The "Arghs" of Self-Publishing: How-To

At around 4:06 PM, Wednesday, February 15, 2012-ish... I may have successfully finished submission of my paperback novel files for The Pathos of Rowan Jun. I have illustrated, re-illustrated, tweaked and poked and prodded and screamed and kicked and stared stupidly at a screen for weeks. I have watched slow progress bars and eaten junk food and ignored family and friends. Did I mention I screamed? Yeah, I did that. I'm not saying that the following survival tips will keep you from doing the same. But awareness is key!

By comparison, the un-illustrated Kindle version was easy. (When I figure out how to accurately illustrate a Kindle book, I'll let you know! SEE BELOW!) I may have begun a pattern of un-illustrated Kindle version for a low price and illustrated paperback for a regular price.Which is fine by me at this point! Plus, later on, I'll expand distribution to B&N and Smashwords, etc., so that'll be a fun learning curve, too!

UPDATE:
The super-top-secret secret of making images show up in your Kindle book? Save your file as an HTML, Filtered Document, and THEN ZIP TOGETHER THE IMAGES FOLDER AND THE HTML FILE!!! Then upload the zipped folder. I felt so digitally dumb, since it's the obvious thing to do. But that happens...

Here are the general steps of self-publishing I have undertaken so far...

HOW TO SELF PUBLISH:

1. Write book.
2. Edit/Revise/Polish manuscript.
3. Follow formatting instructions for manuscript using Kindle and Createspace walkthroughs and templates.
4. Simultaneously create book cover art using templates, new art, and some fly by the seat of your pants Photoshop learnin'.
5. Co-Simultaneously create art for website, merchandising, and logo/branding THEN order said materials. I have a huge, awesome banner, full-color postcards, and T-shirts featuring the book cover. (www.vistaprint.com = easy and cheap)
6. Purchase ISBNs for your book. Otherwise, Amazon will control your distribution options. (Official gov't contractor for ISBNs: https://www.myidentifiers.com/) Buy 10 or more. It's cheaper that way.
7. Upload files to Kindle's direct publishing website, follow steps, fill out forms and publish. (https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin)
8. Upload files to Createspace, fill out forms, approve files, and submit for review. (https://www.createspace.com/)
9. HAVEN'T DONE THIS YET: Order paperback proof, approve final product and submit for distribution.
10. HAVEN'T DONE THIS YET: Promote and reap the benefits of your hard work! (Eventually, if it reaches your target audience, and if people actually like it...)

THE ARGHS! OF SELF-PUBLISHING:

1. You will notice glaring, silly proofreading mistakes almost as soon as your Kindle book goes live.
2. You will anxiously fix the file, upload again, and wait hours for it to publish and go live again. The version with the errors will remain available for purchase during this time (I'm pretty sure).
3. You may have to repeat!
4. Each time you have to re-upload your Kindle eBook, your ranking will drop dramatically. I think. Maybe. I'm #132,944 Paid in the Kindle Store as of now! (Hey! Give me some time, all right?)
5. As you make corrections, rename (with version number, or something) and backup the different document or art file names. There WILL be different versions... Keeps file confusion at bay.
6. I think Createspace servers update between 3 and 4 am. The upload would constantly stop, restart and then time out. No red-eyed jubilation and sound sleep for me! But when I gave up, slept, then uploaded later in the morning or afternoon, the upload went smoothly, if a little slowly. (My .doc file was over 26MB, though...)
7. I also tried to upload from my jump drive, and that seemed to cause a time-out. Probably something related to the file's location or compression or whatever, I assume. (Though I'm no tech, I did some customer service related to file uploads.) I saved the file to my desktop backup folder and uploaded from there. No timeouts related to location.
8. You will stare stupidly at the progress bar, drawing shapes around it with your in-process-cursor until the huge interior-content file uploads. This will not speed up the progress bar! :D
9. You will have to upload several times at this slow rate of speed to make file corrections.
10. The Interior Reviewer on Createspace is your friend. Y'know... the friend who loves you enough to tell you that shirt makes you look fat. For me, things cropped up like low-image resolution (oops!), formatting (*cringe*) and margin issues (*double cringe*), and active Table of Contents issues. The conversion from Word to PDF that happens in Createspace bumped some of my chapter titles to another page, so the TOC page number and actual page number were wrong. A manual fix and yet another upload later, and the FINAL final file is in review.

