F³A: The costly learning curve of indie publishing

You people who are considering indie publishing are very lucky to have me, yes you are. I'm like your trial run through this crazy process. You can live vicariously through me while I make the mistakes you don't have to when you're ready to take the plunge.

Some of the mistakes  have been costly, but I've learned my lesson. Here is the big one: As I've told you, I'm publishing through Createspace and Lightning Source. Createspace does offer expanded distribution through Amazon, but with Lightning Source I can offer retailers a bigger discount, which will incline them more to carry my book if requested. I can also have it returnable. Many bookstores won't carry it if it's not returnable. Also this way Dissected will also be available for libraries and schools to purchase.

You don't have to do this of course. I know writers who use Amazon's extended distribution and are perfectly happy with it.

Here are the mistakes I made:

1) Not ensuring that the book was edited properly before formatting and uploading. Truly, this was mostly just laziness on my part, but I've learned my lesson for sure.
2) From now on, everything will be set up and completed on Createspace before moving on to Lightning source and setting a release date. Why? I will tell you. It's free. Yes it's all free up to the point where you order your proof copies. Lightning Source charges for every resubmission of a digital upload. $40 to be exact. Also, where Createspace's proofs are just under $4, Lightning Source's are $30. And they look exactly the same. Exactly. So there's that.

So there you have it.
 
One more piece of advice, your cover will come back darker than it looks on the computer.

If you don't want to mess with much of this stuff yourself, I think I've mentioned, my friend Rachel and I are starting our own business, Creative Chaos Media. We don't have prices listed on our site yet, but feel free to contact us.

The finish line is fast approaching. The date is set. Last things...get proof copies from Createspace in mail today and make sure cover is all good. Interior is now perfect or as perfect as it's going to be. Resubmit interior to lightning source and finish setting up distribution. Make sure everything online is set to go for November 12th. 

Send proof copies to a couple bloggers who have requested it, Angel and Lea (I hope to hell they like it).

Design and order postcards to be sent to schools. libraries and bookstores. I did this way earlier with Never Eighteen, but I've kind of been overloaded this time and I'm glad I didn't since I changed the book cover.

Order new bookmarks with new cover design.

Design buttons and order.

Contact a couple bloggers and see about a blog tour.

Send out invites for and promote the launch.

I think that's it, but I'll have to brainstorm.

Anyone in the area is welcome to come to the launch party. 

Tuesday, November 12, 7 pm
Garfield Book Company
208 Garfield St S #101, Tacoma, WA 98444 

It's Friday, so I bring you the Scribbles...

Pandora queue song: Hang Me Up To Dry by Cold Water Kids

 Book of the Week: Joe Peace by friend Kerry Dunn. I read an excerpt a couple years ago and had done a video review of the except for the ABNA contest a few years back. I remember it being funny, witty and gritty. I started reading the book and my memory served me right.

Netflix of the Week: Do yourself a favor and catch up on the Walking Dead. Season 4 starts Sunday. Can't wait!!

Quote of the Week: "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." ~ Albert Einsten

Happy Friday, have a good weekend and go make some fun mistakes!

Cover Frustration!!

So, my first cover was too dark. The back of my second cover was a little off kilter. Then somehow the front of the third time around got this strange border around it. I'm not really even sure how that happened. I put it right into the same layout I used the first two times. Sigh.

I tried something different this time. Instead of using InDesign, I downloaded a template from Createspace for my size book. We'll see how that goes.

What really really sucks is that every time I change the digital copy on Lightning Source they charge me $40 and their proofs are $30. And I clearly wasn't thinking last night or I would have only changed on Createspace, ordered new proofs as they charge nothing for changes and their proofs are just under $4.

Ugh, sometimes I'm such an idiot.

Time is dwindling down to my release date and I don't have my cover right. I want to pull my hair out and scream and throw a tantrum on the floor. But I don't because I'm a lady. Why are you laughing? I am!

We'll see how this next proof goes. I've expedited the shipping so I have them by Friday.

Wish me luck.

Don't forget I have a preview of the first chapter on Createspace. Feel free to go and leave a review. Also enter to win a copy on Goodreads.

Monkey Madness Monday: I did it

I set a date for my release party. November 12th. I was afraid if I didn't set it, I would never set it and never put the book out. So I emailed Garfield Books and just did it. I'm waiting to send out the invites however until I get the last round of proof copies. I'm not going through the book again, mind you, but I want to make sure the cover is okay. The last round it was a little kittywampus.

And now I'm terrified.

I don't know why, like I've said, I've received really good feedback.

So when I get these proof copies (I think there are four in all) one is going to Garfield Books, and I've promised two of them to two bloggers. One I've promised to a guy who works in the movies. I've also sent two digital versions to another couple bloggers. I was going to put it up on Netgalley, but it's a little too costly for me to do that right now.

