26/03/2013 - Self-Publishing: Where to Start?

I want to self-publish. Where do I start?

Great question. When I first looked into publishing, Wattpad recommended Lulu, but I found out that I had to pay to publish with them, and I had no money to do that. I also came across X-Libris, but again, I had to pay to publish, and I couldn’t afford the $1200 fee. I nearly gave up hope, until I came across Smashwords.com. They offer a free eBook publishing service. Ok, it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, but it was better than nothing. Not to mention it distributed my books for me, as well as having a plethora of information on how to get my book ready for public view. A whole year later, however, I have stopped distribution to Kobo. I find their eBook publishing service MUCH better, as it gives me the option to download a .epub file which I can then hand out to people who win contests (if I run them) or who have helped with the publication of the book.

I’ve been hearing about something called Createspace. What is it?

It was really only by chance that I came across Createspace. I was reading a Wattpad story by Wattpadder Explode, who had published her first book, ‘Royal Blood and One Commitment’, using Createspace. I saw, I investigated, and thus my first book was published.

Createspace is a part of Amazon, and they publish anyone’s books, using print-on-demand technology. Like Smashwords.com, they have quite a lot of information to help you get started. There are forums, articles, and helpful hints throughout the site, so you are easily able to publish your book. They even have a cover creator, so if you suck at designing book covers, they can help you out.

It’s so hard! Should I just give up and wait for a traditional publisher to accept my manuscript?

No. Absolutely not. If you are serious about pursuing a career as an author, don’t ever give up. Did you know the first book is always the hardest to publish? It was like that for me. I kept screwing up my formatting for the interior, and my cover was a mess. It seemed like everything I did just made the situation worse, so I enlisted the help of my friend Nick, who was way better at formatting than I was. He managed to fix my manuscript and show me what I was doing wrong so the next time I published a book, I could do it myself. Honestly, once the first one is published, it gets a hell of a lot easier.