traditional publishing – The Fantasy Nook

Thursday Technicalities: Dealing With Rejection

Introduction

I said I was done with my publishing series here, but what discussion on publishing would be complete without a discussion of rejections? While it isn’t on my publishing checklist because it isn’t something you actively need to do, it is something we need to cover. So while it isn’t technically part of the publishing series I finished up last week, it still is in that it deals with publishers, agents, and your work.

Personal Experience Dealing with Rejection

Hi Ariel, I am put in the horrible position of having to write you a rejection for the bootcamp program. You were a strong contender for me, but ultimately there were people more suitable for where I wanted to go. Your work is strong, and I think you know that. You’ve got some great social media presence, and amazon sales and everything, so you are definitely on the path to make a great career out of it. Where I think I might be able to inject some constructive criticism is in the vibrancy and excitement of your writing. There’s something about it that’s a little slow, and for something like a Watty, you need to really blast forward with your stuff; slim down overly descriptive passages and really lean on dialogue to fire the story. If ultimately I had chosen you on the program, that would have been my initial drive; to get you to speed things up – grab your reader and don’t let them go. I read the first few chapters of your book, and could really see a lot of great stuff in it, but it just didn’t grab me. I was able to put it down and look at something else, and, as an author, you never want that to be the case. Honestly, I think you’re going to do well as an author and I think self-publishing on Amazon could well lead you to relative riches, but I don’t think this book in its current state is going to win a Watty. Fantasy is REALLY hard to convince people to pick up for awards like this, and epic fantasy even more so. You need to find something that hooks in the reader and just doesn’t let go, and what you have is a descriptive book that is very good and nice but works better in paper form, where the reader is more invested and has the time to sit in their chair and dedicate an hour or more to it.
I’d love to speak more with you generally. I think your work is promising and genuinely believe you are going to go far. You have the drive and passion (and the words) for success and I can see myself in the future saying to someone ‘oh yeah, I passed her up once for a mentorship program’ and them going ‘what?!?’! 🙂 Good luck with it all!
Crispin O’Toole-Bateman, Author of A Very English Necromancer and 2020 Wattys Bootcamp Mentor

Hi! I just wanted to drop by and say that I really enjoyed Pathway of the Moon, and I’m sorry I wasn’t able to take you on as a mentee. I’m honored you chose to submit to me though. Your first chapter started off great. I was swooning over Leo from the get go. I hope to be able to send you feedback on the chapter that you sent me. If this is something you are interested in, please let me know.
Mikaela Bender, Author of Expiration Date and 2020 Wattys Bootcamp Mentor

I received these from two out of three of the mentors I applied to be mentored by for a writing bootcamp on Wattpad. For those who don’t use Wattpad, it’s a writing platform I frequently use to interact with writers and readers, and I have some of my stuff up for free. I am looking to enter the major contest that Wattpad HQ–the people actually running the organization and website–do, called the Wattys. It’s a big deal on Wattpad and can lead to publishing deals or other connections for winners. These two have already succeeded as Wattpad Stars and/or former Wattys winners, so they’re strong writers and know a thing or two about what it takes to succeed in those areas. These two were really helpful and kind in their rejection letters, and the point of including them is to show you that rejections aren’t really all that scary even if they’re disappointing to us as recipients.

The writing/mentoring bootcamp is separate from the contest and is run by former winners or individuals who are part of paid Wattpad programs, which requires some serious talent and skill to achieve. The quotes above? My rejection “letters” sent via PM from two of the three mentors I applied to. Ultimately, I wasn’t accepted into the program, so I’ll be revising without the help of a mentor.

But this is a good lead in for what we’re talking about. How did I handle this? How should we all as authors deal with rejection, and what’s the best method for dealing with this tough area? People deal with it in lots of ways, some better than others, and that’s why we’re going to discuss it.

Dealing With Rejection is Tough

Let’s just be honest. None of us enjoy being rejected! Whether we get that dreaded rejection letter from the agent we were hoping would take our work on or just waited and waited but never heard back from a publisher, rejection leaves us feeling a bit dejected and very disappointed. I mean, sometimes it stings so bad we want to sit there and cry or down a tub of ice cream.

