Welcome to the first of a series of posts about sites, tools, techniques, and probably even foods that I've found useful while writing. A number of people have asked about how I do what I do (not that I do terribly much), so I've collected a few of the things that have served me best in my writing journey. Hopefully, you can get some good use out of this stuff too!
In an earlier post, I talked about my decision to self-publish Necessaries. I didn't really touch on the how part of it. To be honest, I didn't put a ton of thought into the platform I chose. I'd heard good things about one site in particular echoing around on tumblr, and after glancing at some other awkwardly-designed websites, I gave Blurb a chance.
On Blurb, you can design photo books, ebooks, magazines, and (obvs) trade books like my novel, then publish those directly through the site or make the books available on the Global Retail Network. It's a pretty straight-forward process, and if the help section of the website doesn't get you out of a jam, their customer service department certainly will.
I like lists, so let me lay out the pros and cons of my experience with Blurb.
PROS
- Ridiculously affordable. Let's be real. If you're a writer, you're probably not swimming in a pool of gold coins a la Scrooge McDuck. On Blurb, the software and the publishing system is free... ish. In order to keep your book on the site, though, you have to buy a copy. But considering your copy of the book will probably cost about $7 and there is almost always a 35-40% discount running, you won't be breaking your bank. Once it's on the site, it's there forever (if you want it to be!).
- Decent free book-formatting software. Blurb uses a program called Bookwright for book designing. It's a handy program, though it takes some getting used to (see cons). Once you understand the program, you can make some snazzy, very professional books.
- Access to the Global Retail Network (GRN). This is a huge plus if you want your books distributed as widely as possible. Once you've uploaded your book to Blurb, you can submit it to the GRN, which will make it available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Ebay, anywhere you can think of to get a book. I just Googled myself (hush, you) to see make sure I wasn't making stuff up, and found more people reviewing Necessaries than I previously knew of on different sites. Which is pretty damn cool. The more places you sell your book, the fewer excuses your audience has not to buy it.
- No minimum orders. You get discounts for bigger orders (starting as low as 10 books), but you don't have to buy cases and cases of your book just to have some copies on hand.
- Great customer service. When something goes wrong, real people are there to straighten things out. However, things do go wrong, which leads me to...
Cons
- Things go wrong. Big time. Maybe my wack-a-doo luck has been working against me when it comes to my book, but I've had several BIG printing issues. The very first order I made vanished in the mail, and it looked like I wasn't going to have my books in time for a book fair. It was a panicky time, and though eventually customer service got it sorted out for me and reshipped, I nearly missed my first author event.
- Bookwright can be devastating if you don't watch it very carefully. I had a massive printing issue with the edition of Necessaries I was trying to get on Amazon. I'd made some small changes to formatting after getting some feedback on the first printing, and though I read through several pages to make sure all was well, all was not well when I got the books and discovered a series of out-of-order pages. I think I lost a decade of life in the ensuing panic as I tried to pull the thing off of Amazon. Bookwright is great when it wants to be, but dangerously fickle.
- No editors. This is a given with self-publishing, but you don't have a professional who will look at your book design and OK it for distribution. Printing errors can go unnoticed, weird page designs won't be questioned. Everything about your book and its appearance relies on you.
- Page limit. At least for trade books (paperbacks, hard cover novels, things that aren't picture books), you only have about 400 pages available. That may seem like a big number, but any sci-fi or fantasy writer can tell you it's not. I had to mess around with fonts and margins for a few days in order to get the right number of pages. Your LOTR-style epic isn't going to fit unless your font is so small that it requires a magnifying glass.
- No marketing. Again, another self-publishing given. It's all on you, kid. However, you can purchase advertising on Amazon or Facebook, and those campaigns can be successful if you do your research on running them right.
All in all, I do recommend Blurb, but recommend that you first be very familiar with their Bookwright software, have several friends who are willing to critique your book design, and budget in extra time in case you need to re-order a set of books. I also suggest you hold your horses before submitted to the GRN. Sell or give some copies of your prototype book to your friends and family first. Then, if they find a glaring mistake, you don't have to go through the hell that is trying to strip the screwed up book from Amazon.
Next time, I might try traditional publishing. Or if I do self-publish, I may try going directly through Amazon, because I've heard good things about that system too. How about you? Any writers out there who have used Blurb or another publisher for their books? Tell me about it in the comments!