However, while self-publishing is possible and inexpensive, it is by no means free and painless.
For one thing, its a relatively new concept, so there's a lot of bugs still to be worked out. It is also very technical, and even with my background in computers and document formatting I still ended up doing a lot of work over.
So here's what you should know about the final formatting of your manuscript, things I learned through trial and error and wished I'd known before.
NOTE: for this article, when I refer to "publishing" or "self-publishing," I'm talking specifically about independent self-publishing with Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).
1. Make sure you have the right tools at your disposal
Writing is simple. You need something to write on and something to write with. Self-publishing is not. You need the correct electronic tools to work with from the start. First of all you need a solid computer with access to internet. Nothing fancy, just reliable. You really need to have Microsoft Word. I know, I know, there's other processing programs like OpenOffice that generally do the trick. But for formatting you really want Word. For one thing, it's simply more standardized across the whole internet, and KDP has a downloadable add-on to help with formatting for ebooks and paperbacks. It's really useful.Once you've got text down, the next hurdle is formatting images. If you're going to include them in your manuscript (and you need a cover image anyways if you don't want lame stock photos) you're going to need some sort of image manipulation program. I'm too poor to afford Photoshop (even if I could swallow a monthly subscription charge) so I tend to use ArtRage for simple painting and manipulation, along with my computer's stock editing program for things like cropping. I also use a scanner to upload my hand drawn images.
A PDF converter is the last digital tool you'll need. It's not a strict requirement, but if you want your paperback to have bleed (printing to the edge of the page) you'll need one. Adobe, of course, has a program, and I'm sure there are others available. Make certain whatever program you use does not compress your image size.
So to recap, before you even start writing with publishing in mind, make sure you have (in order of importance):
- A computer with internet access
- Microsoft Word
- A printer/scanner
- An image manipulation program
- A PDF converter program
2. Prep your manuscript
Now that you have all your tools and your big fat manuscript typed out and proofread, you can begin formatting. The first thing you're going to want to do is make sure you have a clean document to work with. This means a document with no formatting already applied to it. If you're unsure whether you already messed with something or not, you can simply highlight all (ctrl+a) and hit the button "clear formatting" (note, this will get rid of things such as italics and bold too, so be aware).Now that you have a nice clean document, you want to create a backup save. This requires saving your formatted manuscript under a separate file name. You're going to leave your unformatted and complete manuscript untouched in case of disaster.
Turn on your formatting marks, download the KDP plug-in, and you're ready to go.
3. Make sure your images are high enough quality
This is the problem that ran me for the most loops. 300 dots per inch (dpi) is the required minimum image quality for print and sounds simple enough, but there are a lot of hurdles to overcome to get there. Firstly, make sure your images are good quality to begin with. I found out the hard way to scan my images at 400 dpi, just to be safe. (600 dpi tended to crash Microsoft Word.) Before you put your images into Word, make sure to turn "image compression" off. This will be in different places for different versions of Word, so you'll have to look up how to do so. The final hurdle (one I didn't have the tools to overcome) is keeping the quality up if you convert your file into a PDF. Make sure you've got a good converter program!4. Be flexible and patient, and take it one step/problem at a time
Once you launch the KDP plug-in for Word and fire it up, it becomes a simple matter of following the preloaded steps to making a good looking manuscript. In theory. In actuality, there's going to be frustration involved, with a myriad of potential problems and creative solutions required.For example, I had to create a cover for my poetry book. I had a charcoal drawing in mind to use as well as my title elements already figured out. It should have been a simple matter. But first, my image wasn't high enough quality. I fixed that, rescanning it. Then I ran into the problem with Amazon's program Cover Creator where the fonts available didn't go with my content, nor were the various title elements placed correctly for my picture. So I tried to make a cover from scratch and downloaded the template they provide. I wanted a specific font so I had to type out my title and name in Word, take a screenshot of it, then layer that on top of the background using ArtRage. But the only format KDP would accept for custom covers was a print ready PDF, and ArtRage could only save things as JPGs. So I saved a JPG and converted it to a PDF, but my PDF converter compressed image quality and the cover no longer met their quality guidelines. At this point I could have screamed. The cover should have taken an hour, tops, and it took me a whole day to put together. Eventually, I worked around the problem by uploading my completed cover (JPG) on Cover Creator as the background picture and left the additional fields blank. The saga wasn't over yet, I had to fix issues of bleed later, but you can see how quickly something small can become a big, time consuming problem.
Additionally, there's no way to check their guidelines without uploading the previewer first, which takes a long time. The preselected styles are narrow and defined, and changing them can be time consuming and frustrating. It may not turn out exactly how you pictured things. Even after you hit publish, you may have to fix some things before your book will appear on the marketplace. So be patient, adjust your expectations, and do your best to work with the program.
If you can manage all this, then congratulations! You've published a book. Take a moment to feel proud of yourself, because no matter what else, just finishing an entire book and putting it out there is an accomplishment.