self publishing questions

[babylondementia]

i write, ya, you can find me around here, but i would like some pointers on trying to publish my stuff.
like where and how and all the negatives and positives ya know

thanks everyone

(hides behind the screen again)

 

[laptopwriter]

Self publishing is fun and easy

The two publishing sites I use is, Amazon.com & Smashwords.com. Both have their advantages.
The toughest thing is formatting the work properly; originally I had a real problem with that but don't any longer.
You need to write your story using, "Word," the 97 version; if you do that you'll have no problems.
My advice would be to check them out, then if you have specific questions, come back.

 

[babylondementia]

dang it im still using wp9

 

[madam_noe]

Here are some good sites for help:

Smashwords tutorial

general eBook formatting (works for Amazon)

Promoting vs Marketing

Editing vs proofreading

Lastly, my own site which is based off my time teaching creative writing and my experiences as a published author (both with publishers and self publishing)

How To Publish A Book

Hope that helps, good luck!

 

[LadyVer]

Here are some good sites for help:

Smashwords tutorial

general eBook formatting (works for Amazon)

Promoting vs Marketing

Editing vs proofreading

Lastly, my own site which is based off my time teaching creative writing and my experiences as a published author (both with publishers and self publishing)

How To Publish A Book

Hope that helps, good luck!

The editing-proofread link makes excellent points. Although a lot of self-publishers either don't think their work needs editing or don't understand the value of editing as an expense--among the other expenses involved in self-publishing--editing should be a top priority. Will check out your site when I get a chance. I frequently check out writing and editing sites for info, although my interest is mainly in editing.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

dang it im still using wp9

Does WP9 let you save your work as .doc files?

If not, then switch to Open Office, it's free and you can save your stories in Word .doc files.

 

[laptopwriter]

No!

Does WP9 let you save your work as .doc files?

If not, then switch to Open Office, it's free and you can save your stories in Word .doc files.

Open office does not work!

I'm not familiar with wp9 but I do know "open office," does not work for Smashwords. The first thing I tried to publish with them was written with, "open office." I followed all their procedures, and even did the, "Atomic," reformat they say will fix anything, it did not. I became so frustrated I almost gave up.

Amazon isn't as bad with formatting because you're only doing it for one reader, Kindle. Smashwords, on the other hand, makes your work available for downloading to several different reading devices; that's makes the formatting more difficult but it is worth it. From my own experience I've found Smashwords outsells Amazon 6 to 1.

My advice would be to invest in "Word." It's worth it.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Open office does not work!

I'm not familiar with wp9 but I do know "open office," does not work for Smashwords. The first thing I tried to publish with them was written with, "open office." I followed all their procedures, and even did the, "Atomic," reformat they say will fix anything, it did not. I became so frustrated I almost gave up.

Amazon isn't as bad with formatting because you're only doing it for one reader, Kindle. Smashwords, on the other hand, makes your work available for downloading to several different reading devices; that's makes the formatting more difficult but it is worth it. From my own experience I've found Smashwords outsells Amazon 6 to 1.

My advice would be to invest in "Word." It's worth it.

Hmmm...funny, if you saved the document in the Word97 .doc format - not to be confused with the formatting of the text within the document - it should work with Smashwords. As for the formatting of the text...

... if you are using the double space, initial indent style - which I don't use anymore as I feel it is unreadable no matter the device it is on - it is fairly easy to set up.

The easiest is the block format...like we use here on lit. A hard return between paragraphs...two actually. The same as when you type in you questions.

paragraph.....blah, blah, blah.

another paragraph.....blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada.

I have never had a problem with either. As for formatting for multiple devices...that's why I like Smashwords. But you really only have to format for one. EPUB. Smashwords converts to EPUB from .doc. For the other devices they convert the EPUB file to the others.

You can also download a .doc(.rtf really) to EPUB convertion program. It's called Calibre. You can download it here. You can then upload the epub file to Smashwords.

