Tag Archives: how to self-publish

Choosing a Book Cover for “Benefits”

As a self-published author, it’s not only the story inside the book that comes from me. It’s literally everything about the product. Thus, a number of variables had to be considered when choosing a book cover for “Benefits.”

One consideration is color. Not only the color itself, but choice between color or a black & white image. While red remains the best color to catch the eye (hello, stop signs) this cover’s closest approximation would be variations on that, heading into orange territory.

Content of Cover Image

The actual content of the image also plays a significant factor in choosing a book cover. This image is a sidewalk scene on Cole Street in San Francisco. The fictional story in the book takes place in San Francisco, and there are a few scenes in this particular neighborhood, Cole Valley. I felt it was accurate in that sense. Also, it shows some iconic San Francisco-style architecture (bay windows and early 20th century detail), so that it’s fairly obvious what city we’re in. That’s intentional.

Sales Venue for “Benefits”

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Another consideration in choosing a book cover in this digital era is the sales venue. For most self-published books, the online market is really where it’s happening, not in brick and mortar bookstores (unfortunate, but that’s the way it is). So, whatever image you choose must draw the eye on a computer or phone screen, sometimes in a field of many other similar-sized book covers. That’s where a striking image or a color that pops (again, red!) really helps you.

I think the cover I chose for “Benefits” is mid-range in that regard. The image is interesting, but it’s not a hot naked body (it’s true, sex really sells). The awning color attracts the eye, yet it’s not a fire engine.

Cost of “Benefits” Book Cover

For self-publishers, cost is a huge factor. The cost of everything, from having your manuscript professionally edited (typically my highest cost over the course of the four books I’ve published so far) to buying photography or rights to an image for the cover must be considered. So, I took the picture myself and cropped it so that there’s no identifiable faces in the image.

So, basically, the cost of the cover for “Benefits” were my travel costs for a couple of days in San Francisco (I live in Los Angeles). One way was award jet travel, and I had a free place to stay (thank you, cousin Mary). Plus, I not only shot the cover image. I shot video for the “Benefits” book trailer and probably 100 other images to use for publicity purposes.

When you self publish, every day and every dollar counts. I’ve learned this the hard way!

“Kept” Self-Publishing Update #5

Here’s some new info on the book, on the process —

I actually bought and paid for the CreateSpace process. For me, this time, it includes a cover design, cover images, and an interior layout. I also bought the conversion to e-book package, as that is needed.

Many self-pub authors are now eschewing paper books entirely; it’s true that most of the sales of my other two books (Benediction and The Forest Dark) have been e-books. Call me old fashioned. Call me a guy who wants to enter the occasional writing contest (which usually require actual paper books). Call me someone who wants to present one of these books on occasion to others — and there’s nothing like a book with your name on it.

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Why that date? I need about 4 months to put marketing to good use, and that date just happens to be my birthday, so I figured, why not choose that day? Worse things could happen.

So in buying these services I did finalize the book’s copy and sent it off. I also gave my thoughts on the cover design to one of their designers; hoping they come back with something that I love that can also sell books.

The final piece of the plan for this week is putting together the actual detailed marketing calendar, so that all tasks are done well in advance of the launch in March. That’s an unwieldy mess at the moment – the marketing, that is – so I’m looking for ways to make it easier on myself. Our digital world is great, but I find I like things like wall calendars and bulletin boards where I can really visualize a process – so “Kept” marketing might well become a design feature in my Valley Village living room.

Oh and one other thing — trying to figure out when to write Book #4, which is a sequel to Benediction. I think I need a nap before Thanksgiving!

How Self-Publishing is Like the School Bully

images OK so a blog generator came up with this title for me. (Kind of fun, though I rolled my eyes initially.) Deep in the process of self-publishing novel #3, so I figured I’d play along:

