Publishing 101 - Money

Hi, sweet readers.

I really, really, really wanted to do a post about money and self-publishing. Money's a difficult topic to discuss, because some of us have more of it and some of us have less, social stratification, privilege, opportunity, etc etc etc. I know. But we're all adults, professionals, and hidden safely behind our computer screens here, yes? So this will be easy (-ish.)

One of the first questions I ask people who are considering self publishing is whether they have the money to do it well. I see other self-publishers giving the advice to "only spend what you can afford," and I think that's wrong.

Yes. It's wrong. What I think they should say is "If you don't have the resources to do it right, either wait and save up or don't do it at all."

Yes, it's sort of a harsh message. Yes, I stand by it.

Before I made the final decision to publish ONE and TWO, I spent some time quietly gathering estimates from the various professionals I'd need to hire to make these books a success. I talked to Trisha, who helped me add things to my list I didn't even know I might need or want, and put myself through a reality check, too. (For example: In theory, I could organize a blog tour myself, but would it drive me crazy? Yes. And did I have any of the right experience to do a good job? No.) She also helped me assess whether I needed some of the professionals I was waffling on. (For example: ONE had been through so many revisions with agents and I felt so good about it that I did not hire a developmental editor.)

Then I made an Excel spreadsheet of all the costs, and added up the total.

Then I sat down with my family's (very tight, four-kids-in-full-time-daycare) budget and hemmed and hawed and sweated and groaned and SQUEEZED until I figured out a way to make it work. (Basically, there will be no date nights or new clothes or electronics or, like, any luxuries for....awhile.)

So,  you guys want to see ONE's budget, right? 
Well, I'm not going to do a line-by-line, because I don't want this post to become some sort of standard for the professionals on my team should any of my readers want to hire them. Further, I just don't really want everyone to know who I paid for what tasks, and how much. Everyone has different comfort levels

But here's a basic breakdown: 


Editing, formatting, packaging, and distribution services: $825
Promotional materials and services: $700
Print ARCs (including shipping): $450
Audio book studio time*: $150

Grand Total - $2125


Included in some of those categories are some deeply discounted services, that could have easily added $1500 to the project if I had kept them at full price. All writers have different connections and different personal skill sets, so this is not meant to be a guide for any individual author or project - just one example of  one person's budget for one particular project. (ONE.)

You might be wondering why I spent so much money on "unnecessary" stuff, i.e., everything that's not the book itself. After all, I didn't have to spend money on swag, or send physical ARCs. But, remember - my goal for ONE is for it to look and read and be marketed no differently than a traditionally published book. 

Traditionally published books have postcards and stickers and magnets. So does One. Traditionally published books have a street team. So does One. (An incredible one!!!!) And a surefire way to tell a book's legit? It has paper ARCs. It can send copies to high school classrooms across the country and reach its readers even before release. Paper books are power. (I would never have thought this, by the way, but it's amazing how many people think that self-publishing and paper books are mutually exclusive. Printing books not only for sale, but for advanced readers as well, shows that you're serious, that your book's worth the hassle. Readers will pick up on that.)

I just want to stop right here and say that I fully recognize that putting money into publishing a book up front is the biggest drawback to self-publishing. So, here are the reasons that I decided it was worth it:

I was speaking (read: complaining) to a prominent literary agent about the stress of putting money into the project at the outset. She responded with something like, "Yes, but just think - if you got a book deal today, your book wouldn't be out until 2015. All the money you make between now and then, consider your advance."

And, of course, she was right. One year after I made the decision to publish my own books, I will have not one, but two published books on the market, collecting royalties of up to 70% of sale price. They'll never be pulled from the shelves, remaindered, or put in the bargain bin (unless I strategically decide to put them there myself.)

In short, from where I sit, the capability to publish often and to price strategically with high royalties makes up for the fact that I paid so much up front.

But, will I make my money back? 

*shrug* I don't know.

Of course, that's the first goal of most self-publishers - recoup their losses. It's likely that any self publisher will make back every cent she's spent...eventually. It could take one month, and it could take two years or more, to see profits that exceed costs.

If money is tight, or if you're borrowing to publish, know how many books you have to sell to recoup your costs, and how long you can afford to wait for your money to come back...before you make your decision.

