The Morning After The Night Before

I'm really struggling with what to write today. Not because I don't have anything new to report but because things are happening so quickly that I'm no longer certain I'm able to keep up.

You'll have read many authors saying they have "news" but aren't allowed to talk about it yet (it almost always means they have a publishing contract. I'm pretty sure I'm not revealing anything unknown there) and for once, I'm saying the same thing - and it's not a publishing contract.

I've been very fortunate in having lots of people to turn to and ask for help, however small. Just spreading the word about the book is all I want from them, but some people are able to offer so much more. These people have so willingly and enthusiastically promoted The Long Second - in most cases without even reading it - that word is now reaching complete strangers, and new names are popping up in my Twitter stream and on the Facebook page.

To you new faces I say Welcome, I hope you enjoy what you find here and that it helps you with whatever path you choose to follow (or that you simply enjoy the book!)

Other things have happened because they've been made to happen. That whole "getting yourself out there" thing that I spoke about on Friday. Sometimes you tentatively pick up the phone, expecting nothing but ambivalence (at best) or blunt rejection (at worst) but end up speaking to somebody who is completely enthralled by your story, and then they make an offer which exceeds your wildest dreams (certainly this early in the process). Maybe nothing will come of it, but maybe it will... watch this space.

But it just shows: these are just ordinary people, doing what they do day in, day out. They don't know how nervous you are about approaching them. Maybe they'll be grumpy, maybe you'll be a time-waster, but maybe not. Maybe yours is the story they are looking for that day.

But it's given the whole process a second wind. I was honestly exhausted after the weekend. There were times I was struggling to keep up with emails - Facebook notifications, Twitter mentions and retweets (yes, I know I can turn them off, but I actually quite like them) and a flurry of general emails dealing with sales, potential sales and all the other things I spoke about yesterday.

I was almost happy to go back to work for a rest. Well, perhaps not.

One thing's for sure: the journey has only just begun. If the momentum can be maintained, then who knows where it will lead.

But wherever it goes, it certainly looks like it's not going to be boring. Come along with me, why don't you?

Surprising Developments

So much happened this weekend that it's almost difficult to keep up.

Firstly, through a combination of devilment and throwing caution to the wind, I started telling people that The Long Second was now available on Kindle (UK and US/International) and Smashwords. I hadn't really planned on doing this for another couple of weeks, but I guess the excitement got the better of me (Catherine Howard will be so annoyed at my lack of restraint).

As of the time of writing, it's reached #21 in it's genre on Amazon.co.uk - which is bizarrely exciting (even if the real numbers behind that figure aren't quite as exciting). Watching the sales is - unsurprisingly - addictive. I just need to try to remember to do some actual work in between checking...

Then the offer to produce the audiobook version came in. This is something I simply hadn't considered and, to be honest, am a little unfamiliar with. But it's too good an offer to pass by, so it's been grabbed with both hands. This will obviously take a few weeks to come to fruition, but I'll keep you posted.

Then, almost on a whim, a small Facebook advertising campaign was started. This is so appropriate, given that the book was conceived over Facebook. It's efficacy remains unknown, of course, but it will be interesting to see how it pans out.

The Long Second also gained its very own Facebook page - please do pop over there and "like" it. The plan is to offer some bonus content there shortly, so it will hopefully be worth your while.

I'm also planning on some guest blog posts, but need to work on those.

And I'm preparing a Press Release for the local papers...

Given my reluctance to engage in the publicity side, all this seems quite remarkable. Will it translate into sales success? I've honestly no idea. I really didn't expect to enjoy this stage of the process, but I'm actually having a ball!

And finally, on Friday I saw a post on Twitter which, during the course of the morning's journey to work, morphed into a new book idea, which then morphed again into the amalgamation of about 3 separate ideas... At least I remembered to write them down before they disappeared.

Of course, trying to make time to do some actual writing is another matter altogether.