However, if there are any more blog reviewers out there who are interested in reviewing Dissected, email me, and I'll see what I can do. It's a little different this time around because of course, I have to pay for proof copies.

Don't forget, there is also the preview up at Createspace (updated version, I accidentally put an old, uncorrected one up the first time), feel free to review it for me,  and you can enter to win a copy on Goodreads.

For more information about Dissected, you can visit my website...

Oh yeah, here's Monday's Monkey...

F³A: I'll rest when I'm dead

People talk to me about my schedule quite a bit. They tell me I'm crazy, I need to slow down, I take on too much, spread myself too thin, while that's all well and good and at times I agree with them, I don't see any other way to survive.

Seriously, what other options do I have.

I've already talked about this in my relationship rant earlier (that was this week, right? Last week? Who knows anymore?)

I'm busy and I think I've finally figured out my afternoon sleep problems. I just have to get into the doctor and get it taken care of. I'd talk about it, but it's a little *cough* personal *cough*. But I've researched it and think I've solved the overtireness (yes it is a word, I just made it up) that will keep me from having to nap two to three hours a day so I can be more productive.

The important thing is, I always make time for me and for my friends. I make time to have fun and to live my life. It is not all about work.

AND this week has been a little weird and hellish, up and down. Lots of spending time in the rain and bitched out by a bitter, insecure woman, unfriended and blocked,  given a marriage proposition from across the globe, asked on a date by an ex boyfriend, and felt abandoned and lonely. However I've also felt flattered and sexy, accomplished a lot with my book this week, have witnesses some soccer wins.


I'm happy it's Friday and I'll be spending the evening with friends watching my brother's band, Smilin' Jack kick some serious funky ass while shaking mine. And if you watch The Voice (I don't) Stephanie Johnson who was on Tuesday night will be singing with them (she does some times and has an amazing voice, if you don't watch The Voice).

Wow, I think I just ranted again and had no intention to. I guess this week was mostly a ranting week. Oh well. Shit happens. Don't forget, to pre-order my friend Ian's book, enter to win Dissected, and read my preview (I realized my old one was from my proof copy and there were mistakes so I uploaded a new preview, should be no mistakes this time). Oh, hey and it's breast cancer awareness month, so go get a mammogram and be nice to your ladies.

Scribbles of the Week:
Pandora Queue Song: Such Great Heights by Postal Service on Postal Service Radio



Book of the Week: Going to go with Deep Six by Ian Thomas Healy. Like I said, go order it. Oh, and did I mention, these are not your children's superheroes.

Netflix of the Week: Breaking Bad Season 5. Had to get all caught up so I could watch the finale last Sunday. None of it disappointed. One of the best. Shows. Ever.

Quote of the Week: "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." ~ John Lennon

Preview for Dissected and Giveaway

Dissected is almost ready to be released into the world. I've gone back and forth with the editing and proof copies and now I've put a preview of the first chapter up on Createspace. If you'd like to read it, follow this link. The excerpt is 'R' rated. Consider yourself warned.

At Createspace you're able to leave a review of the preview if you wish. Feel free.

Remember I'm also giving away two copies of Dissected on Goodreads, available November 12. Enter here.

Here are a couple blurbs about Dissected from beta readers who happen to be librarians...these are also the blurbs you will see on my bookmarks...

"I liked it. I am disturbed by it. I was sucked in by it...Bostic's writing speaks to the reader's heart, and that is a gift." ~ Laura Denehy, Library Media Specialist,  Merrimack Middle School, Merrimack, NH

"A raw and vulnerable look at a young girl's downward spiral into drugs after being betrayed by her boyfriend. Heartwarming? No. Real? Hell yes!" ~ Jen Bigheart, Librarian, Westbank Community Library; District Director, Austin Teen Book Festival

Proof copies can be hazardous to your health

You've seen this cover on my blog many times now, right. Her pants are clearly blue...

The first proof copy I got back, the cover was sooooo dark. When I mentioned it to Lori, she told me that the covers come back about 5x darker than you send them.

So I lightened it up to what you see here to the left. Lighter skin. A glint on the glass, purple fingernails, BLUE pants.

Yeah, the pants look black. And this time the cover is off center. Don't know how that happened. UGH!!!

So here is the disclaimer on getting proof copies: May cause frustration, anxiety, depression, nausea, vomiting, headache, heart pain. May cause hair loss in the form of you pulling it out by the root. In severe cases, could cause death.

This process is definitely a learning curve. A BIG one. After this round though, the second time, which I'm going to start ASAP with Girl in Motion, will be a breeze, right? RIGHT?!?

Indie publishing: The Next Step

I got my formatted copy of Dissected back and uploaded it to both Createspace and Lightning Source. Now I'm waiting to get proof copies from each company. I'm going to have someone else go through the proof copies. I don't think I can stomach doing it one more time.