Okay, I think that's all I have to say for now about money and self-publishing. But I will answer some questions in comments, and if you yourself are considering self-publishing, shoot me an email at leighannkopans [at] gmail [dot] com and we may be able to speak more candidly.

As always, thanks for reading! You all make this a joy. <3 b="">

*Yes, you read that right. There will be an audiobook of ONE. I'll do a longer post on that - the decision and the method - later.

Publishing 101 - Review Requests

Hey, Sweet Readers! I'm blogging today's Publishing 101 installment over at Pen and Muse!  (the first bit is here, but the rest is there, so you might as well just click through now. ;))


I thought I'd do a series of posts detailing my experiences taking Publishing 101 via publication of my debut novel.

My goal is to publish a book that is indistinguishable to my readers from any novel from a Big Five publisher.  It can be done - in fact, finding such a novel is the one thing that finally got me off my butt and pushed me to self-publish ONE.

Just as a traditionally published book has a huge team of professionals behind it, ONE does as well. My plan is to blog about every step of the process from agent-approved manuscript to published book. 

As a self-publisher, you’ve decided that the only audience whose approval of your book matters is the readers. Not agents, not editors – readers.

If the reader is the most important judge of your book, then it follows that the book reviewers/bloggers with large audiences of readers are your new gods and godesses.

Worship them.

No, I’m not kidding. Not one little bit.

Out of sheer benevolence (and possibly maybe one day ARCs of Big Deal Books) these people started using their precious personal time, without pay, to write thoughtful and helpful reviews of books. Those reviews were so good that other people started to read them, rely upon them, anticipate them, and follow their blogs. The more followers a reviewer has, the more authors want them to review their books.

That means that the book reviewers/bloggers you most want to be reading your book often have their pick of books – both traditionally and self-published – to read and review. That means that you will have to offer them more than “Hey! Free book! Now read it and say nice things about it!” to get them to agree to spend their time reading and reviewing your book (hopefully kindly.) This is ten times as true for self-published authors, who haven’t gone through the established and trusted quality control process of our colleagues in the Big Five houses.

To get in with these great reviewers,  you'll need to behave yourself. Click over to the full post on Pen and Muse for some very important "do"s and "don't"s  of getting awesome reviews for your book. 

To the Recently-Decided Self-Publishing Author

Dear recently-decided self-publishing author, 

 Congratulations!!! You've just made a huge decision, and it's a very exciting one. 

 I know you don't feel like those words fit right now. I know your hands are shaking and your stomach is in knots and your knees have turned to jelly. I know you are trying to hold back tears, or maybe you stopped trying a long time ago and now they're just pouring out. I know that you think I should be saying, "You are an idiot," rather than "Congratulations." 

 I hope you have a good friend next to you, like I did, to rub your back and let you cry on her shirt, to tell you that she will be there for you every step of the way. I hope that friend is telling you that you are making a good decision - not the only decision, but a really, really good one. 

 If you don't, read these sentences over and over and over again until you feel them in your bones: You are a hard worker. You believe in your book. You have what it takes to build your own career. You are making a good decision. 

 You have learned that there is a wrong way and a right way to publish a book, and that self-publishing is in the "wrong way" category. You may be very concerned about that right now - specifically, how people will view you and your book when (if?) you self-publish it. I wish I could say something to make that worry go away, but I can only tell you the truth you already know - that stigma against non-traditional publishing runs so deep that its claws have worked themselves deep into your psyche, and it will take two things to get them out: hard work, and time. 

 The key to ridding yourself of those claws is to throw yourself headlong into working hard to publish your book. Go through the motions. Walk the walk. Fake it till you make it. At some point - and I don't know if it will be when you make the announcement, when you hold the ARC in your hands, when you get your first review, or when you sign your first copy that someone has bought (!) - but at some point, you will stand up tall, pride will wash over you, and you will realize that you haven't felt those claws, or even thought about them, for a long time. 

 (If you want to know, I stopped worrying about what everyone would think three months and twelve days after I decided to self publish. It was a couple days after my cover reveal, and it was awesome.) 

 Every day will get a little better. You and your book will shine. And, most importantly, you'll reach readers and share your story. 

 Congratulations. 

 Love, 
Leigh Ann

Publishing 101 - Scheduling Your Release (and a 2-months-til-ONE GIVEAWAY!!!!)

