The process of being independently published isn’t as easy as I thought it would be. I thought it would be a simple “send it, pay for it, and taa-daaah! it’s done” kind of thing.
It isn’t. Not even close.
First off, let’s start with pagination and formatting. Holy moly, dear ones, it’s not at all what I thought. While my document firmly stated I had 250 pages, once it was formatted to the proper size, that number jumped to just over 400 pages! That’s when the price of my book also jumped (and my heart dropped out).
On hindsight, I suppose I should have chosen a larger size for my book, and perhaps that would have taken the page count down a little bit, but I was concerned that it would be too cumbersome for people to cart around. As it is, I’m thinking we may still have that problem. Perhaps I should pare down my verbosity and create a smaller manuscript. ha! hahahahaha. We’ll see.
Fortunately, it will also be available as an e-book, which makes the size less of an issue. I’m not sure what the price will be, however, but I’m aiming to keep it under 3.00 (USD). I will exert as much control over that as I can.
Which leads me to the next issue: When stuff doesn’t match. The cover art is lovely and I’m very pleased with it, but there were issues in getting it out when I wanted it done. The artist was having some problems that hindered her ability to finish in a timely manner, namely, her computer kept freezing up on her forcing her to restart frequently. This delay gave me no end of stomach ache, and when it was finally ready, she had neglected to format it to the proper size and it had to be corrected.
Delays drive me nuts, even when they are out of anyone’s control.
Then there was the part where I got to wait for the confirmation email that told me things were moving forward. Two days to find out the cover art wasn’t up to spec (an easy fix, but still a delay), then two more days until I got the good news that we were moving forward.
I’m not a patient person so it was a very long stretch until that final email arrived. In the mean time, I was attempting to edit the second book, but doing that on vacation is not easy with people popping in to say hello and wondering what my plans were for the day. And… after everything is said and done, I’m finding that I miss that first book. I miss working on it, picking at it, fine tuning it, visiting those characters and that place and…and… it’s making editing the next book rather difficult. I keep hoping that it will eventually work itself out of my system once it’s published.
It’s been an interesting ride, and one that I will take again, only I’ll be more prepared. I’ll have the cover art done BEFORE I submit the manuscript. I’ll get my ducks in the proper order and make it as easy as possible for myself.
Yeah, that makes me laugh, too.
So great to hear about the process of all of this, Karen. Thanks for your generosity in sharing your story.