for the best. If anyone knows another reason to actually get that service, reply in the comments!

Library of Congress

The last thing I want to cover is registration with the Library of Congress. The LOC is the largest source of literary works in the country and one of the largest in the world. While the copyright agency is part of the Library, copyrighting your work does not guarantee that it will be catalogued. It will be entered for consideration, but if you want to make sure it’s really in the Library, you have to fill out a PrePub Book application to get the LOC control number. Relax, it’s not that hard. Just make sure you have everything you need, including your ISBNs.

Also here’s a fun fact: you can’t copy and paste your book description or it will be flagged for invalid characters. You have to type it out in the description field.

Why Do I Want to Do This?

Because the LOC assigns consistent cataloguing data for your book that is used by libraries across the country. If you’re writing a series, it can also make sure libraries are notified in a timely manner when the next installment is released. The one caveat is that you can’t register a published work, although you can ask your local library for assistance getting your work catalogued. You have to make this part of your prepublication checklist, but it’s free as long as you don’t mind donating a copy of your work to the Library. For more information, I recommend their FAQ page.

In one of my upcoming posts, I plan to recreate my personal prepublishing checklist, but all of this is on it as part of covering my bases and protecting my work. Happy writing, and good luck out there!

How to Become Visible

~ Eli Rainwater

Lemur, who is in my books, has the fluffiest tummy in the whole world, and I want to rub it. I like it when my blood is inside my body though.

Today I want to talk about visibility and doing the legwork to get yourself out there. One of the ways self-published authors sell their books is through their online presence. If you don’t have the backing of a major publishing house, then it’s a lot harder to let people know who you are, which is why you should get started sooner rather than later. Probably the most well known platforms are social media and blogs, but you have other options too– if you’re willing to work and sometimes pay for it.

Blogging

Let’s take a look at social media and blogging first. Blogs are a good way to keep in touch with your audience, share your journey, and show a more personal side of yourself that you can’t always portray in your published works. You can share the ups and downs of your work in progress, your fears and struggles, your victories, just ramble about your day, talk about your pets and significant other, describe what you made for dinner last night, the possibilities are endless. You can also tie a blog in with most social media sites and author pages, thus spreading your reach even farther. One of my biggest takeaways from blogs is that they give the author a human element and make them more relatable. You certainly don’t have to go that route, but sometimes it can be nice to have a more relaxed, casual style of writing.

Blogging doesn’t work for everyone though, so if you can’t commit to it and create engaging and relevant content, skip this option. There’s also no one-size-fits-all template for blogging. I chose to make it about my self-publishing journey. Nonfiction writers can use their blog to establish themselves as a subject matter expert, and I’ve seen blogs from historical fantasy authors that detail their research.

Social Media

Social media is probably the most well-known platform. It’s really important to do your research here and know what your target audience most likely uses between Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Yes, I said TikTok. BookTok is a real thing, and it’s launching careers. If your audience consists of Gen Z or Millennial readers (or even a few of us Gen X’ers– we still exist!), consider breaking out the ring light and brushing up on video editing, because you could go far with that platform. And if you don’t like being on camera or hate the sound of your own voice, look at options like page flips, character creations, and staging shots with your books against a relevant and eye catching backdrop. Or you can be like me and shamelessly exploit your pets for views.

Like all marketing efforts, social media takes a time commitment. You have to post and engage fairly regularly (and by “regularly” I mean at least once a day) if you want algorithms to show your content in feeds and timelines. If you have a little extra budget, consider sponsored posts. It can be a nice way to get extra impressions and engagements. Even if people don’t buy your book right away, you still got in front of eyeballs, which is important when you’re trying to make a name for yourself.

One of the things I always strongly recommended to clients in the past is to humanize your social media posts. Don’t make it all about selling your product, because ad fatigue is a real thing, and that is a fast way to get people to glaze over when your posts pops up. Make posts about the journey, reader feedback, relevant parts of your life (again, my cats), and pepper your content with information on where your books are available.

One of the beauties of social media and blogging is that they can be preemptive strategies. You can start teasing your book, share your journey, engage with other authors, set up preorders and giveaways, really build your brand before you launch your book.

Ad Campaigns

Yes, ads. Sponsored ads can be intrusive and annoying, but they can also generate impressions (when someone sees your ad) and clicks, which can lead to sales. You can have ads show up on e-readers or on an author’s page (okay, in the interest of full disclosure, I did that and got some great follow through, but it made me feel icky), and you can have ads show up for keywords you select. You can also do automatic keyword targeting in which you let the algorithm choose keywords for you and then, after the campaign has run for a few weeks, switch to manual keyword targeting. With manual keyword targeting, you look at which keywords generated clicks and impressions, which ones didn’t, and create a list of targeted keywords and a list of negative keywords (search terms that will not trigger your ad).

Most ad platforms are not that expensive and come with very handy tutorials. Amazon in particular does a good job with educational follow up emails explaining the difference in match types, keyword targeting, and tweaking your campaign. Before you buy ads on a platform, do a little research (my favorite word in the whole world). What other ads do you see on those sites? How many organic engagements like reviews and shares do books similar to yours receive?