Now, both rejection letters I got from the mentors I applied to were very kindly worded. Neither said my work was complete trash or even hinted as much. And for the most part, you’re not going to run into that when dealing with rejection. I’ve heard a few stories about things publishers or agents have told authors, but on the whole, usually it’s a very polite no if you get any response at all. However, both of mine were special because they took the time to actually offer feedback! This was my first experience with rejection letters since I’ve done mostly self-publishing or worked with groups I was already established with, but having read a lot from various authors, agents, and others in publishing, this doesn’t happen all that often. You may get a polite letter telling you they aren’t able to take on your work or aren’t interested in it at this time, but feedback is rare and extremely valuable. While the two mentors who responded back with friendly rejections via private messaging aren’t publishers, they’re busy too, and they didn’t have to take the time to offer any constructive feedback. I very much appreciate their doing so.

While I’m obviously disappointed that I didn’t get into the program because I know it would’ve been an awesome learning experience for me and would’ve been very good for the book, I got some direction on where I might want to focus my editing efforts, and I know how to fix the problems pointed out because I’ve got the practical knowledge to do so and have fixed this very problem for other authors. (Funny how we can fix things for other people and be blind to the same issues in our own work!)

What If I Don’t Know How To Fix It?

If you’re not an experienced author dealing with rejection letters, you’re very likely to run into this issue. Either you were given feedback and don’t know what to do with it or you have no feedback and still don’t know why it was rejected. Even experienced authors may run into this as they may not see the problems others do. There are a few ways to deal with this. First of all, quitting is not one of those ways, okay? Quitting means you actually failed. So keep writing, but really put your focus and attention on learning how to improve. One book I very highly recommend that I’ve used to improve my current WIP is Donald Maas’s Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook (there’s a companion book too that I haven’t started, but if it’s anything like the workbook, it’s going to be gold).

How is this work book going to help?

Why do I recommend this? Because Donald Maas was a literary agent for a very long time before he moved to independently publishing his own writing guides. He’s seen thousands of manuscripts in his years as a literary agent, and he knows exactly what the common issues are that result in the rejection of a manuscript. Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could fix those issues before an agent or publisher ever sees your book?

Now, I promise what he offers will help. But it’s also a ton of work! Anyone can do and understand the exercises, but they’re hard. Some of them really force you to think, and many of the exercises have not only changed my perspective on my manuscript and my own characters but have also changed the story’s arc. Expect to make a lot of revisions, add a lot, and maybe remove just as much. But expect that if you do the work, you’ll have a book you can be proud of putting into readers’ hands.

Other Appropriate Responses

Second way of dealing with it? Take it to an avid reader friend. If you don’t have one, try asking some other writers who are more experienced than you. You should already have a connection with whoever you choose to ask, just to clarify, but ask. They might not have time, but you never know! They’ll probably see things you didn’t and might be able to pinpoint the reasons your manuscript is getting rejected.

Final recommendation for dealing with rejection is this… Get an editor if you haven’t already. Seriously. This might sound like a plug for myself and other editors since I’m a freelance editor myself, but we’re not recommending this because we get paid for it. We’re recommending it because it’s indispensable. Authors who have their own personal editors are often first in line to corroborate this. It’s important, so don’t ignore it. If you don’t have the money for it, see if you can at least get a critique partner who’s got strong skills in areas of writing where you know you struggle.

What if I’m Still Rejected After All That?

But Ariel, you might say, I’ve done the work and even had an editor take a look, but the book’s still being rejected. Well, there are of course any number of reasons this might happen, but if you’ve got a really strong, well-crafted story, chances are high you’re just not a good fit for that individual or that publisher. It’s still tough to take the rejection, but don’t give up. Someone out there will want the story, and if they don’t, self-publishing is always an option. Plenty of big name authors started out that way and ended up with publishing deals later, so don’t lose heart. Accept the situation with grace and keep working at it.

Conclusion

My hope here is that you’ve realized that rejection isn’t as scary as it seems. Yes, it’s disappointing and sometimes hurts a bit. But it only means you have more work to do or that your piece wasn’t a good fit for that individual or publisher. We’re not all well-matched with every person we meet, and we shouldn’t expect our stories to be any different. What one publisher thinks is trash and rejects could end up being a best seller with another publisher.

