So The next topic in the group is Useful Services and where to find them.

Most publishing projects need an Editor, A book cover Designer, a formatter, and A Marketer

Self publishing means you need to hire these or do it yourself. Most editors advertise their business on social media. Same with the formatter. You can find Cover designers with a quick google search. Marketers are a bit more difficult to find.

Here are a couple of editors I recommend:

• Ashira Datya
• Deedra Nichole
• Cait Marie
• Partners In Crime (This one offers multiple Services)
• Xterraweb
• Of Course Fae Corps Publishing

I do all of Fae Corps Covers So I do not know who to recommend here. Nor do I know who to recommend on the Marketing. Our Gal is the best.

So The next topic in the group is Paperback/Hardback needs.

This one is simple. For both you need the Pdf of the Manuscript. The Difference is the cover size. You will need a larger cover for Hardback. This seems like a small post, but this week I am still fighting the exhaustion and felt like a simple post might be best.

There are places…Like Bookvault and a few others that offer things like sprayed edges and foiled pages and such if you want to do something really fancy. Those places do cost more for publishing.

So The next topic in the group is publishing platforms

I am always finding new places for publication. I am quite sure that I don’t have a full list. And each one has a different reason for the use. The best way to give you this is to list the sites and tell you my opinion about them.

1. Draft2digital – I use this to get the broadest reach. They have a sister site books2read that is useful to share the link…most of the places are available under one link. I will not use them for print materials (ie paperback and hardbacks) as the quality is terrible.
2. Kdp(Amazon) – They are picky and it is better to use their direct site than to use any of the other platforms to get it to Amazon. They are more likely to refuse it from an outside platform.
3. Google play books – I have yet to actually see sales here.
4. Barnes and nobles – I use this for print only. quality is good.
5. Ingram spark – This is the most aggravating site. their shipping for author copies are the best but they are a pain to set up. If you want to do the indie book stores you have to set wholesale prices at the 55% and it is recommended for you to allow returns. I dislike that. I use this for mostly author copies. especially because they charge 25 per edit you do.
6. Drive thru fiction – this is a new one for me. still learning about it.
7. payhip – direct sales.
8. There’s at least a few more but I don’t know about them.

So The next topic in the group is Epubs

Okay, this seems complicated. It really is not. You need 2-3 programs max to make a decent Epub. All are Freeware. First is LibreOffice. You export the Manuscript after it is polished to an Epub. (It will be needing attention after that but it is minor.) Next you need Sigil. This allows you to open the file.

First go to stylesheet and go down until you see a line that says direction ltr there may be more but that entire line needs to be erased. It will cause the publication issues otherwise. You will now need to add a “Title” between the words title on each page. It really does not matter what you put here…as long as each page has something there. You can go through and adjust the pages by splitting and merging to get it to lay the way you want. Sigil is very user friendly. The other option is Calibre E-book management. There have been occasions when it has helped me clean up the Epub when I could not with Sigil. Make sure you update the TOC before you try to upload it to the publisher…

Do Not attach the cover to your Epub or the PDF unless you are selling it privately. As places like Draft2digital and Amazon both attach the cover and the book will end up with a double cover image.

So The next topic in the group is Front and Back matter.

Okay… Let’s start with the front matter. Every book has certain things. 1. A title Page. 2. A copyright page. 3. when appropriate – a table of contents.
The Title page is fairly basic. It should have the title and the author’s name. You can add details or graphics if you choose but they aren’t necessary. The Copyright page is often simple. Here is what I use:

So The next topic in the group is formatting.

There are a lot of software that are used for formatting and some are good though expensive. I have been using Libre office for a while now.

First priority is to set the page and margins. All the books from Fae Corps Publishing (except for the children’s books ) are 6×9 and have 1″ margins all around. I do that for convenience purposes. The children’s books are 8×8 with the same margins.

After the page specs are set up you choose the font. Many publishers will go with Times New Roman. I personally don’t like it. I go with Book Antigua or Garamond. Both are easy to read and are still slightly different from the other publishers. I enjoy the idea that I am unique in my books. If you choose a different font be sure it is an easy to read one .

Once you have the basics you can put in the other details. this includes setting the pictures you want to use and setting the chapter settings and front and back matter.

I will focus on the front and back matter next week. The fun reason for using this program to do the formatting is that when it is done you can print it to pdf and export it to epub. you will have to fix the epub but it is a step forward. trust me when I say you will need both the epub and the pdf. I have also found having the doc format useful.

I will discuss the epub with you on another day.