Site Submissions

Claim your author page on as many sites as you can including (but not limited to) Amazon and Goodreads. Join sites and get your book on them, especially ones with a proven track record for linking authors to readers (don’t forget to do your research!). Most of these sites have some kind of ad or giveaway program, and if you have the income to buy into those, then it could be worth it in impressions, clicks, and awareness.

In some cases, like Book Funnel’s promo lists, the only investment you need is the time it takes to get the link out there. Others charge a fee to do giveaways and featured promotions. Make sure you understand what you’re getting out of this! How many readers will really see your book? What is your projected ROI (return on investment)? How many books do you need to sell to see a return on your investment? If you do a giveaway promotion, what follow up do you have in place to guarantee sales down the road? How many impressions can you expect to get?

Award and Event Submissions

It may seem like hubris to submit your own book for an award, but it’s actually fairly common and expected. Now it seems that there are awards all over the place, but some still carry weight. Plus, at the most, you’re out a submission fee, and meanwhile you could get some publicity and impressions. If you win, you have an accolade for your site and that you can use if you apply to be a guest at conventions or to make author appearances. Before you jump into submitting for an award, check out the author awards and contests watch list from ALLi. There are some pretty unscrupulous platforms that charge hundreds or more in submission fees with little to offer in return.

Author Appearances

We all know about conventions, and let’s face it, if you’re a new author, you’re up against a lot of competition when it comes to applying to the larger cons as a guest. I’m not saying you shouldn’t apply at one of the big ones– it never hurts to try. If you’re not sure whether or not the con circuit is right for you or you don’t know what to expect, look at smaller ones that fit your genre and start there. Most have an author’s alley with pretty reasonable prices for a table, and it can give you a chance to learn how to interact with your audience, get to know other authors, and start to get a feel for your personal needs and limitations when it comes to appearing at an all day event.

Don’t underestimate art shows and local markets either. A book can be a fun addition to a more traditional art or craft fair, and it gives people something to read when they get home. You can include swag, flyers, and coupons as an incentive to buy. I recently did one that I really enjoyed. I gave everyone who talked to me a non-expiring coupon code. If they didn’t want to commit to the purchase right then, they could use the coupon later. I also made sure people who bought my book at the market had the coupon so they could buy the sequel when it comes out in March.

You can also submit to hold an author appearance at your local library and bookstores, and you can reach out to a local coffee shop or bar to hold a release or signing party. Check out local magazines, especially ones that focus on the arts and community, and see if you can get a review. If you see a submission for an interview or a way to get your site or book listed in a local publication, take it.

Author Swaps

This is a good way to get your book in front of a fellow author’s audience. With an author swap, you basically promote each other’s books, most commonly in newsletters. You can also promote them on social media or on your website, but it’s a nice way to support the community and get some new reading material in the process.

My takeaway

If you don’t have a publicist, PR team, or marketing team, then the burden of getting yourself out there is on your shoulders. Research, join groups, see what works, and make sure you can meet the time commitment for whatever platform you use. I spend about thirty minutes to an hour on days that I work at my other job and one to two hours on my days off looking into ways to get my book and name out to the world and following up on social media and publicity strategies. I’m at the point where I can’t commit to more than that, so if I find something that looks like it could generate more success than what I’m doing now, I’ll have to give up one of my existing strategies. I didn’t mention Kindle Unlimited or major platform book deals like BookBub and Goodreads, but there’s no reason why you can’t take advantage of those either. The more people read your book, the more likely they are to come back for the sequel.

Good luck, and happy writing!

My Self Publishing Journey

~ Eli Rainwater

First of all, let me just say that this was a huge and terrifying undertaking for me. I didn’t have the financial resources to take advantage of most publishing packages, so I had a lot of trial and error and mistakes. Writing was actually the easy part. That and cooing over Sunny, the toasted marshmallow fluff squish of a cat.

This is the third time I started to write this book. I don’t know what was different now, but it just came out so much more easily than when I tried before. I definitely had an amazing support team– my best friend Brenda (who Jessie is modeled after), my housemate Alicia who made me do silly things like “eating” and “sleeping”, my friends Dave and Erin who doubled as my proofreaders and ARC readers, and my bosses and coworkers at my pub who encouraged me to stick with it and helped spread the word when it was finished.

This is the first in a blog post series about self publishing to try to help other new authors circumnavigate the publishing world and hopefully avoid the same mistakes I made. The first thing I want to say is DO YOUR RESEARCH!!! Never– and I mean never— commit to anything financially without doing background research. Publishing is a lot more expensive than most people think, and you can run yourself into the ground very quickly unless you’re in a position to burn through a lot of cash. One of the best resources I found is the Alliance of Independent Authors’ Best Self Publishing Services (and the worst). Another great resource is this self-publishing checklist from Jane Friedman.

She also has a great post about query letters if you decide you want to go the traditional publishing route. I tried. It was astounding to me that I could turn out an 83,000 word novel in seven months and then spectacularly choke on a three paragraph query letter. A five year old would have written a better one.

I’ll go into the steps I took and resources I found in this series, but the most important thing I can say is don’t rush it. We all want to get our work out there, but if you want people to enjoy your work and take you seriously as an author, invest in a proofreader, editor, and advanced readers. Trust me when I say it’s invaluable! You can pay for those services, or you can find them among people you know.