Keep a positive attitude, use the feedback you get if you’re lucky enough to receive that from whoever you submitted work to, and keep working at it. No one promised this would be easy or that you wouldn’t fail. No one promised your work would be ready for publication as soon as you thought it was ready to go and mailed it out. No one promised everyone would want it. But I can promise you this. If you respond to it properly and with a good attitude, your work and you yourself will be better for it.

So when you get those rejection letters, put a smile on your face, keep that letter to remind you of where you’ve been, and turn your face to the future where you will be better than you were the day you got that letter. That makes the difference between a successful learning experience and a failure, not whether or not the publisher or agent accepted you.

Thursday Technicalities: Traditional Publishing

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Introduction

This will be the final section in the publishing series I’ve been doing. Next week, we’ll be moving on to another topic. Last week was on indie publishing, and this week, we’re going to discuss traditional publishing. This will be a slightly shorter post since the application process and package is often not all that different from indie publishing packages. But the rules for submitting that same material are a little different, usually. So let’s get into it!

Rules for Submitting Manuscripts

For most traditional publishers, they won’t accept unsolicited manuscripts. This just means that, unless they’re running a special period for you to send in your manuscript directly, you’ll need an agent. Some indie presses may also want you to go through an agent, but they’re not as particular about this all the time, which makes it important to read through their website and find out if they actually accept manuscripts unsolicited.

But with a traditional publisher, expect to need an agent unless there’s a note that they’ll accept unsolicited manuscripts. If you don’t do this, your manuscript will be consigned to the trash pile. They’ve got too many manuscripts as it is without spending time on people who won’t follow guidelines. If their website doesn’t say either way and you really, really want to take a shot with them, your best bet is to look to see if there’s a way to contact them and ask what they expect for submissions. Politely inquire if there is a way you can submit your manuscript or if you need an agent to do so. Some of the smaller publishing companies might be open to it. Bigger ones like Tor or Random House? Probably not. But those bigger companies are usually clearer on what they expect.

Don’t Be Cute or Fancy

Rule two? Don’t try to be cute or fancy. This is like applying for a job in some respects. Sending your cover letter or other documents on hand-designed stationary or any of the other weird things people have done with cover letters or other application papers is a no. Just don’t do it. It does not make you look good, it will make them laugh (but not in a nice way), and you will most likely be rejected. Tasteful and professional is the way to go. Let your manuscript speak for itself and don’t give them a bad impression before they even read the piece.

Reasons to Choose Traditional Publishing

There’s no doubt about it that traditional publishing, if you can establish yourself, goes a long way. You get editors, cover designers, and marketing plus royalties (or an advance, depending on how they pay). Plus, even though indie and self-publishing are perfectly valid ways of publishing, people still give traditionally published authors more weight. That last reason to choose this route has gradually been shifting with the success authors have had going it alone with self-publishing, but there’s still a bit of a stigma among those who don’t know much or anything about publishing or the writing industry, so there’s a chance the readers you want to reach are more likely to pick a book up if it’s in Barnes and Noble, not just Amazon. While there are ways to achieve that if you’re a self-published or indie author, being traditionally published is definitely easier.

Reasons Traditional Publishing Might Not Be Your Best Option

One trend in traditional publishing that tends to be a bit of an issue at times is the lack of proper editing. The quality of editors has gone drastically downhill, partially because the demand for them has been higher than the number of editors who learned from other seasoned editors. When it comes to editing, you learn by doing and by working with editors who know the craft well, whether through self-paced classes or books from those editors or by actually working side-by-side with them. Unfortunately, when you don’t have enough editors who do that, then you have an issue with quality of edits performed on books.

The other problem that I’ve heard traditionally published authors complain about is that editors don’t really give their book the attention it needs for one reason or another. Many end up getting a freelance editor to go through it before they even submit to a publisher because they want it to be ready for print before the publisher even works on it.

Why? Because while some authors get really great editors, a trend that has become an issue in traditional publishing is looking to see if the manuscript can be published as is. If it can, they put it to print with minimal editing or with sub-par edits. If it can’t, it often gets tossed unless the author is already established. This isn’t true of every publisher that’s traditional, but it’s a disturbing trend, and more disturbing when you start reading that even some established authors are finding this happening in their work.