Hi, sweet readers!!!!

I know it's been awhile since I posted...well...anything over here.

 Truth be told, I've been in sort of a holding pattern with ONE for the last couple months. Pretty much everything's been done on the book since then, and my last blurb just rolled in a couple days ago (thanks Emma!)

I just sent the final print version, pretty formatting and blurbs and acknowledgements included, to the printer, last week. Right now, I'm holding the final printed copy of ONE in my hands. I could put the ARC sticker on the front, but I probably won't. This one's a gift to one of my nearest and dearest CPs, and it's the same as the one anybody will be able to buy from Amazon.

So, why don't I start selling this mofo tomorrow? *sigh* I wish I could. But waaaay back in December, I set the calendar for ONE's release...based on the release date for TWO, its sequel.

It's common wisdom in the self-publishing universe that the closer the release dates between an author's books, the better. This is especially true for sequels. Three months is ideal, four is workable.

Why? Well, really the same reason that it's a good idea for any sequel to have a close release to its first installment. We keep readers' interest more easily. Especially in the primarily digital book world, there's an expectation that things will happen more quickly. Really, because we self-publishers can pull off a close release, we should. It's better for building an audience and making a profit if a reader who loved ONE can buy TWO in short order.

In short, close release dates are better for both reader and author. Happiness all around, right?

So, back to TWO's release date. Back in January, when I announced I was self-publishing ONE, TWO was only about half-drafted. I knew I couldn't have it ready to publish until late spring at least, but life throws curve balls left and right, and I wanted to give myself plenty of breathing room. Theoretically, I could have had TWO ready to go by July or August. But the problem is - you guessed it - pesky real life. *smile*

I work at a Jewish student center on a college campus. That means that August (Welcome Week) and September (High Holidays) are impossible for doing anything but those things. It's part of the rhythm of this job, thankfully, so I already knew back in December I couldn't schedule a book release then.

That's how TWO got an October 8th release date. And that, dear readers, is how I decided ONE would come out on June 11th. At four months apart, they're about as far as recommended to draw the most possible readers and build the best buzz.

Now, for some fun. Today is April 11th, which means ONE will be out in the wild in exactly two months. I'm beyond excited, and so I'm having a little one-day-only giveaway to celebrate. Even more exciting, with the help of my Twitter friends, ONE hit 1000 "adds" on Goodreads yesterday, so I'm doubling the prizes!!! Woohooo!

Up for grabs:

2 ARCs of ONE (digital or paper - digital can go international, paper US only please.)
1 DVD of X-men: First Class
1 DVD of X-men (the original from '99. Love.)
2 custom ONE posters by Andrea Hannah, signed by me and the artist
2 soundtrack CDs of ONE (you can see the playlist on this post in All The Write Notes) Here's the Rafflecopter! Have fun and good luck!!! a Rafflecopter giveaway

Publishing 101 - Getting a Great Cover

 Hi sweet readers! I thought I'd do a series of posts detailing my experiences taking Publishing 101 via publication of my debut novel.

My goal is to publish a book that is indistinguishable to my readers from any novel from a Big Five publisher.  It can be done - in fact, finding such a novel is the one thing that finally got me off my butt and pushed me to self-publish ONE.

Just as a traditionally published book has a huge team of professionals behind it, ONE does as well. My plan is to blog about every step of the process from agent-approved manuscript to published book. 


Your book's cover is one of the most important things for making sure it reaches the maximum amount of readers.

I know we say that people shouldn't judge books by their covers, but that's ridiculous. Your book's cover is the outward representation of what's inside. If you didn't invest creativity, care, and professionalism into your cover's design, how do you expect your readers to think you did anything differently with the words and story inside?

I had mad cover envy for Trisha Leigh's covers for her The Last Year series, and when she told me her cover designer, Nathalia Suellen, was a freelance cover artist and open to clients, I emailed right away to reserve my spot. I contracted her for both ONE and TWO right then.

First, she asked me to tell her a bit about the book and give me a description of the main character, if I wanted her on the cover. So I sent her this blurb and the photo I had worked off of when describing Merrin, the main character, in the book:

Then she shot back a few basic questions: 

Do you want the girl on the first book and the boy on the second? Or the same girl in both? (you guys will see the answer to that when we reveal TWO's cover.)