I'm not sure why if I've explained why I'm using both companies. I'm using Createspace to sell on Amazon, but Createspace expanded distribution does not offer a big enough wholesale discount, so physical bookstores more than likely would not carry it. So I'm going through Lightning Source, so I can distribute through Ingram and set my own discount price, so that libraries and book stores can purchase the book at a reasonable rate. I'll make less money this way, but I'm pretty sure most of my sales will come through Amazon. However, I'd like the book available through Ingram so it's available if I do library, school and book store visits.

I also got my UPC code and added it to the cover. I set the sale price at $9.99.
Now, once I approve the proof copies of the book, that's it. Time to sell. Of course, I've set a release date of November 12th because I still have some marketing stuff I want to do, and I have a release party I want to set up and I need a 6 week lead on that.

It's getting close to go time, and I'm getting nervous...

FINISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!: The next step in the Indie Publishing Process

I finally got my typos typed up and sent off to Lori. She's on vacation though, so she'll get to them when she gets back. I feel like a giant weight has been lifted off my shoulders. 

So, next steps...

New Dissected Cover

1. Set sale price and buy UPC code for book. I'm still debating this because I'd like to see a $1 for every book sold go to my favorite charity, Mary Bridge Children's Hospital. But I don't want to set the price so high people won't buy it. It's a little long than NE was, so I think I could set the price at $9.99 and still donate a $1 to MBCH. Or I could donate for awhile and see how it goes I guess? What do you think? Is $9.99 too much for a 216 page book?
2. Upload the new cover and book to Createspace and Lightning Source and get proofs from each.
3. Make sure they look good.
4. Start marketing.

I should be marketing already, but really, I've been so busy with life stuff and I'm suffering from exhaustion, which I'm hoping to take care of in the next couple weeks with a trip to my doctor (she's out of town for another week and a half).
 

Finished

I'm typing up my changes as we speak. And honestly, I was too lazy to finish finding my typos last night. I didn't want to, then a friend of mine, Robert Leland Taylor pushed me to do it. So I did. He has a book out, he's very funny. You should go buy it.

Anyway, when I do copy edits again, I'm going to do them hard copy, like I did with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. I'm finding way too many mistakes. We did them with "track changes" on Word and I think I got lazy. I'm not a good monitor editor. Put a piece of paper in front of me though, and I'm on it.

Plus, you catch other stuff. I had inconsistencies, and other things in the novel that made me scratch my head. Indie writers hear this, make sure your shit is edited!!!

yeah, I just needed this one.

If I had put this book out as is, I would have been raked over the coals. This proof is the epitome of what everyone probably expects a self published book to be. Riddled with mistakes. Ugh.

And time is going by so fast, as this point, I'm praying I can meet my new planned release date of the
end of October. We'll see once I get these typed up and off to Lori and what her turn around time is, then it's a matter of getting another proof from Createspace, one from Lightning Source, then we're off!

Okay, day job calls. I have to go in early because I'm getting a washer and dryer delivered today. No more having to go to the parents, I finally broke down and bought a pair.

Monkey Madness Monday: Typos, typos, typos!

I'm going crazy. Seriously. I've read this book over and over again. I've had an editor read it. I know that there are people out there who self publish who don't have an editor read their work and this is one of the reason self publishing gets a bad rap. So much self published work it put out unedited.  It's put out with typos and grammar and punctuation problems and turns people off from indie publishing as a whole.

For the life of me, I cannot fathom having missed so much on the first five or six passes. I'm going to get another proof copy after this one. I'm going to make sure the cover is okay then I'm going to have someone else read it for typos in case I missed any. Again. I know that there are traditionally published books out there with typos in them. It's one of the reasons I refuse to read Never Eighteen since its debut. I don't want to find any mistakes. But for my first indie project, I want it to be as flawless as possible. I don't want anyone to say things like, "well, that's what you can expect after all it IS self published" or things of a similar nature.

I admit, when it comes to editing, I'm lazy, but this? The mistakes that are in there? UGH!!! Some of

them are just plain stupid mistakes.

I'm sure every writer in the world will understand when I say, I'm so tired of this book. :)
The next couple days I'm busting these typos out and getting them back to Lori so she can get it formatted again and I can get a proof from Createspace and Lightning source and make sure we're ok again.

Man, this process can be a real bitch. At least I'm learning and hopefully things will go smoother for the next book, which I'm starting to think I should be starting this process for now.

Happy Monday all.

Major work projects and Dissected proof

Man, I have been working on a major major marketing presentation for work for about three weeks now and I'm finally done. It's why I've not been blogging. I've been having to work on it at home as well as work to get it ready for my office retreat which took place last week. Now life is getting back to as normal as my life can, so here I am, blogging again.