He’s big — it does seem everyone has a book in them and is self-publishing it. Here’s a state of the industry report from the beginning of the year.
He’s an enigma. It’s very hard to know just what will find an audience (or “sell”) and what won’t. We know there are popular genres (like romance and fantasy) and one subject American readers never seem to tire of is vampires. So writing a vampire book for young women would seem to be a good strategy, for instance.
It’s possible to beat him. Like the stout bully tripped up by the nimble skinny nerd, there are the occasional insane stories of success. There are authors who wrote/write things like the above-mentioned vampire novel, price them cheaply and reap a huge profit on volume sales. Then, of course, everyone copies the model and it doesn’t work again.
If you get creamed, you still have to go down the hall. In my opinion, this process still beats the traditional model of finding an agent or a publisher and going that route. Plus, if you’ve self-published and have had less than humongously successful results, it might even be less possible to get that traditional book deal on effort #2. Or 3 or 4 or 5 etc.
He might be best friends with your cute, popular sister. You will probably take writing classes and join writer groups and sooner or later someone you know is going to have a huge success in self-publishing. And then, dear writer, you must resist resentment and schadenfreude. You must take the high road and be happy for your friend, and also try to find out if there’s lessons to be learned there.
Complaining about him will get you nowhere. What’s the alternative – traditional publishing? That model seems to work only for the very, very successful author, the household name. Anecdotally I’ve been told by friends who have traditional publishing deals that they are still expected to bankroll their own publicity tours and other marketing. So it’s really difficult all around — see the link up top, the industry report, an industry in flux.
He mocks you incessantly. It seems every day there’s a new “insult” hurled your way – or a new way to market, or a new social media platform to use, or a new place to advertise your book. Kind of like that bully in the hallway you can’t ever really avoid.

There’s one nice thing about school bullies, and that’s that you eventually graduate and leave school. And you move on. With self-publishing, it’s my expectation that the longer you spend doing it, the more likely you’ll figure out the pathways to success. It’s true, however, not everyone has the luxury and time of publishing book after book until finally something clicks.

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Are YOU Cut Out to Be a Self-Published Fiction Writer? Take my quiz.

It’s become such a popular past time, it seems. Everybody’s got a book, just like back in the 1990s, everybody had a screenplay.

Hey, nobody bought any of my screenplays for a million dollars, either. (But– I actually know people who did win this little lottery, it does happen, though very rarely.)

Ready? Dig in, Answer these questions.

Are you the type of person who likes spending hours, alone, every day for likely a year or much more, constructing an internal world?
Would it bother you if this internal world was never appreciated by any other single human being, ever?
Are you the type of person who could then take that project, that world of yours, and totally rewrite it (if necessary) or chuck it if it’s just not working?
Are you the type of person who needs external validation to think you’ve done something worthwhile?
Are you comfortable being pigeonholed into a well-defined (and hopefully popular) genre?
Also, in a general sense, are you the type of person who is proactive, or are you reactive and more comfortable being told what to do or generally directed by someone else, like a boss or a parental figure, etc?
Are you the type of person who can straddle the role of introvert (most writers) as well as the extremely crucial role of self-promotion (generally an extrovert role) with EQUAL ease?
Are you the type of person who relishes creating a platform, likely from scratch, on social media, including things like a personal blog, twitter, facebook, instagram, Pinterest, tumblr, possibly more, with thousands and thousands of followers?
Are you the type of person who is comfortable devising an ongoing marketing plan for your self-published book, a comprehensive plan which involves reviews, readings, interviews, social media posts, YouTube promo videos, Twitter posts, Facebook posts, self-promo blogs, guest blogs for other people, and more, in a campaign which truly never ever ends?
Finally, will you be motivated to write your next great novel even if after all that’s come before (see the above list) only results in a handful of sales? Which don’t even cover the cost of self-publishing the damn book?

So how did you answer? There’s not really a scoring system here – you can pretty much get the gist of what I’m saying – that basically you need to be driven by the desire to write, and get tremendous satisfaction from doing just that, without a guaranteed promise of anything beyond that. Otherwise, don’t go there, save yourself the costs in both time and money, and do something you have a true passion for.

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Self-publishing: How to Decide on the Book Cover . . .

books, books on the shelf

The conventional wisdom says the most important factor in anybody checking out your book prior to making that all-important purchase decision is the cover. I would have to agree with that – it’s as true in the brick-and-mortar bookshop as it is while browsing Amazon or B&N online. But if you’ve made that big decision to self-publish your book, who do you trust your cover to?

Usually it will go one of two ways. Whatever self-publishing service provider you end up choosing – CreateSpace, Lulu, AuthorHouse, etc. – will have options for you, which, of course, increase along with the publishing package price. For instance, the most economical of the packages will probably have the fewest cover options – maybe a few background choices, a few typefaces for the title and your name, perhaps three or so layouts.

Of course, it’s hard for such a cover to look like anything but a template. You don’t want the person considering your work to think that they vaguely remember this cover (because they’ve seen the same design copied over and over) or worse, that it screams cheap product.

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