Whats your favorite color? (I told her sunset colors were important.)

Is there any important element like an animal or a special necklace? (no, but flight and the sky are big parts of the story and theme.)

I also sent her this image I had found and loved on Flickr: 

(Shot by Lauren Withrow found here.)

Then, she got to work finding cover models. She sent me a bunch of options and asked me to pick my favorites:

NO. 

Beautiful, but it doesn't look like Mer, body, face, hair, or outfit. 

Gorgeous, but not the right mood. And Mer would never wear that.

Cute, but I wanted to see her head. And I hated the shoes.

Ohhhh. Now we're getting somewhere. But her eyes are freaky and her hair's wrong.

Her face and hair are perfect, even though her hair's the wrong color. But that outfit? Really?
And the BRIGHTNESS. *wince* 


No problem, Nathalia said.
We can use a different head and body, and change hair colors. See?

(ZOMG NATHALIA IS A GENIUS) 

Okay. So then she sent me an idea sketch.

She wanted this skeleton underlaid to show that the characters were a little more than human, and the birds. She really wanted birds. 
(I did not want the birds, but she really did. And since she's a genius, I let her try them.)

But the skeleton idea kept freaking me out, so I sent her this instead. What if we tried underlaying THIS on their skin?

Nathalia didn't love that for under the skin, but she DID like it. A lot. And promised me she would use it. 

About a month later, I got this back:

 She's a master of symbolism, and it shows. Can you believe that just from that blurb, she was able to come up with an image that was a girl floating against the sky, except the sky isn't really the sky, it's really wallpaper because she's TRAPPED INSIDE HER OWN BODY??? Come on! Genius.
Also!  Pretty. Except...I still hated the birds. And while I loved the connect-the-dots, constellation, DNA-whatever-it-is, the wings just didn't fit. Merrin never had wings, and never really thought about it.
So I told Nathalia to take both out.

BUT then we just had this. BORING. 

So she put the dots back in, but in a totally different way.  They're kind of like wings, but not really, they could be like a current or something or just imaginary or WHATEVER THEY ARE PRETTY. 

Et voila! Here is the cover we ended up with....

GORGEOUSSSSSSNESSSSSSS

Now, Nathalia is nothing if not a perfectionist. So even after I told her I loved the cover, she kept coming up with new versions....

Meh.

Mehhhhhhh.

I still loved that last one I posted and the one I ultimately used, so

that's what we went with! Yay!!!

Now. I want to say something about this whole cover business.

I'm not normally a self-pub evangelist. I mean, I try to shut up about how much I love being a self-publishing author, and how great it is.

But when it comes to the cover? I cannot. I just can't shut up about how extremely, incredibly, unregrettably DELIGHTED I am that I had complete control, both inspiration and veto-power wise, over this cover.

As I said waaaay up above, your cover is the often the only factor potential readers use to decide whether or not to pick up your book. It's so, so, so important, you guys. And if I wasn't self publishing, I most likely would not have had the fine-tuning control over this most important of book aspects that I had.

So. Basically, this cover business is one of the things that most makes me love, love, LOVE my decision to self-publish ONE. And a HUGE "thank you" is due to Nathalia, for being so patient with me through the whole process, and, of course, creating a GENIUS cover. Genius genius. 

Publishing 101 - Copyedits

Hi sweet readers! I thought I'd do a series of posts detailing my experiences taking Publishing 101 via publication of my debut novel.

My goal is to publish a book that is indistinguishable to my readers from any novel from a Big Five publisher.  It can be done - in fact, finding such a novel is the one thing that finally got me off my butt and pushed me to self-publish ONE.

Just as a traditionally published book has a huge team of professionals behind it, ONE does as well. My plan is to blog about every step of the process from agent-approved manuscript to published book. 

So. It's pretty shocking how few rules of grammar I know.

I'm not kidding.  I mean, this manuscript went through three revisions, got polished up to send to editors in big publishing houses, went through intense line edits with Jamie. I was all confident in its perfection when I sent it to my fabulous copyeditor Becca Weston.

This'll be no problem for her, I thought. She'll have it done in no time, because it's so close to perfect. 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I was hilarious.

Every page was FILLED with the red of the track-changes path. Seriously. Once there was like half a page with no corrections and I did a little victory dance in my chair.