Cover Design

(I wasn't going to post this for a couple of days but a small - possibly intentional - slip last night meant that I let the cat out of the bag so, what the Hell!)

One of the problems with publishing without the backing of a large company is that you come to a point where you need to make decisions on something you didn't think you would have much (if any) input to.

When The Long Second was being written, there was a clear idea of how the cover would look. And then it became clear that the cover design would be something over which, at best, I'd be able to approve with minor tweaks and, at worst, be created for me and presented with a "like it or lump it" directive.

Suddenly having the creative freedom again was exciting. And terrifying.

A basic theme was found quite quickly; I'm reasonably handy with PhotoShop and know how to take a decent photo (I'm far from expert in either field - enthusiastic amateur would be more accurate) so was able to put something together without too much trouble (and without having to resort to Design Wizards and Stock Photo sites).

It was okay but a bit lacking.

I was about to call in the experts and actually pay somebody to do it for me (through gritted teeth) when I was referred to a friend of a friend, a top designer at a major London company... he wouldn't actually design the cover, but he'd help turn what I had into something approaching professional quality.

It was brilliant and hard work and at times I completely failed to understand what he was trying to get me to do, until he provided examples. But we got there and I'm really pleased with the result.

So the cover for The Long Second now exists, in both Kindle and paperback form. And this is it (the full paperback version - click for bigger):

And... if you're still with me, I'll keep this low-key:

You can buy it on Kindle NOW!

Link for US/International readers here

Link for UK readers here

Link for non-Kindle/Kindle application users (Sony Reader etc) here

(If you would like a copy in paperback, please mail me for details - that's taking a little longer than expected).

The Hard Work Begins

You've formatted your book into multiple versions. You've uploaded them to the various sites, had them checked and approved and they're appearing on the sites as available to buy.

Now, you just sit back and watch the sales accumulate, a glass of wine at your side. Simple, eh?

Uh, no.

For me, this is the hardest bit. It's one thing to lock yourself away in a dark corner, lit only by the glow of your laptop screen, churning out the words of your masterpiece. It's another to go out there, stand up tall and say "My book is available! Please buy it!"

Well, OK, you could just go and stand on your doorstep and should that out to our street but it's probably not going to generate many sales.

Talking about yourself and your book is hard for everybody. I've heard many authors complain about this, but at least if you're traditionally published, you know that your publisher will do at least some of the work for you.

As a self-published author, you're on your own.

So, go out there. Shout about it. Tell all your Twitter friends, shout about it on your blog, mention it on FaceBook. And that's just the start.

You need to get the buzz going. You need to reach the people who don't follow you on Twitter, who never read your blog and who haven't become your friend on FaceBook. You need to reach those people who have never heard of you, for whom you are just another unknown, self-published author.

So, how do you do that?

At the time of writing, I don't have the answers (I'm writing this on Sunday 5th). Maybe by the time this is posted I'll have a better idea...

Catherine Ryan Howard's book does give some tips... I'll let you know if I have any success in implementing any of those.

Uploading the books

Now that you have your properly formatted books, in 3 versions, you have to upload them and have them checked and accepted.

For Kindle you upload the PRC file created by MobiPocket. Amazon tells you it will take about 24 hours for your book to be checked. It goes into "In Review" status and you can't do anything in that time. Then it goes to "Publishing" - during this stage it will appear on various Amazon sites (exciting, eh?) but won't be available to buy. Again, Amazon says this takes 24 hours - for me, the book appeared on .com and .co.uk much quicker than that, and was available to buy long before the status finally changed to "Published".

For CreateSpace, you upload your files then it tells you to wait for what could be a few days while it checks and process the files. For me, it took about 3 hours before I received confirmation that it was OK. I then made a change to the cover file and uploaded again so had to wait for another few hours.

