Reader Question Day #42 – how I self-publish

(Note: my weekend schedule is pretty full, so Reader Question Day is going up a day early this week.)

Vicky K asks:

How did you self-publish? Did it cost a lot of money, and/or take a lot of time? Also, do you edit your books yourself, or is there someone who edits them for you?

Okay, so that’s more than one question, but I am a serious aspiring writer, so they’re not just for giggles. 

Short answer: the only money I have spent is for stock photos for book covers, the computers I use, and my Internet connection and hosting fee.

Now here comes the longer answer of the process I use to make an ebook. 🙂

When I write a book, I write it in Microsoft Word 2003 because while I know how to use Word 2007/2010, I personally find them aggravating to use. (When my current computer dies, I’ll probably switch to LibreOffice Writer rather than pay for Office 2013.) I also do all the edits in Microsoft Word.

To turn it into an ebook, I use a free program called Sigil. Sigil has a bit of a sharp learning curve, but you can turn out a pretty good epub file with it. You can use programs like Adobe InDesign or Scrivener to turn out good epub files, but Sigil is free, which is hard to beat. Additionally, you can also use Sigil’s code view to see the underlying HTML code of an ebook, which is extremely useful.

Once I’m satisfied with the epub file, I use another free program called Calibre to convert the epub file to a mobi file, which is the format of ebook that Amazon’s Kindle uses.  Calibre is designed primarily as a ebook library manager (sort of an iTunes for your ebook collection), but it’s good for turning epub files into mobi files.

To make the covers, I used to rely on public domain art, but I rapidly ran out of usable public domain pictures. So I’ve been buying suitable stock photos from Dreamstime.com and iStockphoto.com. To format and arrange them, I use both the GIMP and Paint.net.

I edit the books myself, which is not a satisfactory arrangement, but I have yet to find an editor whose judgment I trust, who can work to my timescale, and who I can afford.

Once I have the book done and the cover done, I upload the EPUB file to Barnes & Noble’s PubIt site and Kobo’s Writing Life site, and the MOBI file to Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. I also prepare a separate Word document to upload to Smashwords, which is something of a pain, but it’s the only way to get books into Apple’s iBookstore, and I’ve sold about 1200 books via iBooks this year, so it’s best not to neglect iBooks users.

And that’s pretty much it. The only money I spent was buying cover art and for my Internet connection and computer (and I would have bought those last two anyway). Writing the books and finding an audience for them is the hard part. Publishing them is pretty easy, and these days only takes a modicum of HTML knowledge and a few free programs to do it properly.

Also, I’ve seen on some posts that you will write novels in the span of three months. How do you combat writer’s block? You as the writer surely know at least the gist of what’s going to happen next, and I sometimes find myself getting bored with a story (because I already know the ending) before I’ve even finished writing it. Do you have any tips and tricks you don’t mind sharing?

For myself, I’ve found that writer’s block is a function of either not knowing what’s going to happen next, or a sign of something wrong with the story. I outline a novel pretty thoroughly before I start writing it – GHOST IN THE STONE had a final draft of 90,000 words, and I think the entire outline and various character notes for the book came to about 3,500 words. That means when I sit down to write, I know *exactly* what I need to do in that writing session.

It also helps that my time is very constrained – I can usually carve out about two hours a day to write, and that’s if I’m diligent and nothing is going haywire anywhere else. So I can’t waste time or “warm up” by reading my RSS feeds or playing Skyrim for fifty minutes first. If I don’t make the absolute maximal use of my writing time, I don’t get it again that day. The old proverb says that a hanging is a marvelous way of focusing the mind, and so does a limited amount of time. 

That said, if I happen to be sick or exhausted, it’s sometimes best to just stop for a day and let the brain recover.

MarvinTheMartianAndroid asks:

Why do you write both fantasy novels and tech books? It seems weird that a writer would write both.

Because the tech books are lucrative and I’m reasonably good at them. My Ubuntu Beginner’s Guide has been, at various times, the #1 Linux book on Amazon.com (and I think it is right now as I’m writing this). Clearly a lot of people have found it helpfully, and I enjoy doing it, so why not do more?

-JM