There you go! An evaluation that is by no means comprehensive, but represents my personal experience with the process. Let me know if you have any questions, or if you have anything to add to these lists. I'd love to hear from you!

Here is the finished Kindle book as it appears on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Pathos-Rowan-Jun-ebook/dp/B0078L898E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329342078&sr=8-1

Love and Cuddles,

Tamara

BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS!

BIGGEST ANNOUNCEMENT: 

Happy New Release Day, everyone! The Pathos of Rowan Jun is now LIVE and available for purchase on Amazon Kindle!

http://www.amazon.com/Pathos-Rowan-Jun-ebook/dp/B0078L898E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329195802&sr=8-1

The "Look Inside" preview function lets you read all of chapter 1, and some of 2. Enjoy!

SECOND ANNOUNCEMENT: 

My shiny, newer and WAY more awesome website just went live earlier this evening! I still have some work to do on content, but it looks stupendous. Everything has a page, whether that page has any content or not... :D Main concerns: The store will go live soonish, once I get product info to my designer. And I'll get all the linkable banners in soon. And the Unatan profile artworks, as I promised earlier on the THS Facebook page... 

Give it a look-see: 

http://www.tamarahensonstudios.com/

THIRD ANNOUNCEMENT: 

I'm hoping for a February 28 release date for the hard copy novel. Due to some setbacks both human and digital, I've delayed the proof order by a couple more days at least. (Some-Tama forgot to fix the cover after a format correction extended the book by, oh, thirty pages! So now I've gotta wait for the review results to tell me I screwed up. Effectively tied my hands for now. Ah, publishing!) And I may make a couple more aesthetic changes that wouldn't much affect the timeframe. But maaan, that interior file was a pain to upload! I don't wanna, but it must be right!

And gracious! If there's another announcement, I'll think it up later. *big sigh of stress-decompression* I shall celebrate my Happy New Release Day with only some work and possibly a full night's sleep!

Love and Cuddles,

Tamara

NOVEL AND LOGO UPDATES!

I'm in the final stages of publication, but these may be the most crucial. I've completed a lot of graphic work these past two days-- I finished and uploaded both versions of the book covers and redesigned my business logo.

Did I mention a shiny new Tamara Henson Studios logo! There's a graytone version with no shading, a simpler "shiny" one like below with no background, and the full retinal assault of the final logo design as you see it here:

Having completed, uploaded, accurately formatted paperback AND eBook covers is almost worth this headache. Almst... Now, onward to Tylenol, and the world map! At this rate, I hesitate to boldly state that I'm on schedule... (*whispers* But I am...)

Whelp... announcements aren't gettin' this thing finished. Off I go!

Cuddles,

Tamara

NOVEL RELEASE DATE: February 14, 2012

I just finished the 3rd Draft Revision on The Pathos of Rowan Jun! (Insert Fireworks and Confetti here) I'll be doing a final readthrough as I format the manuscript for publication. But the rest of the work is just that... WORK! A lot of time, a lot of effort, culminating in a big, finished project!

To celebrate the release (Feb 14), there will be T-Shirts for sale featuring the book cover. (Available through my website, when we get the newly redesigned store launched!) The Kindle eBook and the Paperback should be available through Amazon by the release date, barring any unforeseen circumstances.

I also want to hold some type of contest involving a giveaway of either a T-Shirt or a story-related artwork. I'm not good at contests, so someone throw me some ideas!

Cuddles,

Tamara

Green Eyes and Freckles

Almost two months ago, my favorite author in all history died of a stroke. And I'd not heard a peep about it until today. What a horrible fan I am! 

"I have green eyes, silver hair and freckles--the rest changes without notice." 

--Anne McCaffrey

Anne McCaffrey is, in my mind and heart, the only person who will ever breathe life into Pern. (That could open a long conversation about the fact that Todd took over her writing and that surely more Pern novels will be forthcoming. But my vehement opinion remains the same. Anyone can write about Pern, officially or otherwise. But only one woman made Pern a living, breathing world.) 

