First Time Considering Online Publishing

Just a few comments from someone who's gone this route on KDP. The part about having a $1000 ready to spend to "get your book out there" - I just have to laugh, as my cost was about as close to zero as you can get...lol.

The cover? Did it myself, got the image for free by way of a free trial on a image site. Editing? Did it myself, with the gracious help of a few friends. Well, come to think of it, I did spend a few bucks for my copy of "Self-Editing for Fiction Writers" - but that's something I'll be able to use for book after book. Marketing? Did it myself via a massive two-week spam-a-thon (oops, let's just call it flogging my wares like a carnie barker..lol.) The point is, I spent very, very little money to write and self-publish my book on KDP, which is priced at $3.75. Am I happy with the results? You bet - I couldn't be more pleased, and I can't wait to get my 2nd book out.

As for the pricing of novellas and short stories, I'd just bite the bullet and price them at .99 cents - you'll not make much money, but you'll get exposure, and hopefully set the stage for a full-priced novel in the future. I think Amazon was brilliant to put the 70% "floor" on KDP to keep authors from undercutting each other into the ground, although I do feel this is too costly for anything less than a short novel (60k words or so).

As for you using Open Office, I used it too - the formatting did take a bit of work, and a bit of trial-and-error. However, there's some guides out there that will provide help for you - just google publishing and/or formatting for Kindle using Open Office. I got a Kindle guide for about $3 that turned out to be a real godsend to getting it formatted properly for the Kindle. Even so, I read the entire book in "test mode" to make sure there wasn't anything funny about it.

The only thing that really cost me was time - it was a heavy investment in that regard, so I consider myself lucky I had the time to spare.

Hope this helps.

1. Is that because Amazon doesn't make enough money below $2.99?

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Amazon encourages pricing in their preferred range by giving higher royalties. They've never really explained why $2.99 is the bottom of the preferred range.

2. Does $1.50 sound fair for a Novella?

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Honestly, $2.99 sounds fair to me so anything less is okay too. Everything between $0.99 and $2.99 tends to be a dead zone on Amazon, so I'd choose one of those two prices. But one nice thing about self-publishing is you can try all the different price points and see what works best for you and readers.

3. I'm a starving artist and thought I could do okay doing it through KDP for free, right? Is that realistic of me to think that?

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Sure. The quality you can achieve depends entirely on your skill that way, but nothing is stopping you from doing it. My initial goal for self-pubbing was to learn to do everything myself and be in profit from the first sale. It took a long time to learn everything and produce quality up to my internal standards, but I succeeded in that and I've been in profit from shortly after publishing. But it's lunch money.

4. Is there any way around that as Word cost a lot?!

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Word is not required. Open Office will optionally save in compatible DOC format. But I wouldn't use that even with word. I prefer submitting my own HTML/MOBI/EPUB created by following Guido Henkel's guide to formatting ebooks and using the free Calibre tool to process it.

5. How can the graphic designers survive on only $5 to design a cover?

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They do something fast with a free image. An eye for design and good font work goes a really long way in cover design. What they won't do for that price is a lot of image manipulation because that's time consuming. Even so, it's a real bargain so you have to be careful to make sure you're using a legit designer that isn't just swiping unlicensed images off of Google image search.

6. Is the reality that there are a million and one other writers and my story would be otherwise lost in the big stampede if I don't spend more than $5?

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Your story can be lost in the ocean even if you spend thousands. Work within your own budget, but remember that you're competing with the big fish, and the sharks, and the whales so you need to keep your expectations in check, especially with your early releases. Getting something published is no longer an achievement. Now selling it is the achievement. Publishing is just a button, and the trick there is exercising restraint in when you decide to press it.

OP hasn't been her for over a year.

veinglory said:

OP hasn't been her for over a year.

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Yes, but Winfred's post is only tangentially related. Maybe Old Hack can split it out into its own thread.

I've split these comments out from an older, dormant thread so the OP can get the answers he needs.

Just a tip, Microsoft Office is no longer expensive. You can now get a Microsoft subscription and use all of their programs for $10 a month. That being said, I use open office and only use Word to go through my editors track changes.

Winfred said:

I have a 28,000 word novella I'm thinking maybe to KDP publish and thought... no way would I charge $2.99 for it, more like maybe $1.50. I suppose it's hard to quantify... but a huge difference in royalties below $2.99 as it drops from 70% to 35%!

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My advice would be to bite the bullet and charge $2.99 for it. That's a normal price for a work of that length in most genres. It also gives you the option to drop it to 99c if you want to do a special promotion.

3. I'm a starving artist and thought I could do okay doing it through KDP for free, right? Is that realistic of me to think that?

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Yes, definitely. Learn to do your own formatting. You don't have to stick with Amazon, and personally I would recommend also putting your book on as many other sites as possible: B&N, iBooks, GooglePlay and so on. You can either upload to each of these directly, or you can use a distribution service such as Draft2Digital or Smashwords.

I would download either Calibre or Sigil or both (they are all free) and learn how to convert your files to ePub and kindle format. This is what you'll need to upload for all the major vendors.

I saw great covers designed for $5.

5. How can the graphic designers survive on only $5 to design a cover?

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Were they on Fiverr? Personally I would run a mile from them. There's a good chance the image will be used without permission. You can either learn to make your own covers (I wouldn't recommend this unless you have graphic design skills) or buy a premade cover from a reputable site such as goonwrite.com. There are plenty of places selling good covers for $30-$40. It's worth it.

6. Is the reality that there are a million and one other writers and my story would be otherwise lost in the big stampede if I don't spend more than $5?