Here are some of the grammar and formatting issues that were running rampant through my perfectly shiny and polished manuscript before I sent it to my copyeditor:

• Endash vs. Emdash (I didn't even know there was a difference. Truth.)
• lie vs. lay vs. laid (No, I don't really know the difference between all of them. No, I don't think it makes me a bad writer.)
• When to spell out numbers and when to use numerals (Pretty sure I missed this in high school.)
• Caps vs. Italics vs. Caps AND Italics (When it comes to titles and names of buildings? I'm lost on this stuff.)
• who vs. that (At the beginning of a clause. Don't tell me you know without a doubt when one is right.)

Not to mention, she had even MORE line editing suggestions that made the MS even shinier! In addition to eliminating a bunch of run-on sentences and cutting down significantly on the sentences that I had started with "Then," or "And then," she cleaned up a TON. Check it out:

Before:

"The sound of a metal stools’ legs scraping against the floor makes me cringe. I whip my head around and that blond boy from the hallway scoots his stool a little closer to my desk.

 Well, ‘boy’ isn’t an accurate term. It’s even clearer now, without the hustle and confusion of the hallway, and with him sitting right next to me, that he’s a giant."


After: 

The sound of metal legs scraping against the floor makes me cringe. I whip my head around, and that blond boy from the hallway scoots his stool a little closer to my desk.

 Well, “boy” isn’t an accurate term. It’s even clearer now — with him sitting right next to me outside of the hustle and confusion of the hallway — that he’s a giant.


Here's one where Becks eliminated a weird repetition of words (which, duh, how did I NOT think of this:)

Before: 
I sit there, gnawing on the candy and pretending I don’t notice Mom raising her eyes from the feed. Her eyes are sad. 

After:
I sit there, gnawing on the candy and pretending I don’t notice Mom raising her eyes from the feed. She looks sad. 

There was also some plain-old ridiculousness in there. 

• ONE takes place in the near future, but Becks found references to boom boxes AND drive-in movies in there. Yeesh. 
• Elias's house - I described a route for the two of them to take through the halls and rooms that didn't accord with a previous description. Rebecca seemed to have a map of the house in her head, and corrected me. 
• Anatomical impossibilities - I don't know why I described Merrin standing this one way I did, but it was literally not possible if she has a normal human anatomy. Which she does.

 One last thing:  I have a confession. I hadn't read ONE all the way through for a long time until I went through to approve each of Beck's copyedits.  It was a good thing I had to, because I fell in love with my characters and story all over again.

To make a long story short, if you are indie publishing, hire a copyeditor. This second round of close edits is super indispensable - even if you think your MS is as shiny as possible already. 

Publishing 101 - Working on Your Platform

Hi sweet readers! I thought I'd do a series of posts detailing my experiences taking Publishing 101 via publication of my debut novel.

My goal is to publish a book that is indistinguishable to my readers from any novel from a Big Five publisher.  It can be done - in fact, finding such a novel is the one thing that finally got me off my butt and pushed me to self-publish ONE.

Just as a traditionally published book has a huge team of professionals behind it, ONE does as well. My plan is to blog about every step of the process from agent-approved manuscript to published book. 

Okay, guys. It's time to talk about the ever-elusive PLATFORM. First, a definition.

Your platform = you + your book + your online presence.

You might have thought that you + your book = your platform.
But if all you have is you + your book, then what you have is a sales pitch, not a platform. 

Online presence is so important because it's what  tells people who you are, what your personality is like, how professional you are, and how hard you work. It's important because people assume that your book is  a reflection of you. (Because, honestly, it is.)

For this reason, you need to make decisions about how you present yourself on social media, especially. For example, here's what I tweet and post on Facebook about 90% of the time - a summary of my online presence.

•  Stuff about my writing and publishing process
•  Anecdotes from raising my four punk children
• YA Literature
•  Writing advice and encouragement of others
•  Assorted vanity tweets - my hair is pretty, my husband is funny, my book is awesome, and I liked this totally random article.

Now, perhaps more importantly, here's what I do not tweet or post on Facebook about, 90% of the time:

• What frustrates me about publishing
• Discouragement and complaints
• Picking on particular people or books
• Volatile issues 
• Telling people to buy my book.