Issues with Control and Involvement in the Process

So be aware of that issue. The other reason it might not be for you is that you have very little control over the process with a publisher. With indie and small publishers, you may find you have some control over things or that they’re more open to your suggestions. Not so much with big publishers and traditional publishing in general. You’ll get paid royalties or an advance, but until you’re well established, you won’t get paid big sums of money for the book, typically, because the publisher won’t invest if they’re not sure it can sell. This may also mean that marketing for your book isn’t as strong as it could be.

Conclusion

As with anything, traditional publishing has its pros and cons. Nothing is ever completely perfect, so you have to evaluate which options available will work best for you. Once you find that option, go for it! Expect to be rejected a lot with traditional publishing, but don’t give up on it. If they give you any feedback in their rejection letter, then use it to improve. Otherwise, keep your chin up and keep trying. In the meantime, don’t stop writing while you wait! Writing is one of those skills where you can only improve by doing, so keep learning and practicing no matter how many rejection letters you get.

If you really want to make a career out of it, it is possible, but you’re going to have to really work to stand out head and shoulders above every other hopeful, author wanabee. While the odds aren’t as low as people sometimes act like they are, they still aren’t high for you making it. So never stop learning and improving and honing your craft. That’s your best shot at making this work.

Thursday Technicalities: Marketing #1

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Introduction

Marketing is a really broad topic. If any of you have ever done a Google search on tips and tricks regarding this topic, then you know the results seem to be endless. Everyone has a different opinion. My goal here, as it usual, is not to give you my opinion, primarily, but to offer you the options and give both the upsides and the downsides of both.

But because the topic of marketing is so vast, I’m going to break it down, and we’ll have a few posts on the issue. Today’s is going to center around the issue of building your email list and fan base. We’ll have some discussions about social media in a later post, and you can also see what I have to say about Pinterest now if you’re interested in starting in on that right away.

An Indisputable Fact About marketing

Here’s the one thing that will always be true about marketing. It will go hand-in-hand with publishing no matter what you choose to do. I don’t care if you’re indie-publishing with Amazon or going through a small publisher or even going with a big brand publishing company. Marketing is a must. Now, depending on what route you take, you may not need to do a lot of your own marketing. But as an author, you are always going to be interacting with fans, old and new, and striving to increase the visibility your book has.

If you rely on a company to do it all for you, you’re not going to do as well as you would pitching in. After all, you’re the writer, and people who are fans of your work want to talk to you, not your publisher. So you have to know about marketing, which is why we’re talking about it in regards to publishing.

A Launching Point

Everyone needs a launching point as an author. If you’ve been doing this for a while, you’ve already found and used yours. You’re moving on to finding new and better ways to do things. But if you’re new… Well, chances are you’re feeling overwhelmed and have no idea where to start. Even if you’re not new, there’s a chance you’ve overlooked this crucial launching point for authors in marketing.

To those who are new, let me just say… Take a deep breath. You’re going to be fine. You’ll make mistakes along the way, but that’s fine. We all have and still do. You’ll have to if you want to figure out what works. The good news is, in this day and age, there are lots of people who have done it before you and have figured out what works. And those people have an easy avenue to share about it online. You wouldn’t be reading this if we didn’t.

So, what is the starting point? In marketing, your starting point should be an email list. Social media is fine and all, but you don’t control that. If you’re locked out of the account for some reason and can’t get in, you’re not going to be able to engage with your audience there. The same is not the case for an email list. You own that, and you can send content to subscribers at any time. As long as you’re not doing anything sketchy or illegal, you won’t have to worry about being shut down.

As such, this is your starting point.

How Does Marketing Work With An Email List?

Glad you asked! For authors, there are lots of choices for marketing to an email list and for marketing to potential subscribers. The thing that seems to work the best for me is to offer free content of some sort or to give away a coupon that discounts one of your books (if you have your own website and a connected store).

Attracting New Subscribers

This is the concept of having a lead magnet. You have to give something to get something. In this case, no one wants to give up their email address if they’re not getting anything useful in return. The possibilities for a lead magnet are endless. I’ve offered coupons (as I mentioned earlier), completed short stories that are only available free to new subscribers, and free previews (the first few chapters) of books. Sometimes, I’ll offer both the free preview of a book and a coupon to go with that book, but it all depends on how I’m doing things at any given time.