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That's the reality no matter how much you spend. You can get a decent product for not much money (though you don't seem to have considered the costs of editing, which I would consider a non-negotiable part of the process. You can either pay or see if you can find people to help you in exchange for something else).

But if you don't want your book to languish in obscurity, you'll also need a solid promotional strategy.

Winfred said:

I saw great covers designed for $5.

5. How can the graphic designers survive on only $5 to design a cover?

I can't figure that out. I figure I better at least have a nice cover and could put my story out there then for $5....

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Put frankly, they can't. I'd be extremely wary of any cover that cost $5.

Occasionally you can get very, very talented character sketches on deviantart for that price, because a) it's a rough and unpolished piece, b) the artist is still in school or college, c) they're in dire straits and are desperate to 'stand out' in a crowded market so they can get food for the month, d) it's usually a low-cost form of art like digital or pencil sketches, not watercolor, inks or acrylics, e) they're trying to quickly increase their portfolio or skills, f) they lack confidence in their skills and/or g)they live in a country where the $ exchange rate is favorable for them.

In that situation, sure, you can commission work -- but for god's sake, you better pay extra, because the artist is criminally undercharging themselves. And if you like what you get, you might want to become a regular purchaser of commissioned work from them.

You also get a lot of artists that charge lower prices just because they know they're work's not up to scratch. This is still a bit iffy, because even if they're not that skilled they deserve a fair wage per hour, but it's the way of the "get what you pay for" market.

That's character illustration. Book cover illustration is often a more complex beast, requiring understanding of thumbnails, silhouettes, and complex fonts. If you get a book cover for a $5, they're undercharging themselves and it's probably going to be pants.

So yeah, your gut instinct is right -- pay the money for a good cover. Your cover sells your story, it needs to be excellent.

K.B. Parker said:

Just a tip, Microsoft Office is no longer expensive. You can now get a Microsoft subscription and use all of their programs for $10 a month. That being said, I use open office and only use Word to go through my editors track changes.

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$10 a month is $120 every year. I've been writing for about six years, so that's $720. The price I paid for Word is peanuts compared to that. So I don't see this as a good deal.

I could see it if someone desperately needed Word and couldn't wait to save up, but the free alternatives aren't that terrible.

Polenth said:

I could see it if someone desperately needed Word and couldn't wait to save up, but the free alternatives aren't that terrible.

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Honestly, I prefer OpenOffice/LibreOffice.

I'm forced to use Word at work. I have it on my home systems as well. I do all my writing in OpenOffice instead.

(And will switch completely to LibreOffice as soon as I'm slightly less lazy. They're almost identical since they share open source code, but LO has a few minor improvements and can integrate anything OO comes up with more quickly than the reverse direction.)

Word is necessary for a few very specialized situations and that's about it. If I didn't have it, I would not buy (nor rent) it.

Polenth said:

$10 a month is $120 every year. I've been writing for about six years, so that's $720. The price I paid for Word is peanuts compared to that. So I don't see this as a good deal.

I could see it if someone desperately needed Word and couldn't wait to save up, but the free alternatives aren't that terrible.

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Agreed. And even if you do want the MS version, the subscription model isn't the cheapest way to go. I actually just bought MS Office for my new laptop. I paid £73. That's a MUCH better deal than the monthly subscription, imo.

May I ask what the genre of your novella is?

girlyswot said:

Yes, definitely. Learn to do your own formatting. You don't have to stick with Amazon, and personally I would recommend also putting your book on as many other sites as possible: B&N, iBooks, GooglePlay and so on. You can either upload to each of these directly, or you can use a distribution service such as Draft2Digital or Smashwords.

I would download either Calibre or Sigil or both (they are all free) and learn how to convert your files to ePub and kindle format. This is what you'll need to upload for all the major vendors.

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I'm finishing up a blog post on how to format using Open Office/Google Docs/Sigil/Calibre. I found it very empowering to learn to do it myself. It's not that hard, just kind of tedious.

Editing will always be the big ticket item for me. I have unresolved grammar issues. It's getting better, but I'm not going to stop writing while I fix my anxiety about the semi colon. I feel lucky that I got a kick ass editor for under a thousand. I also splurged on the cover. There were some things I couldn't compromise on and they cost extra. To me it was worth it. I'm not sure I'd go all out for a novella.

Winfred said:

You have a nice cover! Did you make that cover yourself? If so, how did you do it and what type of software to make a cover.

Sincerely,
Winfred

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Thank you! Yes, I make all my own covers. I have an older version of Photoshop Elements which is not as powerful or sophisticated as full Photoshop, but is about 1/10 of the price.

Winfred said:

Hi!

My novella is in, I think, the Action/Drama category. There is a fantasy element but not the dominant genre. How did you make your beautiful cover? Your book is fantasy?
Thanks!
Winfred

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Yes, it's YA fantasy. I dabble in digital oil painting as a hobby. I've actually been wanting to take on some projects for fellow self-pubbers here on AW, but I don't want to undermine any of the commission artists around here, because I wouldn't charge for a cover. But I may be able to help you out. I'll shoot you a PM tonight, if you like. I do have my limitations in skill, and I haven't experimented beyond fantasy and landscape paintings. May be able to help, though, since you're working on a budget.

Unless you are participating in the Kindle Select program, you can upload your book to as many places as you want. With Kindle Select, Amazon can be the only place selling your book for the first 90 days. I don't think it's worth it, but read around some of the other threads around here for different opinions. Nothing is set in stone and we all choose different methods with varying results.

I've finished my blog post on formatting an e-book. If can use the internet, you can do the formatting yourself. Good luck! And if the blog is helpful to you leave a comment!