Congratulations! You’ve written a book!
...now what?
The first thing to do (after celebrating, of course) is to put it down and walk away.
It’s been said that the first draft of anything is crap. I don’t agree with that — my first drafts are often fairly close to my final drafts — but anything of significant size is going to need significant revision as well. So the first step is to put it aside for long enough that you can forget what you meant enough that you can read what you actually wrote.
[If you haven’t actually written the book yet, check out part 1 - what to write]
Reworking the draft
I’m one of those people who is really good at finding mistakes in writing. Errant apostrophes irritate me. But there are chapters in my computer science book that I went over probably a dozen times and made little improvements each and every time.
Once the draft is as good as you can make it — then you need somebody else to look at it. Depending on the intended purpose and what “good enough” looks like for you, this may or may not be a professional editor. For my textbook, because this is technical material, I had it reviewed by both a technical editor and a copyeditor. (Neither were professionals — I didn’t have that kind of money to spend — but they didn’t actually need to be). Note that even after all that, I still found the odd typo. One of the nice things about self-publishing is that you don’t have to let typos aggravate you; unless you sell enough to get into offset printing (which we’ll cover in a later installment of this series), your books will be printed on demand, so it’s easy to fix small issues almost immediately.
One thing that helps is reading your book in a different format than you wrote it in. I do my editing with a pen on a printout of the book, and then (when I’m doing print copies) do a last sanity check on an actual proof copy before the book is released.
Don’t judge a book...
Aside from the content, the most important thing you’ll need is a good cover. We’ve all heard the expression “don’t judge a book by its cover”...but let’s be honest, everybody does. I was surprised to learn that there are people who will purchase a book on the cover alone, without knowing anything else about it, but if the cover is boring most people won’t bother looking at the details. The cover needs to clearly convey exactly what the book is about. If your slasher novel has a cover that makes it look like a preteen romance, your intended buyers won’t find it and your actual buyers will likely be very unhappy! Cover prices can range from $50 for an ebook-only, premade cover (with your title and author name added) up through hundreds of dollars for a custom cover, or even more if you need custom artwork or photography rather than stock art. I happen to be married to a graphic designer who draws custom artwork for my books, but if you’re not in that happy situation then (after editing) this will be the largest item to budget for.
As a side note, if you plan to make your book available in multiple formats, you’ll need multiple cover files (and a cover designer will know how to handle this). For my computer book, I have one file for the kindle edition, one for the paperback, and one for the hardcover; the content is identical but the width of the spine varies. The paperback and hardcover will also have differing ISBNs.
ISBNs
Speaking of ISBNs — do you need them?
If you only plan to sell ebooks, then no, you don’t. Amazon will assign your kindle book an ASIN, the other booksellers will give it their version, and you’re good to go.
If you plan to sell your print book through Amazon only, then it’s optional. Amazon will provide one that will work only with them. This makes them the publisher of record.
I have my books printed several places (more on that later) and I want control, so I have my own ISBNs. Where to get these depends on where you live. In the US, they’re purchased only from Bowker and cost $125 for one (although there are discounts available), $295 for ten, or $575 for 100. Prices drop dramatically from there (to barely over a dollar each), but unless you’re an actual publisher you’re unlikely to need a thousand at a time. Generally you need an ISBN for each format and edition of a book. My computer science book is available in ebook, paperback, and hardcover; giving the ebook an ISBN was optional but I needed one for each of the other formats. Then volume two will need its own set of ISBNs, and so on. I ended up splurging on a 100-pack because it costs less then two sets of 20 and I expect to need more than ten within a few years, but it’s definitely an expense (given my resources in the first two areas, this was my largest monetary expense in preparing for publication). Be aware that they’re locked to whoever purchases them; even if I was to give one of my ISBNs to someone else, that listing would still be locked to me.
Bowker also sells barcodes, but you don’t need to purchase one from them; there are sites that will generate them for free. You want a barcode on your book; it allows scanners at the bookstore to read the price. And we all want to be in bookstores, don’t we?
Next time: getting ready to make your book available.