Thinking about your cover

The cover of many self-published books lack professionalism and as a result it gives a poor first impression of what may be a great book.

During our ‘Bookcamp’ self-publishing training course we take a detailed look at how to create a cover and what to consider in making it look as professional as possible. We would like as many of you as possible to produce your cover yourself, but many of the people who responded to our survey said that they would like someone else to do the actual physical work. This is either due to constraints of time or the learning how to use the software required seems to be too daunting. As a result, we are launching our ‘Picturebucket’ as part of Indie Authors Scotland’s new ‘Pick ‘n’ Mix’ publishing services. (You’ll have to pop over to the website when you’ve finished reading this to see why it’s called the Picturebucket.)

What we want you to understand is that it doesn’t matter if you aren’t creating the cover yourself, it’s still your book and you should lead the process. There are certain things you can do that will help us produce the perfect cover that reflects the ‘story’ of your book.

Images

The best way is to find an initial image that you believe begins to tell your story. There are many stock photo sites on the web that offer a full range of pictures that you might consider. Before you search for the image, do a little preparation by thinking of keywords that you can use to narrow the parameters and gives you less pictures to choose from. If you can’t find the image yourself, make sure you supply us or your graphic designer with those keywords, it will be of huge benefit to both parties.

Fonts

You may not realise how important typefaces are in telling a story. The font you choose for the cover of an historical novel will be completely different to the one you would choose for a business book. Have a look at books in your genre in a bookshop. Pay close attention to the shape of the typeface on the cover and choose two or three that you like. If you give that information to the designer, it will help to identify the kind of look you need.

Blurb

A short synopsis of your book will help any designer understand the themes of your book and will help them. It's also good practice for you to prepare your blurb to help you to sell it.

Indie Authors Scotland is all about you as the author taking control of your work. These simple tips will help any designer you are working with to produce a professional cover that begins to tell your story. Of course, we hope you choose us to help you.

To learn more about our new publishing services and ourtraining pop over to Indie Authors Scotland’s website.

Have a great week.

Sinclair

New look

We've reached the end of our survey questions, and as it is a holiday weekend I won't make you read a long post.
Instead, I'd like to introduce you to our new look. We've been looking for a new logo for Indie Authors Scotland as the previous version was a bit too broad. The inspiration for the new logo is a pile of books, tilted to look vaguely like an abstract outline of Scotland. We'd love to know what you think.

Have a great weekend, I'll be back next week with a normal post.

Step by step

I am continuing to answer the questions that were asked during our recent survey. This week the question is:
What is the best sequence of events that have to happen to produce a widely successful book?

There can be no guarantee of success, but I will offer you a list of the things that could help you to produce a professional book that will give you a better chance of success.

Finish the book.

I know it’s obvious, but if you continue to rewrite and never publish, you will never have success.

Send the book to an editor.

As I have written on this blog before, if you have any money to spend on your book, give it to an editor; it will be worth it.

Assign ISBN numbers to your books.

Send the details to Nielsen, including the publishing date.

Get a cover

A good cover will project a positive image of a book; you don’t want something that looks bland, uninteresting or amateurish.

Write your blurb/description

Grab a potential reader’s attention with a well-written, concise blurb.

Format for e-readers.

When the book returns from your editor ensure that it is properly formatted for eBook distribution.

Typeset for print

If you are launching simultaneously a paperback as well as an eBook, now is the time to prepare the file.

Design a print cover

You will need a spine and back cover to add to the original artwork for the front cover. Include a barcode to help bookshop owners with cataloging.

Submit the book to your printer

When your manuscript and cover are ready, send it to your printer.

Submit it for eBook distribution

On your publishing date, send the book to the eBook distributors.

Have a launch party

Celebrate your achievement, have a party with family and friends, tell your local paper and you might get some publicity.

Market it, market it, market it

Marketing can be done at any time. Let the everyone know your book is coming and then keep telling them after it’s released. Try to use original methods to capture people’s attention..

That’s a very short summary of what you need to do to produce a professional, self-published book. The important thing to remember that producing your own work is a step-by-step process. If you break it down into simple pieces it becomes less daunting.

Our self-publishing training courses cover every aspect of the publishing process in more detail.

Have a great weekend and I’ll be back next week.

Top Of The Pops - Promoting your book

I am working my way through the survey questions and this week it's a bit of a poser.

Why do some people seem to be at the top of the bestseller list with what seems to be no promotion and no previous publishing background? It mystifies me.

I think the simple answer to the question is that the author has used some means of promotion that may not be immediately obvious to you. If you publish through Amazon, there are a number of promotional tools at your disposal, particularly if you register your book for KDP Select. It may be that making good use of those tools is the secret to their success.

My first appearance in the Amazon Top Ten

KDP Select caused a bit of a stir when it was first launched about eighteen months ago. If you do a search of the Internet, you will find that there are plenty of articles available offering different opinions on KDP Select. Initially I was very wary of using it due to the fact that the eBook must be exclusive to Amazon during the 90-day period that you are registered. If I am honest, I would rather sell my books through the Apple iBookstore as it guarantees 70% return regardless of the price of the book, but the simple truth is the iBookstore offers little in the way of promotional opportunities and unlike Amazon, Apple doesn’t seem to push independent authors in a way that would allow us to compete with those who have been published by a company. As I wasn't selling books in any great numbers on other platforms, I decided to take the plunge and removed my first book from all the other stores and made it a Kindle exclusive.

