What To Remember If You Want To Self-Publish
⌛ By Kaylin R. Staten ⌛
Happy #NaNoWriMo! If you’re en route to writing a book this November, I commend you for your efforts and wish you the best on your journey! I have completed the #NaNoWriMo challenge once, in 2017, and I know what an amazing feeling it can be to finish 50,000 words or more!
As many of you know, I have self-published three books, From Granny’s Kitchen, Plastic Cupcakes, and A Broken Bottle of Lovely Longings.
(And just for general knowledge, if you haven’t heard of these projects: From Granny’s Kitchen is a heirloom cookbook that encapsulates stories and recipes from my great-grandmother. Plastic Cupcakes is an aunt-niece children’s counting book that I wrote and released in limited quantities for my niece. A Broken Bottle of Lovely Longings is a book of poetry that really helped me stretch outside of the confines of my comfort zone.)
The Internet has allowed writers to publish their works with more ease than ever. Of course, you can still send a manuscript to a publishing house and go the more traditional route. Self-publishing, however, gives you more control and creative freedom, and there isn’t a cap on how many copies you can produce and sell — provided you have the up-front money to fund the printing of your book.
Here are five things to remember if you decide to self-publish your own works:
Create a timeline and overall master plan.
This is one of my favorite parts, mostly because I am a planner at heart and do this every day as a public relations practitioner. It does pay to have a plan! You can use whichever method works best for you, but I use project pipeline templates in Airtable. They also have a novel writing template that will help you get started, too. This pipeline process allows me to set tangible working deadlines by using the master goals and breaking them up into smaller, more manageable pieces. That includes deadlines for writing, editing, design materials, more editing, packaging all of the items, and going through drafts until the process is complete. That is a very basic pipeline, but it will hopefully get you started!
I may be stating the obvious here, but don’t forget to write! If you’re self-publishing a book, you sometimes get caught up in the process and don’t take time to just write. That is the original reason you wanted to release this work in the first place, so write and edit at a pace that feels natural to you and your plan. Just don’t let the plan control your creativity too much.
Subcontract what you can’t or don’t want to handle.
Chances are, you are a wonderful writer or aspire to publish some type of work someday. That’s why you are reading this in the first place! Know your limits during the self-publishing process. IF you want to handle everything, that’s great. Just know that handling everything means ensuring the manuscript is up to industry standards, layouts, and sizing (both page and font). You will also have to handle the front and back cover, ISBNs, your sales/communications strategies and tactics, making changes to drafts when the company pushes back errors, and more. For example, if designing a book cover isn’t your speciality, then hire someone to do it for you! If you don’t know of anyone, then Google the best ways to find a freelancer for this particular project. Sites like Fiverr, Girlboss, and Daisie can help you find collaborators, set up discovery calls with graphic designers and artists, and give you that peace of mind you crave during the strenuous publishing process. Remember: you are the driver in this situation, and you won’t have the benefit of agents and publishers handling things on your behalf (unless you have an agent and still decide to self-publish, of course!).
Research which platform works best for you.
You can have as much control as you want and need. Some self-publishing companies -- like Amazon, Lulu, Blurb, and more -- allow you to upload your own files. That includes the cover, manuscript, back cover, and other assets. You can also pay a fee to have them handle à la carte services if you don't want to do a certain task.
Be sure to investigate the pricing structures, copyrights, fair use, where you want to distribute your book, and other preferences. I recommend registering your book with the Library of Congress as well, which copyrights your work. Personally, Lulu fits my self-publishing needs and is user friendly for print and eBook works. Here are some of Lulu’s partners for full service, writing tools, editing, cover design, reviews, communities, and educational resources.
Be as organized as possible.
This complements your timeline and plan that I mentioned above. Do what works best for you. When I was planning my novel (still not released, which is a different story), I created a chapter outline out of index cards and pinned them to a bulletin board in my office. It served as a visual reminder to get the work done while also keeping the chapters organized. I also use Asana in conjunction with Airtable and to plan out the outline, make to-do lists, and ensure all goals and objectives are being met in the self-publishing stratosphere. I write the actual manuscript in Scrivener because it has industry-standard templates and can be exported in the formats needed to upload into your self-publishing service.
And just for the record, I’m not being paid to talk about these services. These are ones I use and work really well for my writing and workflows.
Don’t stray from your original vision.
For some of us, it’s challenging to stay on task, especially when the process becomes overwhelming. Just remember why you started and why you wanted to tell this story in the first place. As a perfectionist, I agonized over how the type looked in From Granny’s Kitchen. This project was and still is near and dear to my heart, and I wanted to do right by my Granny. So, cue extra influxes of perfectionism.
Don’t let fear stop you. This is something that I really, REALLY need to work on in terms of releasing more of my writings. It’s uncomfortable sometimes to be vulnerable because you fear being judged for your writing style, what you write, and other factors. It’s strange because I can write press releases and even more personal essays and articles, but the fear of releasing my novel overpowers me with anxiety. If you think self-publishing or releasing your writing in general is daunting, take time to assess why you feel that way. It’s challenging to push past your fears, but it’s important to keep going. And it doesn’t matter, in the end, if you sell one copy or more than one million copies. If you help one person with your storylines, messages, and by self-publishing your work through bouts of anxiety, then you will have succeeded. I’m definitely trying to remember this currently, as I am revisiting my first novel and making the necessary edits to reach the next stage: publishing it (finally)!
Kaylin R. Staten, APR, is an award-winning, accredited public relations practitioner and writer based in Huntington, WV with 18 years of professional communications experience. As CEO and founder of Hourglass Media, she uses her compassionate spirit and expertise to delve into the heart of clients’ stories. She is a recovering perfectionist, mental health advocate, wife, Luke’s mom, cat mom, and Leia Organa aficionado. Connect with Kaylin on LinkedIn.