I received a proof copy of Dissected in the mail this week from Createspace. Let's just say, I'm glad I ordered just one. The cover came out much darker then I'd anticipated, and you know what else? I found...wait for it...TYPOS!!!

Yes, I found typos. This is nobody's fault but my own. I truly am surprised that I found typos, but there they were, a couple in the first few chapters. So I emailed the truly gracious woman who did my formatting and asked her to please not kill me, but did she mind if I send her more corrections for reformatting. She said she didn't mind, but I can't help but imagine that she was silently cursing me (or perhaps loudly) as she emailed me back telling me it was no problem.

She also told me that many of the covers she's done have come out two or three shades darker than expected, so I redid mine. Lightened it up and even added a little more color so it wasn't so black and dismal. Now I'm rereading the proof to find any other typos that may be lurking behind the pretty formatted fonts and styles.

I truly can see why many books, indie published or traditional, make it to the shelves with mistakes. It's difficult. It truly is, to find every last mistake, no matter how many eyes are on it or how many times you read through it. Humans and computers are simply not perfect. That is not a cop out, nor an excuse for my failings, it is simply a fact. I hope to catch every last error in my novel. End of story.

I'm in the process of setting up distribution so the bookstores may carry the novel. They are having a problem with one of my scanned forms for the second time though. I don't know why. So, I have to try again.

So that's where I'm at. Here is what the book cover looks like now. I'm thinking about adding a gummy bear to the back cover...

Formatting snafus and moving forward

Had a little snag in the formatting of Dissected, Lori has never worked with Createspace, so a couple pages were not being agreeable. As I'm writing this, I'm once again uploading again, so hopefully it's a done deal.

I'm in the process of designing the back cover. What do you think?

Next steps, setting up distribution with lightning source, getting barcodes. I haven't really looked into that yet, but I think it's fairly self explanatory, and setting my sale price. The book is a little longer than Never Eighteen and I'm considering donating a dollar of every sale to Mary Bridge Children's hospital here in Tacoma, so I'm thinking about a $9.99 sale price.

OH YEAH!!!! The book is done uploading and NO ISSUES THIS TIME!!! Woot! Means it's time to move forward.

I also still have to design postcards to send out to connections I made with Never Eighteen, libraries, schools, and indie bookstores, though I can't find my mailing list. knowing me, I wrote it all down by hand and threw it away, because I can be a complete idiot like that. (hopefully not, but yeah, it's been known to happen). I need to design buttons. The book cover makes that a little tricky, but I'll come up with something. And stickers. People like stickers. I also want new business cards.

I've pushed my release date back to August 27th so I can set up a local launch party, for which I need about 6 weeks lead time.

I met up with a bunch of indie writers in Tacoma last week. It was a very cool experience. I know I can learn a lot from that diverse group.

Almost done!!

ISBN Numbers

I bought them today from Bowkers. Ten of them. It's cheaper than buying just one, and each format, for instance, e-book and paperback, has to have their own number. So I bought them and started filling out the necessary information to get Dissected listed on Amazon and Goodreads. I still need to design the back cover. I wrote the jacket flap copy today, so I can do that soon and upload a cover in its entirety to Createspace, so it's ready to go when my formatting is done.

I'm still revising in Autocrit. It's a slow process and to be honest, I've been busy and tired and I've not had much time to do it, but I think it's important. I think I'm going to shoot for a release date of mid July. I'm hoping to really dig in the next couple days and get it done and get it off for formatting.

I've already designed my bookmarks, so I should send those off for printing. Just need to design postcards, buttons, bracelets, and stickers, and I have my swag done.

Then I have to purchase a barcode and set up distribution and I'm good to go. It's a lot of work, but I'm hoping in the long run, it will all be worth it.

Formatting and other tragedies

First I'll give you a monkey, because there was no monkey in my blog yesterday.

There's a lot to do when you decide to become an indie publisher. Formatting is one of them. It's really not THAT difficult. Createspace has pretty clear instructions on how to do it. But unfortunately, I apparently was not indenting my manuscript correctly and that made it a little bit of a bitch. Luckily I have some Facebook friends that are Word masters and they helped me through my idiotic mistake and now I'm cruising along, in fact, I'm pretty much done with the formatting part.

Next step is more editing. I have some betas reading it as we speak. One is already finished with it. He read it in a day. Good sign. I'm hoping the others will have it done in two weeks time. I'm hoping for an April release.

After that, I have a friend who is a great editor who is going to go through a all in one editing process for me. She's going to go through my formatting, do line editing and copy editing.

Then I had an offer from someone to help me with formatting, so I hope she'll also take a look at my formatting, just to have one more set of eyes look at it.

Then the hopefully last round of edits, formatting fixes and voila, finishing up the other details and I have a book out.

If you're thinking about self publishing, my friend Karla Brady has a great blog that lays out the process for you step by step. Check it out here.

That is all. Have a great Tuesday!