There are three main ways that your book can be promoted when you are registered for KDP Select. By default your book is available to Amazon Prime users to ‘borrow’: the book is downloaded to their Kindle for a limited time. You are paid a share of the monthly pot, depending on how often the book is borrowed. This has meant some of my books have earned more per copy borrowed than sold. That’s not to say I’m making more in total as the numbers are relatively low, but the good thing is the customer gets to try your book for free and you still get some cash back.

The second promotional opportunity comes in the form of free giveaways. These are important in boosting your profile and hopefully, generating reviews. Reviews are currency on Kindle and more than anything else they will help to sell your books. There are many sites across the web that allow you to promote the days that your book is free, and I think that the people referred to in the question will have made good use of those sites as they raise your profile and increase the breadth of your potential readership.

The most recent promotion to be added to KDP Select is the Countdown Deal. This allows you to set your book at a lower price for a number of days and Amazon will still pay you the full royalties based on the original price. This is an excellent addition to the tool set and I have seen real improvements in sales as a result.

I will add a caveat to the information on KDP Select; many authors feel it works best if you have more than one book, as you can use the various tools on different books every month. If you have only one book, it might be more helpful to stay with multiple outlets for your work.

The other factor that puts you close to the top of the chart is momentum. If you can increase sales, even for a short time, your book will be closer to the top of the rankings and people will find it more easily which will help with further sales. It won’t last forever, but if you can promote your book into the upper reaches of the charts, the momentum will hold it there for a little while.

There are any number of ways to promote your book, including social media, newsletters, personal appearances and many more, but I hope this has offered one possible answer to what was a tricky question. KDP Select is covered in more depth during our self-publishing training courses at Indie Authors Scotland.

Have a great weekend, and I’ll be back with more self-publishing information next Friday.

Print On Demand

Recently, Indie Authors Scotland ran a survey to establish what people think about self-publishing. As part of the survey, the respondents were given the opportunity to ask questions of Kim and I. For the next few weeks I am going to respond to those questions through my blog. This week’s question is “How do I find an easy way to have books printed and distributed on a demand basis?”

Digital print on demand has revolutionised what is possible with self-published books. Low cost, short print runs now make it easy for anyone to produce high-quality books that don’t cost a fortune and don’t require you to buy and store a huge number of books.

There are a couple of simple routes to producing your own printed books. I printed my first three novels using an online company called CompletelyNovel.com. You can sign up with a monthly fee, and depending on the deal you opt for, you can have a certain number of titles produced with no setup fee. They also offer publishing services like typesetting for a reasonable extra cost. There are limitations, as there are only two sizes available and you are restricted with regards to choice of cover finish. It is a simple process, the folks at Completely Novel are very helpful and there is also a community of readers and writers associated with the site.

Amazon is now offering a similar service in the form of Createspace.com. There is a greater choice of sizes and cover finishes available and there are no set-up costs. It is a comprehensive service but there is a problem; as it is currently an American-based site, if you are an author in the U.K. you will have to pay shipping costs from the U.S. that will push up your expenditure on every book. It’s a great service and hopefully it will be offered in the U.K. before too long.

My route to print is now through Lightning Source. It offers a vast range of sizes, covers, papers and print styles that you can combine to produce the kind of book you want. There is an initial set up fee for each title, but it's reasonable at under fifty pounds. A 300-page standard paperback will cost you about £4 per copy to produce, leaving you a decent margin to sell the books directly to readers and make a good profit. I have been very impressed by the service and the quality of the finished product from Lightning Source.

The best advice I can give is for you to explore the websites in more detail and find the service that is best for you. As I do all of the technical work myself, Lighting Source offers me the service I need, but if you don’t have the technical know-how, you may find that one of the others are more appropriate. This area is developing at an incredible rate and I will do my best to keep you informed. 

We cover print-on-demand books in great detail in the Indie Authors Scotland Bookcamp training course.

How do I finance my self publishing project?

Recently, Indie Authors Scotland ran a survey to establish what people think about self-publishing. As part of the survey, the respondents were given the opportunity to ask questions of Kim and I. For the next few weeks I am going to respond to those questions through my blog. This week’s question is "How do I finance my project?"

This is obviously a very personal question that will result in a different answer for each individual, but I will try and offer some suggestions that may help.

My first recommendation is to decide how much of the process you would like to take control of. There are many companies out there who will produce your eBook and paperback for you, but they tend to be expensive. If you have money available and don’t want to spend time producing the book yourself, that may be the best route for you. The downside is that you’ll be spending that amount of money every time you want to produce a book. Alternatively, the training we offer at Indie Authors Scotland will teach you as much of the process as you would like to learn. Not only do we offer a comprehensive course called the ‘Bookcamp’ but also shorter, more specialised courses that might be more suitable to your budget. (Well, I had to plug the course somehow.) :-)

During the production cycle, the single most important area to spend money on is an editor. If you are on a tight budget, an editor should be your first priority. A well-edited book will be the key to retaining readers and helping you to grow sales beyond your first book.

With the formatting skills you have learned in our course and a well-edited manuscript you will be ready to submit your book to Amazon for sale on the Kindle. If your budget can stretch a little more, then you should get a professionally designed cover. Although we shouldn’t, everyone judges a book by its cover. It may not generate sales on its own merits, but I guarantee that an amateurish cover will put off some people from even reading the blurb.

The majority of online marketing tools and social media are either free or very low cost. Using them well in combination with good reviews will hopefully begin to generate some income for you, which you might want to invest in producing a paperback or in more training. If things go well you will have a virtuous circle where what you earn is re-invested back into book production and then into more traditional marketing and advertising.

The priority in your budget should be:

1. Editor
2. Cover design
3. Paperback production
4. Marketing
5. Advertising

To learn more about our list of  ‘How to Self Publish’ courses, visit the Indie Authors Scotland website.