With her, I soared with dragons long before Eragon's Paolini was a twinkle in his daddy's eye. I found Dragonsong before I ever read about Moorcock's Dragon Emperor Elric of Melnibone (perhaps, I hazard a guess, the original dragon rider), who predated the Pern series. These authors, these characters, were/are like family to the weird, lonely kid named Tamara. I laughed and cried along with them. And even when those characters moved on, or perished, or changed, they still lived. So this is what they mean by resonance. What an amazing contribution Ms. McCaffrey has made!

(Read her eldest son's touching eulogy here: http://www.pernhome.com/aim/)

My favorite reader will tell you that my stories are "no Dragonriders of Pern." And she's right. I'd never aim for the Throne. I can only strive upward, doing my best with the inspiration of decades of reading from the best. Anne McCaffrey's legacy lives on in the hearts and minds of her loving readers. And I hope it is tribute enough that this scatterbrained reader was creating stories in her own worlds, even as Ms. McCaffrey went ahead to the next. 

I hope Heaven has Story Time, because boy, are they in for a treat!

Love,

Tamara

NOVEL DEADLINE!

Creative things are dragging along. I'm not sleeping enough, or eating right, or working on my book enough. All three may be related, I realized. Trying to fix that this week with a new deadline: By mid-February, I plan on having volume one revised, polished and uploaded to Kindle, at least. Here's my to-do list to make that happen:

1. Revise and Polish manuscript. (15 chapters left!)
2. Finish, refine cover for both eBook and regular book.
3. Format for Kindle and regular book.
4. Order ISBN and UPC codes.
5. Upload, submit and approve final prints!
6. Repeat for every other platform... (after initial deadline!)
7. Dive into next book and short story edit. (after initial deadline!)

It seems like a lot, but once I'm past number one, it should be mostly technical instead of creative-technical. That means, in my mind, it'll be simply time-consuming, not soul-consuming! :D Operation Get-Finished-So-I-Can-Sleep-Again begins tonight!

Cuddles,
Tamara

NOVEL: REVISION IS LIKE PAINTING

After letting the book rest for a while, I've started the content and line revision. Line by line, chapter by chapter, tedious task by tedious task-- it is exactly like starting all over. Questioning every word and all dialogue is the one thing that makes a book better if the story's already decent. Especially if you can do it without making the sentences stiff. Writing is similar to art in this way. If you paint holding your brush too tightly, the brushstrokes will look stiff and overworked. Keeping a loose grip on the brush (a trained skill) is key to making a dynamic painting. In writing, if you make every sentence technically perfect (holding the brush too tightly), you strangle the life out of the words and end up with immobile, stuffy, uninteresting, overly verbose prose that flaunts skills at the mere level of anal-retentive proofreading and far below dynamic editing. Rant, complete.

And after I've finished the revision, I'll attempt a final polish. If my head hasn't exploded by then. To calm myself, I did a five-minute cover mock-up in MS Paint with the unfinished cover art and a haphazard tagline:

Looks like something out of the seventies! :)

Yep. That makes me feel better. Nothing like the promise of a book cover (a much better one than this!) when I've finished!

I've hired a good line-editor who I promised would not have to do story revision. And because of my previous rant, he knows I just want a basic editing of lines and final proofreading. And the pointing out of any glaring problems he may encounter, if I haven't resolved them by then. (If something annoys him so that he can't edit, he is to report it! :D)

So that's where I am. Wonder if this'll be done by the end of the month? That would be promising!

ON MY KINDLE "MARKET RESEARCH": 

I don't want to self-publish with glaring spelling errors and confusing sentence structure. Simple is best, right? So I downloaded a few freebies on my shiny new Kindle Touch (I'm behind the times. Back off!) to see what the free market offered. The potential of a decent story was often drowned out by the lack of much common-sense editing... sense. I understand that people who view themselves as visionaries can't be bothered with details, but those same visionaries should hire someone who can be bothered. I know it's not all completely amateur stuff, for crying out loud! Luckily, I don't view myself as a visionary. I didn't, after all, invent the eBook or even the paper book. I'm just a storyteller and artist, a creative person who wants to get her stories out there...