This is a sketch of my online presence, which, in addition to me and my book, makes up my platform. I'm not saying that these are the right or wrong ways to do things. (Some people have tons of followers just from being mean and snarky all day long - more power to them, if they can pull it off, I guess.)

I want to say one very, very important thing here. Lots of people have told me that promo for ONE is going relatively well because "I have a good platform."

While that's true, that's not the whole picture.

In truth, "I worked long and hard at building a good platform." I've been building relationships with readers and writers (and, now, my friends!) for the past year and a half. I've been genuine and honest and poured a lot of time into it. A good platform is earned, not bestowed by the Twitter gods to a random few. 

Lastly, before you dive into platform building, there are a few things you need to check at the door:

1. Any attitudes you  have about your target audience
    People know when  you're being genuine, and when you're pandering. If you think your target audience (12 to 18 year olds, if you're writing YA) is: silly, petty, immature, dumb, volatile, or incapable of understanding and perspective?  First, why are you writing for them? And second, change that attitude, because it will come off in your interactions with them and they will not buy your book. They just won't.

2. The idea that you are special.
Look. There are thousands and thousands of books out there. Readers have plenty of books from which to choose.
Is your story's concept awesome? So are a ton of others.
Do you write gorgeous prose? So do I. And all my friends.
Is your cover stunning? Guess what - anyone else can hire the same designer.

Seriously, now. The minute you understand that your book is just as great and worthy and readable as hundreds of other books out there, no more, and in some cases, less, is the minute you attain the humility that you will need to succeed in this business. The best place to put it on display is in your online presence.

And, even though this should go without saying, I'll say it anyway. Say thank you. To everyone. Lots of times. It doesn't cost anything and it goes a long way. 

3. The expectation that this will be quick and easy.
Gaining quality followers, friends, and readers takes a very long time. It's time and energy well spent, but relationships don't spring forth from gimmicks or giveaways. Real, quality relationships, the ones that make up your platform, come out of genuine human interaction. It takes awhile. It's totally worth it.

Publishing 101.2 - Line Edits

Hi sweet readers! I thought I'd do a series of posts detailing my experiences taking Publishing 101 via publication of my debut novel.

My goal is to publish a book that is indistinguishable to my readers from any novel from a Big Five publisher.  It can be done - in fact, finding such a novel is the one thing that finally got me off my butt and pushed me to self-publish ONE.

Just as a traditionally published book has a huge team of professionals behind it, ONE does as well. My plan is to blog about every step of the process from agent-approved manuscript to published book. 

It's time to talk about.....
LINE EDITS!!!! Wooooot!!!!

(I really like line edits, but if you don't, you're not a freak. One of my besties hates them. So.)

We covered developmental edits in the last two Publishing 101 posts here and here, and in the comments, some of you seemed to think that developmental and line edits were one and the same. 

Now, sometimes your developmental editor might go through the MS a second time to do line edits, but it is a completely different type of editing. 

The basic difference is this - Developmental editing is macro, line editing is micro. 
Developmental editors catch the big stuff; character issues, plot holes, thematic dissonance. 
Line editors catch the little stuff.

Here are some examples of what embarrassing little things my line editor found in the FINAL DRAFT of One: 

Character Inconsistencies

Things that you "just know" or "just make sense to you" about your character that don't really jive for anyone else.

Example: In one scene, I had Merrin "looking down as usual." That was supposed to communicate that she was shy and timid, a detail of her personality I'd eliminated in FIRST ROUND EDITS. Almost A YEAR AGO. Jamie caught it in my final line edit.

Timeline

I had Merrin driving to school "The next week" but at the end of that passage she said it was "day two" at her new school.

Yep. At Least twice.

Inconsistency in emotion.

Merrin would realize she liked someone, then say a few words that indicated distrust a couple paragraphs later; that made no sense.

Inconsistency in action.

In one scene, I  had Merrin climbing on a rock when she can float. I changed her to floating, but never removed the rock. I've known this for two drafts, and somehow had never gotten around to combing through and removing completely.

Stupid lines and tangents that ruin the flow of prose and/or don't make sense.

Erased completely. Enough said.

Extra Spaces. So many extra spaces. 

Everywhere. OMG.


By the time Jamie was done doing line edits on a manuscript that I considered absolutely perfect and polished, she had just over 200 line edit notes. 