Once approved you then have to order a proof - you can't make the book available for publication until you order the proof. Again, CreateSpace say this might take some time, and estimated delivery might take up to 6 weeks to get to the UK. I was surprised, therefore, to be told the proof had been dispatched less than 12 hours later. Of course, I've not received it yet.

You have to approve the proof before you can continue. You could approve it before you receive it, but that would be foolish, so it's now a waiting game...

When you upload the file to SmashWords, it does some checking then converts to the various formats. You can sit and watch that happen (I did!) - it takes about 10 minutes or so and then you can download all the formats for checking. I found that the ePub version had lost many of the formatting changes I'd made. It's not a disaster, but not as good as I'd like. As yet, I don't know if I can correct that. The other formats, though, appear to be OK.

So, your various formats are now complete and available, that's the hard work over, right?

Oh no. The hard work hasn't even started yet... and I'll get on to that tomorrow.

Preparing the book - part 3

So, you have your Kindle version and you have your paperback version.

Creating the other e-versions should be simple, right?

Yup, pretty much. Again, follow the guidelines that SmashWords give you. They don't ask for much - you have to get another ISBN (again, free from SmashWords) and the Copyright page has to state that it's the SmashWords edition.

I used my CreateSpace version, made the necessary changes to the Copyright page, and reset the margins back to "normal" and that was about it.

SmashWords likes the file to be in Word format (not PDF or HTML) and the cover to be a JPG file (not PDF like CreateSpace).

And that's it. You now have 3 versions ready to upload. You're good to go, right?

Not quite... details tomorrow...

Preparing the book - part 2 (and a Competition!)

In yesterday's post, I discussed preparing the book for Kindle. Today, I'll discuss the differences in preparing for actual hard-copy.

At the start, I didn't intend to make a paperback version available, but it seemed daft not to, and the thought of having a "real" copy of my book was appealing and there was very little additional cost in doing so.

There are a number of Print On Demand services available - CreateSpace and Lulu are probably the best know. I chose CreateSpace, firstly because Catherine Ryan Howard's book recommended them (and gave instructions on how to set the book up for them) and secondly because the are an Amazon company and I thought it made sense to keep it under the same umbrella (in the hope it would be easier to make the paperback available on Amazon).

Formatting the book should have been much easier with CreateSpace. Once you decide what size you want your book to be (I chose 8" x 5") you can download a blank template and copy your content into it. Unfortunately, that didn't work for me: it wouldn't run paragraphs across page breaks, so some pages only had a few lines if the next paragraph was a big one. That may be a quirk with Word 2010 - if you have Word 2003 it might be fine for you (you have to use the 2003 .doc format anyway).

So I had to set my page size and margins manually. I did this by copying the settings from the template. You need to be sure you set "mirror margins" and the correct page size.

Then you have to add various essential pieces into the front matter (you have to create front matter - Copyright pages etc - for Kindle, too, so this is just adding a few things). You need ISBN numbers (CreateSpace will provide these free of charge). Without ISBN numbers, CreateSpace will reject your book.

Once you've created all the additional pages and pasted your document into the template, all you then do is save the file in PDF format (later versions of Word can do this, earlier versions might need an external converter program - you can find them by searching Google).

Finally, you need your cover artwork. Again, I'll discuss this later.

Tomorrow - creating the SmashWords versions.

Now... the competition. If you've been following me on Twitter (@MarshallBuckley) then you have a slight advantage, but only a very small one.

The prize? Well, unsurprisingly, it's a signed copy of The Long Second. Perhaps even the very first copy (when it arrives, unless I have to make any changes...).

The question: I had a blood test yesterday to check my cholesterol level. (Yes, I know it's totally unrelated to the book, but it seemed like a suitably daft thing to do). I don't get the result until next week, so even I don't know the answer at this point but, what will my cholesterol level be?

Answers accepted in comments below, or by email, or you can send it via Twitter. If more than one person gets it right, then I'll put the names into a hat. If nobody gets it right then... well, we'll just have to think about that!