If you haven’t started an email list yet, your lead magnet and choosing a platform to use for the mailing list is your first priority. You don’t have any subscribers yet, so you’re not going to be too worried about what content to send. But, once you start getting subscribers, content is a concern. So, let’s chat about that next.

Marketing to Current Subscribers

This one’s a little more work. A lead magnet is done once you have it up. You do the work up front to make it the absolute best it can be regardless of what you’re going to offer. But once the work is done, it’s done, and you don’t have to repeat it.

Marketing to the subscribers you have is harder. The goal you have is to make sure that you know your audience. Who are you trying to talk to?

Let me give you an example. I’ve talked before about who this blog is aimed towards, but for those who weren’t with me for that post, I’ll review. My goal is to provide writers with content that is professional and coming from a position of expertise. If I don’t know something, I go research it before I decide to talk about it. I make sure I know what I’m talking about.

But, I also target readers. I’m an author and a freelance editor, so my goal is to not only establish my credibility as an expert in my field but to also give the readers in the crowd something they can enjoy. That’s why I do book reviews. It’s my way of sharing books I love with other readers. At the end of the day, I’m an author and editor, yes, but I was a reader first, and so I like connecting with my readers and with others who just enjoy a good book like I do.

I take that same approach when dealing with my newsletter. The content targets both my readers and my writers. You, if you figure out who your target audience is, can do the same thing. And your goal with your lead magnet is to make sure that free or discounted content attracts people who will actually want to look at your emails.

Why Does Target Audience Matter?

Okay, story time. When I first started my newsletter and got my lead magnet set up on StoryOrigin to start attracting newsletter subscribers, I offered a short story for free. And I got a lot of subscribers. But here’s the problem… I was losing five or six every time I sent out a newsletter.

My newsletter only goes out once a month right now because, a) that’s all I can manage and b) if my audience is anything like me, once a month is fine but more than that is a nuisance in an already full inbox. I tend to unsubscribe if I’m getting emails every day or every week, and I’m less likely to buy anything from someone I feel is spamming me with content. So, I just don’t do that.

But, apparently, for the people I was attracting to my audience, one email was too much. Now, there will always be people who sign up just to get the content you’re giving away and then unsubscribe, which is why I prefer to offer coupons or discounts instead. And there will always be people who sign up and, despite your best efforts, seem to expect something from the newsletter that you never advertised. It’s good for those people to go so your list isn’t cluttered with people who have zero interest in your content.

Avoiding Freeloaders and Zero Interest Subscribers

If you’re filling your list with people who just want free stuff and have zero interest in what you have to offer, then the moment you send a newsletter that talks about a new release or markets any of your products to them, you’ll lose them. I’ve watched this happen with my newsletter before, and it’s not only frustrating, it’s disheartening. You can’t stop it from happening entirely, but gear your reader magnet or lead magnet toward those who have an interest in what you have to say.

That’s why it’s crucial you take the time to figure out your target audience and how you want to approach marketing. Your marketing strategy will be very different if you’re trying to establish expertise in your field versus trying to entertain your audience.

Now What?

So now you know why you should be building an email list and some strategies for making the process smoother. But now what? Where do you go? What email providers are best? Can you do it for free?

No one platform ever fits every person. As a result, I can’t tell you which platform you’ll like best. Usually, you can start a free account and have what you need to get started. Therefore, as long as there’s an option to export your list of emails if you choose, you can try something else and find what works.

I’ve chosen to go with MailChimp. It integrates with my website’s store and other platforms well, and I don’t have to pay to get that feature. Since I don’t pay, I can say that it’s a little limited on what it can do at times. I can automate welcome emails and organize the email list as I wish, but I can’t schedule emails for future dates. Instead, I write the email, save it, and manually send later. A little inconvenient, but it gives a lot of features that other platforms don’t always give, so no complaints here.

Options for Integrating Your Email Subscription Provider with Lead Magnet Sites

On this one, I also found that MailChimp is easier to find integration info for. However, the two sites I use for lead magnets do support other email list sites. I’ve liked working with StoryOrigin best for gaining new subscribers with lead magnets. They seem to have more options for joining promotions with those lead magnets than BookFunnel. However, BookFunnel also has options and has more ways to control the delivery of ARC copies than StoryOrigin does. However, you do have to pay a monthly (or annual) subscription fee. So if you’re looking for free, StoryOrigin offers quite a lot for being free software.