But this is a business, right? I'm doing a job, on which consumers may be willing to spend money. To consume my product, if you will. And consumers want to spend their money on products that deliver. You don't buy a cell phone that doesn't receive calls. So you shouldn't have to buy a book whose line editing or lack thereof detracts from the reading experience. A book, by definition, should be readable. Now I cut the free books some slack. They are not purchased with money. But people spend or waste TIME on them, which is far more precious. So these free books should be handled with the same product-pride that the paid books (should) offer. Now, that said, on to the paid books...

My only consistent gripes with the paid self-pub books is that 1) they all seem to be done in first person POV and my book is not and 2) the writing often has a self-conscious quality, a "See Ma? I can write well!" wordiness that distracts me from the story. As in, the way I wrote that novel back in high school... Also, 3) Barring the presence of the ever-popular "young man in a strange world" theme I've incorporated, I haven't found anything that hits the same nerve I wanna hit. I'll keep researching, though. And stop picking it apart for now!

Like I said, I'm not a visionary. I'm a storyteller and artist. I'll stop worrying about them for now and try to make something I love into something that is better than it is right now.

Love and cuddles,

Tamara

NOVEL: In-Progress Cover

In my "let it rest" period before doing a third draft of the novel, I've started the cover art. I still have a lot of work to do on Rowan's portrait before I'm finished, but this is a good in-progress shot! I thank my friends for all the feedback they graciously provided. I'm no digital draftsman, but it's not as bad as it could be. :)

For a sketch-to-current picture progression, and to follow more frequent Tamara Henson Studios updates, see my THS Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tamara-Henson-Studios/151917568249729

Cuddles,

Tamara

180 DEGREES

Today, I celebrated the completion of my second draft of The Pathos of Rowan Jun. I ate a Frosty from Wendy's. :) And I glanced back through this blog, seeing my bumps and snares, a few witty turns of phrase, and a whole lot of struggling to get somewhere.

It all started with my unexpected unemployment, when I finally thought my life was on the right track. I was going to be a teacher and mold young minds! I would have holidays, summers and flood/snow days to work on my novels. And then that fell through. My ideal teaching job opened up, I subbed in it for a term and applied, but that wasn't meant to be either. And the crappy customer service job I left is exactly where I ended up. Yet I'm okay with that. I've realized some other things that are better left between God and me. And that's okay, too.

In just two years, I have done a complete 180 on many opinions I held about life, careers, college, and other things that are important. I hoped that a death in the family wouldn't cause such a falling out, but it did. What a nightmare that was! I thought college was important, and while I cherish the experiences I forged there, it only resulted in a stagnant, staggering debt that I've carried for years. I thought I would never be able to lose the weight that threatens to kill me, and I'm more focused than ever, dropping pounds right and left with the RIGHT mindset. I thought I'd never get married, that I'd either die long before it happened or no one would care enough to marry me. And on November 11, I married the man I love. 

I thought having that stable, logical, safe, obvious, comfy career was what I needed and should continually seek. Even though I didn't really want to. (I wanted the creative things!) But though I love teaching, I can't get a job locally and can't afford to move for just a one-year job guarantee. Then I thought having any job that would pay the bills would be good. And I now have that job. But it's just a Band-Aid on the real issue:

I have spent most of my life NOT doing what makes me happiest from all standpoints, particularly the career point! The creative things make me happy. Telling stories, making artwork, creating things with the talent born of hard work and the talents God gave me makes me happy. And at my lowest point, I wondered why everything was going wrong. And then, the Almighty slapped me on the forehead with the obvious answers: 

Because I wasn't following the path set before me. I was walking the hardest, out of the way paths that didn't have my name on them at all. And God was having to let me learn things the hard way. My barrel-ahead attitude saves my mind from cracking, but shrouds my spiritual listening. I didn't know how to trust God to carry me when I'd walked so long my feet bled. God's encouraging me toward a leap of faith.

