A Toe in the Water – Part One

Self-publishing.

Sounds a bit like self-publicity, doesn't it?

Others may disagree, but I think I'm rather poor at the latter (though I'm trying to do better, literally at this very moment). The question I'm currently contemplating is whether or not I'll prove to be any good at the former.

My new detective novel Late Whitsun is due out next Thursday, October 13th. Everything’s ready to go, pretty much, and so now I’m faced with a hiatus; the calm before the … well, let’s hope for some kind of storm.

And so now would seem like a good time to share my experiences so far, and I choose this moment before publication specifically because I have no idea whatsoever if what I’ve done will prove to be effective or otherwise. The proof of that pudding will be reported here later in A Toe in the Water – Part Two, when I hope to be describing the spectacular success of the whole venture – or its desperate failure – or something betwixt the two. Then, perhaps, will come Part Three in which with the wisdom of hindsight – the only kind there is – I’ll look back and consider what I should have done. Hopefully it will consist of just four words: ‘Exactly what I did.’ Some hope.

But for now my head is still full of what I’ve been working at over the last few weeks and months: the mechanical rather than creative process of turning the original script into something that can be sold to and read by the world at large. I’m lucky in that I’ve have previous books that have gone out through a mainstream publisher (The Danilov Quintet from Penguin Random House). That means I know what needs to be done – know what the steps are and to some extent have seen others performing them. There are pros and cons of having people to do things for you. Obviously it’s less work, but sometimes you have to bite your tongue when you think you can do better. Doing it yourself means doing everything yourself – or delegating it, though it’s still your responsibility. Some of those tasks are fun, others tiresome.

The Danilov Quintet

So here’s what had to be done:

First, as Mrs Beeton might have put it, write your novel. I hardly need to go into how you do that – it’s very simple – but it does count as one of the fun tasks and no one else can do it for you (James Paterson notwithstanding).

Second, in discussion with various mainstream publishers decide that self-publication is the best route for you. Again, we don’t need to go into details, but switching genres (in my case from horror to crime) is a big factor here.

Third, get feedback. The problem is not finding people who’ll read your work, but finding those who’ll give you honest, useful feedback. The risk is that your friends and relations will be wary of causing offence, and may not have the expertise to judge anyway. Again, I think having been published previously helps here for several reasons: it gives you a better idea of how to fix any problems identified, it gives you a better idea of who to get feedback from and it makes it easier for the reader to treat you as an author rather than just as a friend. On this front I have particularly to thank Katie Piatt, Chris Horlock and Helen Casey.

Fourth, get the script copy-edited. This is a job for a professional. You can find organizations who will do this for a fee online, though I was lucky enough to have a friend (the inestimable Peter Lavery) who is an expert at such things. It’s always astonishing to discover from a copy-edit just how much rubbish one is capable of writing – and reading again and again without noticing. Even if you don’t agree with the editor’s suggestions, the benefit is that you are forced to think individually about every sentence – every word – you’ve written.

The Copy Edit

It’s worth noting a subtle but significant difference in the process here between self-publishing and going through a publisher. With a publisher, you get the copy-edit and you go through it and approve, alter or reject the changes suggested. Your notes go back to the publisher and get incorporated into the script. When you’re self-publishing, every change you make has to be incorporated into the script by you yourself – extra work for you. It can make you tend to reject more of the suggestions than you might have done, but it does also encourage you to think in depth about all of them.

Fifth, proofread. You have to do this yourself, but it’s essential to get others to do it too. Call in favours and perhaps call in professionals.

Sixth, choose your platform. Maybe I should have though more about this one, but went for Amazon (Kindle Direct Publishing for e-book and Create Space for print) on the basis of ‘No one ever got fired for choosing …’ (A phrase originally applying to IBM – whatever happened them?) I’d originally thought Kindle only, but using Create Space for a print version is only a little more effort and it seems like a waste not to exploit all the effort you've put in so far.