Conclusion

Well, that’s all on marketing for this week. Next week, we’ll go into some other areas of marketing that you’ll need to give your book its best shot at publication. I look forward to having you all join me!

Thursday Technicalities – Cover Designers and Your Cover

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Okay, this won’t be a terribly long post since the only covers I tend to do are the artistic, silhouette-style covers you see on some of the re-covered classics. You know, the ones with the flowy, decorative fonts and more of a focus on shapes and color than fancy Photoshop skills. So I’m not really the person to talk to if you want to a lot about cover design like you see on most books. And that’s not the focus of this blog anyway.

But, if you’re an author, you do have to know how to handle your cover. It’s the very first thing a reader sees, and readers do, unfortunately, judge a book by the cover. This can be turned to your advantage, but only if you’ve gotten a designer who designs or have yourself learned to design cover art that’s a match with the genre and the feel of the book. If you haven’t… Well, your cover may send the wrong message.

The main things you need to know about cover art are as follows:

Designers are not one-size fits all.
You must own the image rights.
You want the cover to fit the genre: the goal is not to necessarily stand out but to fit in while giving readers a general idea of what your story is about.

Designers Are Not One Size Fits All

This is pretty straightforward. Not every designer will be a match for your project. Make sure you do your research. Look at what they design and the artwork they’ve done for other covers. If you can, talk to people that have purchased for them or read reviews left on their work. Ask for samples.

Most designers have a style they stick to. Their covers are going to feel somewhat similar just as paintings from a particular artist will feel similar when you look at them. A Van Gogh, for example, looks far different than a Leonardo Da Vinci. We can pick up on those styles of each artist and differentiate between the two. It’s similar for a designer. You can tell if someone’s being honest about the work they’ve done by looking for those similarities in the designs. If their work is all over or has some designs that are way, way different than anything else in their portfolio, be careful about it. They may be using other people’s art. Just be smart, basically. Do your research and take your time because your cover can really do a lot for the book.

You Must Own Image Rights

I don’t care what images your designer uses, you need image rights. If they create the piece entirely from scratch, which some do, then you get the rights when the artist is paid and gives you permission to use the art they created for the cover as they created it. But this means you need a piece that, from font to background image, needs to be entirely 100% owned by the artist. Otherwise, things get trickier.

If your artist didn’t create the image and the font 100% on their own, you need to own rights to images for use in that way. Places like Unsplash, Pixabay, and Pexels that offer free stock photos with Creative Commons zero licenses (use them basically for anything with no attribution) aren’t reliable. There have been issues I’ve seen occur in groups where artists used their images only to discover that the image was originally not the poster’s image and, as a result, the artist was in trouble for copyright infringement. It’s serious, guys. Don’t use these sites. Invest in a subscription for a year to a place like Envato Elements or buy individual stock photos from places like Shutterstock or Adobe Photoshop if you’re not going to require your artist to do the work to get images that you’ll have rights to using in your cover. Same deal for the fonts. If you’re in doubt on the fonts on what you can use it for, ask the designer. Free for commercial use may not always extend to ebooks or covers (As dumb as it is), so make sure you check with the person who’s listed as the creator. At least that way, with a written paper trail, you can say you did your due diligence to make sure you weren’t infringing on copyright.

A Cover That Fits the Genre

Lastly, make sure your cover will fit the genre. Make sure your designer does good work within your genre too before hiring them. You aren’t looking for something that will be super unique. Only something that draws the reader’s eye and gets them to click on the blurb. And, ideally, you want those people drawn in to be your type of reader. If you write dark romance, you probably aren’t too focused on drawing in fantasy readers unless your dark romance is set on another planet with elves and dwarves. Same goes for the reverse. I, as a speculative fiction writer, am trying to draw in speculative fiction readers with my cover not readers looking for a light, feel-good romance or some other genre.

So it’s important that your cover fits the genre and then, if you can, try to incorporate some aspect of the book. It can be a vague representation, but having a little bit of something to give your readers a general idea of what the book will be about helps with marketing, so don’t ignore the boost it can give your book.