Two hundred. 
Two-zero-zero.

Two hundred mistakes that may or may not have been caught by my copy editor and proofreader (those posts to come!) that would have been printed and formatted for digital copies and been there for readers to find and be frustrated over in the version for sale.

So. If you're self publishing, make sure that either your developmental editor or your copyeditor will do fine-tooth-combed line edits. If they don't, hire someone who will. TRUST ME.

See you next time for Publishing 101.3 - COPY EDITS!!!!

Publishing 101.1 part 2 - Hiring an Editor

Hi sweet readers! I thought I'd do a series of posts detailing my experiences taking Publishing 101 via publication of my debut novel.

My goal is to publish a book that is indistinguishable to my readers from any novel from a Big Five publisher.  It can be done - in fact, finding such a novel is the one thing that finally got me off my butt and pushed me to self-publish ONE.

Just as a traditionally published book has a huge team of professionals behind it, ONE does as well. My plan is to blog about every step of the process from agent-approved manuscript to published book. 

Today, please welcome Clare Davidson, author of the YA fantasy TRINITY. She hired a freelance developmental editor for her work, and since I didn't choose to do that, I begged her to write a post all about it just so you all could see why this step is important for those who don't have a pro team of readers like I did. 

Please feel free to ask anything - you can comment below or chat with Clare on Twitter - and thanks for reading! Take it away, Clare!

If you're planning on publishing independently, you want to release the best, most polished product possible–right?

  Editing is a step that NO ONE can skip and I really mean NO ONE, can skip.

I know we're here to talk about self publishing, but let's just look at the traditional publishing route for a minute. Those who are lucky enough to land an agent, will work with that agent to polish their book before it gets peddled around publishers. Those who are even luckier and snag themselves a publishing deal, will work with an editor to polish their book again and AGAIN until it's the best it can be. A publisher isn't going to spend money on a print run, or marketing for a book they don't think is polished enough to sell.

You've decided to go the indie route. You've almost certainly got less capital to play with than a publishing house and you might not even want a print run. However, that doesn't mean that you can skimp on editing. The same principle applies–why would you want to release something that isn't polished enough to sell?

Now, some people are lucky enough to have awesome crit partners who give them an honest appraisal of their work, point out what needs improvement and offer suggestions on HOW it could be improved. Personally, I'm not one of the lucky ones. I don't have time to reciprocate critiques, so it's unfair of me to ask others to critique my work. If you're in my boat, you need to hire an editor. Really, you do. Trust me, you'll thank me when your book is available to buy and you're getting awesome reviews (at the time of writing, my debut novel, Trinity, has SEVENTEEN five star reviews on Amazon UK).

So, how do you go about finding an editor? Search on Google and you'll find a wealth of websites–that's one way. However, I recommend you ask other writers for leads, or check out the person who edited an independent book you loved reading. That way, you're likely to find someone who already has a proven track record. Short list a few and contact them–if they're not willing to edit a sample of your work (usually the first chapter) free of charge, then run for the hills. A good editor WILL NOT charge you for a sample. You need to know their style is right for you and VICE VERSA. The writer-editor relationship is a two way one. You're hiring them to help make your work shine, so you have to be able to take their advice. 

A good editor will suggest changes that are in keeping with your style. If you think that the changes they're suggesting will kill your "voice", they aren't the editor for you. Also, check how many passes the editor is going to give your work. Look for an editor that will go through your manuscript at least twice.

A quick tip–the more popular an editor is, the more of a waiting list they'll have. DON'T wait until you've typed 'The End' on your novel to find an editor, or you might have a long wait on your hands. Choose an editor much earlier than that and agree a date when you'll turn your manuscript over to them. Working to a deadline can make you surprisingly productive, trust me!

Another tip–try to plan in time to make your own revisions before you turn it over to your editor. You'd polish your novel before giving it to crit partners and beta readers, wouldn't you? Your editor shouldn't be an exception to this.