Seventh, proofread again.

Eighth, design a cover. For me, this is one of the really fun bits. I’ve absolutely no artistic talent, but I have become pretty handy with Photoshop. Alternatively, platforms like Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) provide some good cover templates, but even then I’d suggest doing some customization yourself. Again there are companies online which will do this for you, but by the look of a few such covers I’ve seen, they really don’t have their heart in it like the author would. Obviously you can get someone to do it for you, but a good cover image would be expensive. As with things like the copy-edit, pull in favours if you need to.

The First Blurb

Ninth, write your back cover copy – your blurb. Odd word that, but used throughout the industry (see here for its origins). I’ve seen companies offering to do this for you too, but that seems very odd to me. If you can put together the tens of thousands of words that make up a novel, you ought to be able to manage a couple of paragraphs to sell your story. I suppose my publishers would have written the blurb for me, but I’ve always done it myself, in collaboration with my editor. And bear in mind, of course, that’s it’s not just going on the back cover – the kindle edition won’t even have one. This is what is going to make people want to read your book.

Tenth, proofread yet again. It always astounds me how many minor errors I find on every iteration of proofreading. For me it’s mostly missing words (‘he went the shops’) mistaken words (‘it was and very interesting book’) and homophones (‘it was all to much’). I think I’m more aware of them when self-publishing. With a publisher the last time I read my work is with the page-proofs and I might catch a few mistakes there, but I know that a team of professional proof-readers is also going through them. I presume they do a good job, but I can’t say for sure, since I’ve never read the final printed version of one of my own books. It’s always been someone else’s problem. Now it’s my problem.

One thing I’ve always done is read the text out loud, usually at least twice, once much earlier in the process while I’m still drafting, and again at around this point. It’s good for checking that the style is working, particularly with dialogue, but it also tends to catch different kinds of mistakes from those you’ll find when reading to yourself. But still errors get through, because you autocorrect as you’re reading, before the words even get to your conscious mind. For this book, I tried a further trick of using text-to-speech software to read the book back to me. The software makes no mistakes and then you process it with a different part of your brain (I reckon) from when your reading. I certainly caught a few errors this way – though obviously not those of punctuation and homophonic spelling. Don't get too depressed by the monotonous delivery making your story sound dull.

The Formatted Page

Eleventh, format. At this point your script is going to split into an e-book version and a print version. That means you really want to have finalized your text by now – from here on any mistakes you discover (and you will) will have to be corrected separately in both versions. The e-book version is fairly easy, since the actual formatting is done on-the-fly by the e-reader itself; just follow the guidelines that KDP (or your chosen provider) gives. Print formatting is more work and actually, I found, rather fun. You can download a template, but then you’ll have to copy over your text and fit it to the new page size. For me it’s interesting work and the exciting thing is that at this point your work starts to really look like a book – the same as when you get page proofs from your publisher.

Twelfth, yes, proofread again. All that mucking around with formatting, you’re bound to have made some mistakes.

Thirteenth, upload. This is pretty quick and easy. For both e-book and print you’ll then be able look at an electronic version of the finished product. For an e-book, this is exactly what your customers will be getting, whereas of course for the print version it’s not quite the same thing. Order a physical proof for one last check, not so much for content but for formatting, cover and print quality. Mine’s due to arrive later today.

Quick rant here. Amazon’s Create Space charges for proofs and other author copies; that’s perfectly fair. They also charge for postage for these copies; again, no problem. However, they only print these copies in the USA, so the shipping costs to the UK are huge, particularly if you want to get them in any reasonable timescale. Customer copies are printed in the UK, so it’s not a problem in that case, but I’ve found no good reason they can’t do that for author copies.

And finally, publicize, which is perhaps a better subject for a later article. For now, I’m following the advice of others: get reviewed online, use social media, tell your friends.

And, of course, blog.


LATE WHITSUN is available from Amazon.