 

[lovecraft68]

Meet my three best friends in the self publishing world.

to put text on photo covers

http://www*******-image-editor.com/

To resize photos that you can't edit through picture manager or the image site.

http://www.picresize.com/

But the biggest time (and sanity saver) is this puppy

Put a word doc in and it will convert it to any e-reader format you need.

http://ebook*******-convert.com/

 

[babylondementia]

thanks everyone,

if i really buckle down (lol) i was thinking of dumping this 12 year old thinkpad for a chromebook, which i think does docx files normally. and i can keep in my handbag.

 

[AsylumSeeker]

thanks everyone,

if i really buckle down (lol) i was thinking of dumping this 12 year old thinkpad for a chromebook, which i think does docx files normally. and i can keep in my handbag.

Good luck with your dreams. Had mine doused. Total revenue maybe $80. Thinking I'm a pretty good writer. Maybe you'll have better luck.

 

[R. Richard]

I used OpenOffice and I published maybe 40 books in Smashwords. All of the books were saved as Word 97 format. I now use LibreOffice, same format, and I have published maybe a dozen more books in Smashwords.

 

[laptopwriter]

You must have a magic touch

I used Open Office for all my writing until I tried publishing at Smashwords. I always saved my work in Word-97 but when I tried to upload I kept getting rejections. I followed all their procedures and got one rejection after another. I finally contacted them for help and was told Open Office would not work with their formatting.
I finally invested in Word, rewrote the story, and had no problems after that.
Anyway, that was my experience.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

thanks everyone,

if i really buckle down (lol) i was thinking of dumping this 12 year old thinkpad for a chromebook, which i think does docx files normally. and i can keep in my handbag.

Smashwords and Kindle Direct can't hand .docx files. Which is funny as .docx files are xml files. Oh well.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Meet my three best friends in the self publishing world.

to put text on photo covers

http://www*******-image-editor.com/

To resize photos that you can't edit through picture manager or the image site.

http://www.picresize.com/

But the biggest time (and sanity saver) is this puppy

Put a word doc in and it will convert it to any e-reader format you need.

http://ebook*******-convert.com/

You might want to look into Irfanview. It's free and easy to use. Oh it does the resize thing and text placement too.

I use paintshop pro for my artwork. But I have used Irfanview for quick resizing.

 

[R. Richard]

I used Open Office for all my writing until I tried publishing at Smashwords. I always saved my work in Word-97 but when I tried to upload I kept getting rejections. I followed all their procedures and got one rejection after another. I finally contacted them for help and was told Open Office would not work with their formatting.
I finally invested in Word, rewrote the story, and had no problems after that.
Anyway, that was my experience.

The trick is to use custom paragraph settings. You don't use a lot of spaces, hard returns, etc. The custom paragraph settings do the work for you.

 

[laptopwriter]

R. Richard

Yeah, I did that. You have me wondering now. At the time I was pissed that I had to invest in Word. Now I don't know what I ever did without it, but at the time I was pissen and moaning.
Like I said, I had no problem with Amazon but Smashwords was a different matter altogether. After repeated attempts and failures, I gave up and bought Word.
Oh well, live and learn.

 

[sr71plt]

The publishing world operates on the base of Word. If you want to write and get it published anywhere you might as well give in to that.

 

[SandraMustard]

This something we learned publishing at Smashwords, DON'T use automatically numbered chapter headings (in your submitted version). Their conversion program ("meatgrinder") doesn't see them and only got the text, thus there was no automatic Table of Contents either. Emails with the help staff couldn't identify the problem until we worked it out. Using the auto-numbering is helpful when writing your book but go back and manually create the headings "Chapter 1 - She Wanted Me blah blah blah" before submitting.

 

[babylondementia]

Good luck with your dreams. Had mine doused. Total revenue maybe $80. Thinking I'm a pretty good writer. Maybe you'll have better luck.

oooo may i check you out?