Why couldn't I keep a teaching job? Well, I started the teaching program because it was the logical path to move forward. I learned important art things I can use, but the rest of the program is essentially crap. But God let me finish the program and teach art for a year. I got to use that time to touch lives. And I got to see the worst in some people. My season there ended. Then I taught the last term at the other place, nearly a year later. Man, I had improved my methodology! I got to touch lives, and influence some very intelligent, creative minds. And I got to see the best in people, to heal my heart of the scars left by the last place. My three months there eclipsed my experiences at my first teaching job. And my season ended. I learned what I needed from the experience. Now it's time to move on.

Why can't I find a market for my creative work? Because I haven't finished, polished or marketed them! (God's forehead slap of No Kidding!) Guess what? If I don't build it, ain't nobody gonna come! So I created Tamara Henson Studios, bought a domain name, and created a website. After I cut back on the million dreamer's possibilities, I'm down to three: art, storytelling and dolls, with various sub-categories. Those are my focus areas. No commissions now, no three-ring-circus. Just the bare-bones of things I'd love to make a career in. And when I prayed, I felt at peace about it. No straining to make things work. No walking through mud uphill both ways. God's in it.

And step one of this new leap of faith is the self-publication of my novel. I laughed so hard when I read this blog entry from January of this year, back when I apparently planned to write in phases. Go ahead, I'll wait right here while you do:

http://tamarahensonstudios.blogspot.com/2011/01/phase-2-on-self-publication-vs-agent.html 

Such pretty writing and clear justifications for an archaic system of the time-suck of subjective checks and balances! Compared to my last post's "Big Scary Thing", it's hilarious. I'm a converted woman, obviously, from that glaring example of egotistical swill to this world of infinite possibilities. The second draft flowed easily-- a full rewrite in a month and a half! (Oddly and ironically, thanks to 2011 NaNoWriMo!) The other things will come with practice. 

The season I'm in now... it feels like Spring! So warm and inviting, so comforting, as bright as the kingdom of Heaven. Almost. The green down here doesn't seem quite the right shade! But that's another story for another time...

Cuddles,

Tamara

NaNoWriMo and THE BIG SCARY THING

I passed the 53K words mark on my "Edit Volume 1 Challenge" of NaNoWriMo. Technically, this means I "win". I blame it on passages in the not-as-horrible-as-I-thought rough draft that I was able to just tweak, copy and paste instead of rewrite in depth. I'm still a good 15K away from calling the story finished, and most of that will be full on retyping, re-envisioning and restructuring. That's no big deal, really. Just work. I already have it drafted, really poorly drafted, but drafted nonetheless!

Upon finishing this second draft, I'll dive into a back-burner drafting of Volume 3, plus a double front-burner drafting of Volume 2 and polish of Volume 1. Y'know... a light work load for me! ;)

WEBSITE NEWS:
The Tamara Henson Studios website is coming along nicely. I've gutted an already gut-light website and taken out all the commission stuff for now. I've streamlined the content so that I still have some art and graphic design portfolios. You can still email me if you want. There's still some aesthetic stuff I need to work out, as well as the store and cart options through Google.

When I'm finished, the site will focus on my Novels and Doll development. My ART section will have my currently-released characters and worlds from my stories. I'm hoping that the Ragdolls of the World (tm) brand and the Myth-Babies (tm) brand will fully launch in the next year for a related reason. I want all my copyrighted content to have a professional-looking, content-heavy home because of the big scary thing I'm doing as soon as I can.

It'll take a bit for my web designer Ryan to make all my updates live. His router gave up the ghost last week and we're a bit behind due to that. Any website design and content feedback you can provide over the next couple weeks will be invaluable and much appreciated! :)

THE BIG SCARY NOVEL THING:

And the big scary thing that I'm doing with the novel: Self-Publishing under Amazon. There will be an eBook and a paperback novel. I'll be doing cover art and design. This may be hard work and a risk, but my book isn't making any money just sitting here either, waiting on the potential graces of the traditional publishing time suck.

God-willing, I'll be publishing volume one VERY SOON!

Cuddles,

Tamara