Conclusion

That’s all for today, everyone! I hope this has been helpful to you. See you next week on Thursday Technicalities to discuss more topics from our current discussion on publishing preparation. Stay safe with all of the craziness currently going on with this pandemic. Until next time!

Thursday Technicalities: Editing and Formatting

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Last week, I put up a post on publishing tips and tricks. It was an overview of the most important things to do before your publication date along with some tips on them. Well, now we’re going to go through them one at a time and talk about them in more detail. Today, we’re talking about editing and formatting!

Editing and formatting are two of my favorite parts of the publishing prep process. I know they’re probably not most people’s, but they are mine. And as a freelance editor and editorial designer (interior book designers/editorial designers make the actual book pages between the cover pages look pretty), I’d be pretty miserable if I didn’t! So this is one of my favorite subjects to talk about besides actual writing topics. I’m sure it shows as this is a bit long. However, there’s a lot to cover. I’ve done my best to ensure it’s all useful.

This week, we’re going to do something a little different format wise. Depending on what you guys think, maybe I’ll do these a little more often. But for today, I decided to record the discussion about this instead of writing it out! It’s on YouTube, but I’m embedding it here to make it easy for you guys to view it. If for some reason it won’t load, you can also access it here.

Let me know in the comments if you prefer this format, the usual blog post, or both! If you guys have any questions for me regarding editing and formatting or even about other areas of writing and publishing, feel free to ask! I’m happy to answer the questions or to save them for my next video/post if I’m going to be discussing the topic soon anyway.

Thursday Technicalities – Publishing Preparation

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Introduction to Publishing

Switching gears, we’re going to talk about publishing. Today, we’ll go over the things you need to take care of in order to get your book and its launch prepared for your publication date. There’s a lot to consider and a lot to do, so getting started roughly six months in advance is generally a good idea, especially if you don’t have a lot of extra time to work on things. Let’s dive in.

Publishing Checklist

Item #1: Editing, Formatting, and Proofreading

So, you have your book written, but now what? Before you can publish it, assuming you want it to have its best chance at getting into the hands of your intended audience and doing well, you need to have it edited professionally.

Yes, professionally. Sure, you can self-edit, but here’s the thing. You’re not going to as good a job as someone else (assuming that person knows what they’re doing or is at the same level as you are). Why? Because while you can (and should) take the time to edit your own work, you will always have a certain level of blindness on your own work. As an editor myself, I can attest to this. Editing other people’s work not only takes less time but also goes better. I catch more because, even if I’m enjoying the story, I see all the problems too. The characters aren’t my characters, and the story isn’t my story. So I’m able to keep perspective. We’ll talk more about what you should expect to pay an editor and why you should be willing to pay those rates.

Second, in conjunction with professional editing, you want to either do the formatting yourself or pay someone to do it. If you’re not design oriented, you’ll want to hire someone to do it for the paperback at the very least. Ebook is stricter on what it does and doesn’t allow due to what the ereaders and their programs are able to read. I have an entire post dedicated to ebook formatting if you’re interested in doing it yourself. You can read it here.

Finally, do a last proofread, even if you had a professional editor go over it. This will help you ensure you caught as much as possible. If there were typos, spelling errors, or grammar mistakes, then this would be the time to catch them.

Checklist Item #2: Book Cover

Really, you can have this done whenever, but do know that in order to have the paperback cover copy done, you need to know your page count using the proper page size (based on the trim size you chose through your publishing platform). Hire a designer that has examples of work in your genre. Just because a designer can do a cover doesn’t mean you’ll get an eye-catching one. If they don’t do covers in your genre, then hiring them may not be the best option.

To have one made, make sure that you’ve done a few things.

First and foremost to know with this part of publishing. You need to make sure you have or make sure your designer uses images you have the license for. So no Unsplash, Pixabay, Pexels, or any other free and “creative commons zero” license sites. Yes, they’re free. But you’re highly likely to end up infringing on copyright because these sites do not vet their artists well.

People can post anything and claim it as theirs. There have been issues on these sites with stolen artwork. If the individual doesn’t own it, they don’t have a license. Ergo, neither do you. Even if they have a license, they can’t confer that on you if they’re not the original owner. The same thing goes for fonts, though those ones can be trickier because free for commercial use might not mean free for ebook and print covers (dumb, I know, but it is how it is).