Right, it's time to talk money. How much will all this cost? Well, that's really an open ended question, like "how long is a piece of string?" The longer an editor has been in the business (and the more success stories they have), the more they can charge. Someone just striking out in the field is going to cost you a lot less. Most editors charge by the word, but use your sample to gauge how much time the editing process is going to take and give you a quote based on the quality of that. Remember I told you to revise your manuscript first? Yeah, that's why. It could save you money. Depending on the size of your manuscript, at the top end you could be looking at up to $2000 to hire an editor (more if you're writing the next War and Peace). However, at the lower end of the spectrum you could probably hire an editor for less than $200, if you go with someone just starting out. For many of us, that's a much more realistic amount to be looking at. However much you decide you can afford to spend, remember it's a long term investment. Unless you're incredibly lucky you're not going to sell thousands, or even hundreds, of copies straight away. Building up a fan base takes time. The beauty of publishing independently is that your book stays on the market for as long as you want it to, giving you as much time as you need to recoup your costs and start making profit.

Publishing independently is a leap of faith, but it's a lot less of a leap if you know that you're putting the best product possible out there for public consumption.

A huge thank you to Leigh Ann for asking me to write this guest post :) I've said it before and I'll probably say it a hundred times more–good luck with publishing One!

Thank you so much for being here, Clare! Really, this was an AWESOME post. You are the greatest. 

Publishing 101.1 - One Last Round of Readers

Hi sweet readers! I thought I'd do a series of posts detailing my experiences taking Publishing 101 via publication of my debut novel.

My goal is to publish a book that is indistinguishable to my readers from any novel from a Big Five publisher.  It can be done - in fact, finding such a novel is the one thing that finally got me off my butt and pushed me to self-publish ONE.

Just as a traditionally published book has a huge team of professionals behind it, ONE does as well. My plan is to blog about every step of the process from agent-approved manuscript to published book. Please feel free to ask anything, and thanks for reading!

So. Your manuscript has been polished and shined to a high gloss, and gotten the thumbs up from (almost) everyone who's read it.
So, it's ready to go to a copyeditor for spelling, grammar, and punctuation check, right?

No. Nopppe.
NO.

There are two stages I sent my manuscript through before I even thought about sending it to my copyeditor.

For many people, the first of those those steps is hiring a developmental editor - someone who reads the MS and points out problems with characterization, plot, structure, worldbuilding, pacing - all big issues with the MS that someone who's so very close to it (you, dear writer) can't really tell how to fix, and may not even know are there. (Since I didn't  hire an editor, I've asked my dear friend Clare Davidson to post later in the week on her experience working with a developmental editor. Can't wait.)

In my case, I'd had dozens (literally) of readers, completed a revise and resubmit for an agent, and had the manuscript prepped for submission to editors by my agent, so *my* first was finding one last round of readers. I picked a diverse group - all serious writers, two published, one teen, one college student. These people had gone through dozens of manuscripts' worth of critique themselves, whether theirs or someone else's. They knew how to spot MS trouble a mile away, had never seen the MS before, and weren't afraid to give me honest feedback.

At first, I thought this was more for my peace of mind than anything else, but when the comments came back, I discovered why I really needed one last round of readers:

They called out stuff that I knew, deep down, was a problem, but was waiting for an editor to tell me how to fix once a Big Five house bought my book.

Yeah. I know. I'm not really proud of that. But I am being open and honest here, so....yeah.

For ONE, the big example was the pacing in the first half of the book. The book has romance and sci-fi in pretty equal parts, which is fine. The problem was that the romance was the first half and the sci-fi was the second, mostly (oops.) I'd addressed this a little more deeply with each edit, but whispers of this issue were still there. I knew it was kind of maybe sort of a problem, but one final-round reader in particular kicked my butt into high gear to really take care of it.

The other benefit of these last round readers was that they were the beginning of the end of finally, finally killing my darlings.

Again, these were things that I totally loved about my manuscript and wanted to see if I could slip under an editor's nose, knowing full well that I probably couldn't. The biggest example was bits and pieces of snark from the main character, Merrin. I originally wrote this girl to have a pretty strong attitude and a mouth without a filter, and remnants of that still came out in places that rubbed one of my readers, in particular, the wrong way. He called them out, and I knew he was right - they had to change. *Sigh*

Anyway, if you've taken the plunge of deciding to self-publish your book, do yourself and your future readers a favor and put it through a developmental editor or one last round of (seriously kickass) readers. The worst thing that could happen is that they would come back and say "It's perfect!" right?

Next up: Publishing 101.1 part two - Working with a developmental editor, a guest post by Clare Davidson.