If you insist on using sites that offer free fonts, images, and so on, then mitigate some of your risk by getting in touch with the artist and asking them to confirm ownership (on the image sites) and the rights you have to use it. That way, at least, you can say you did do your due diligence. With fonts, get in touch with the font creator and ask them what you’re allowed to use it for. Tell them what you want to use it for and ask if the license covers it. If not, sometimes they’re willing to negotiate a price for a license if you ask nicely.

Point is, never ever assume that sites with no fees and free images are actually okay to use. If you don’t want any risks, Envato Elements is a good option. It’s a year’s subscription for around 160-200 USD, and you can download as many images, fonts, and other things on their site as you need to. The only thing is, you need to license each download to a specific project, and you can’t keep any unused (or used) images after the subscription expires. Read the instructions for licensing the images carefully though. They’ve got some rules you need to follow to make sure they’re properly licensed for your use.

Checklist Item #3: ARC Team

Next up, you want to gather your ARC (Advanced Review Copy) team. These people, ideally, should be ones who are interested in your genre and have some or all of the characteristics of your ideal reader. When asking for ARC readers, you should make sure you provide the blurb of the book, links for them to go look at the book (if it’s available), and any information on who the intended audience is and what they can expect. Then ask those interested to get in touch if they’ve got questions or want to participate.

Be clear on when the review is due. Give readers enough time to go through the book (I’d give about a month if possible), but tell them the review needs to be in by the deadline agreed on. You can’t force them to review, but if you agree on a date that will work for each individual, you’ll get the reviews by that time most of the time. Even if not, you know when you should be following up with them if you need to. Sometimes this will be necessary. People forget or get behind, and they fail to communicate. So it’s best if you both agree on when you should follow up if there’s no review.

Checklist Item #4: Marketing

This one is one of the trickier parts of publishing, and I could discuss a lot of different options. But I’ll go over some marketing strategies and techniques in more detail in later posts. For now, you should know that you should be utilizing the various outlets available to you.

Social media and Pinterest are free exposure and should be used. It’s not an instant thing though. You need to be active on your social media and Pinterest accounts long before pushing your work . If you aren’t, you won’t have the connections you need with readers and other writers to really make marketing work.

When it comes to publishing, your connections with other writers and reviewers is key. Those you connect with are valuable resources at launch point. It’s a long road to launch, and it would be sad if the book failed from lacking exposure. Your connections give you people to go to when you need people to review the book, share it, and help you out with blog tours should you choose to do that.

Another area of marketing for your upcoming publication is to share it with your newsletter subscribers and on your own blog. Again, however, this only works well if you have an established readership on your blog and with your newsletter.

It does no good if it goes out to people who only subscribed for free stuff and then ditch as soon as you try to “sell” them anything. No matter how nicely you put it, if you’re trying to get them to consider buying something, they’re going to jump ship. However, if your readership is interested in your work, free or otherwise, then you’ll find more success here.

Checklist Item #5: Publishing

Finally, we’re to publishing. If you’re using Amazon, know that you will need to change your browse categories after it’s live (pre-order or actually live) on the site. The options in Amazon’s KDP setup for ebooks and paperbacks represent only 25% of the available categories. However, they’re the most competitive categories available. You’ll need to do research to figure out what categories are less competitive that your book can fit into.

To illustrate how important this is, your categories will make the difference between needing to sell thousands of copies a day to reach bestseller status and needing to sell somewhere between 30 and 40 a day to reach that. For doing this research, I recommend using Publisher Rocket’s free tool for calculating how many copies a day you need to make it into #1 Bestseller category as well as the article they have on changing categories.

Once you’ve gotten your browse categories fixed, it’s time to let people know that your book is available for sale and that your ARC readers can provide reviews any time they’re ready (as long as it’s before the agreed upon deadlines).

Make sure people know not to buy the book until you’ve gotten those categories updated. Any sales you make before go to the generic categories you chose and don’t help your rankings at all. So, make sure you let people know to wait on buying or reviewing until you have those updated if you want the reviews and sales to count.

Conclusion

That’s it for this post! I know it’s been quite long, but I hope it’s been useful. Feel free to ask questions if you have them. I’ll go more detail on some of these topics in the upcoming weeks. Thanks for reading!