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The Waning Days of Winter

31 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by Ed Mahoney in Novel, Running

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Ingram Spark, KDP, Marathon Training Program, self publishing

 

winterrun

My week of vacation is waning with the final days of winter.  I know it’s been spring for the last week, but the mountains celebrate seasons on their own time.  Yesterday I ran 15 miles in 50° weather.  Today I ran 17 miles in 40° and pouring rain.  Tomorrow I’ll run 20 miles in 30° and snow.

The free time has been great for my other hobbies as well.  I’ve read a couple of cyber crime books.  I’ve been prepping for a book promotion and fighting with my distributor, Ingram Spark.  Not sure who lost but I ended my Amazon ebook contract with them today and published directly to that venue using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).  Ten times easier and highly recommended.

I have very little good to say about Ingram Spark.  They’ve been a nightmare.  They have zero quality control.  They don’t don’t check to see if retailers have successfully uploaded content from their portal.  They don’t check anything.  Everything is totally self serve.  My experience leaves me finding very little reason to use them for my next novel.  The self publishing tools at Apple and Amazon are significantly better.  KDP even spell checks your manuscript.

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Kindle Edition

22 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by Ed Mahoney in Novel

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Tags

Amazon Kindle, Ingram Spark, Magnolia Cafe, Town Lake

girls-at-trail-of-lights-1

This post details my travails at publishing an electronic book format.  Specifically the Amazon Kindle edition, because based on their marketshare, the .mobi format is all that matters.  I’ll juxtapose this dry material with photos from our Christmas vacation to Austin over the last couple of days.  These two are of the girls at the Austin Trail of Lights from last night.

ellie-with-rachel

I planned to share some of these details to help others publish an ebook.  I held off until I was fully successful.  By fully successful, I mean having a Kindle edition available at Amazon.  This took four weeks from the time my print editions were available.  My ebook was available on the Apple iBooks store immediately, although not without errors.  Apple was my first problem.  Before even describing my issues, I’ll advise you to simply pay an ebook coder to do this for you.  But if you enjoy a technical challenge, by all means, follow my errors.

 

The first problem is there are virtually zero instructions for how to export your ebook.  Ingram Spark is my publisher and they provide two different files with a few instructions scattered throughout the docs.  The tips are in a narrative format rather than a checklist, so it’s easy to miss key instructions.  My book design software is Adobe InDesign, chances are it’s your’s too.  The export routine will provide multiple tabs of export options.  I got through it by reviewing YouTube videos.  The best one, because it tells you tips for the layout design as well, is this 24 minute video.  Trust me, I watched dozens.  It’s one of the few that explains the Adobe export options.  It also tells you how to rasterize your text pages.  It doesn’t say this, but making a photo out of text is a clever trick to get around font license issues.  I had those problems too.

img_1037

You only really need to publish eBooks to Apple and Amazon.  That’s where most are sold. I figured out I had issues with Apple by downloading their free sample.  Ingram Spark doesn’t do much in terms of monitoring errors from distributors.  Turns out my issue wth Amazon was that Ingram Spark lost my contract agreement.  They made me sign four, a print contract, an ebook contract, a specific ebook contract for Apple and another for Amazon – which they lost.  They offer separate contracts for Apple and Amazon because those sites have mature tools for writers to self-publish directly.  I probably should have chosen to work with them directly.  Because I didn’t, it was difficult to get Apple and Amazon to talk to me for support issues.

There’s so many things.  I’m still working out issues on my ebook with other online retailers.  Comment if you have specific questions.  These last two photos are of brunch today at Magnolia Cafe and a run around Town Lake.

 

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Indie Publishing

10 Saturday Dec 2016

Posted by Ed Mahoney in Novel

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Tags

Adobe InDesign, Cyber War I, Ingram Spark, RMFW, self-publish, writing tips

indie

For anyone interested, this is a short primer on self publishing a book.  Made shorter yet, because I undoubtedly skipped a few steps.  All I can relate though is my experience.  I equate self-publishing with acting as your own general contractor on a large home improvement project.  You can hire out any task that a traditional publisher would do for you, or you can choose to do it yourself, or some tasks you can choose to skip.  You don’t need no stinking permit.

My first step was to write a first draft.  This was more than an outline, it was a cover-to-cover story, and it made me confident that I could continue the writing and publishing process.  Near the end of my first draft, I began peppering a writer friend with questions on what my next steps should be.  The key step I missed already was that I should have been participating in a writer’s critique group, eliciting feedback on my manuscript as well as providing others my critiques.  This process not only helps to progress your story, it forms a network of contacts in the industry.  This is something I’ll do earlier on my next book.  In fact, I’m already in one group and plan to start up another.

My next key step was to attend a writer’s conference in Denver, sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers.  This turbo-charged my progress, providing me with invaluable information on both the industry and writing itself.  The cost was in the $500 range, so it was my first real financial commitment, but so worth it.  You can only learn so much googling information online.  There is nothing more powerful than attending sessions with real people and networking.  I  learned here that I needed business cards, which I then purchased for $15.

The business cards led me to license what would become my cover art.  I bought a graphic from Dreamstime for $15, which I later increased my usage rights for $69.  The initial license allowed me to use the graphic for my blog and websites and business cards, as well as 500,000 copies of my book.  This would have been fine but I was nervous that I didn’t fully understand the license terms and increased my digital rights to be safe.  I think many writers spend a few hundred dollars having something original created.  I believe you want your cover art well before you actually publish to use for early marketing.

Marketing should start early.  I could argue that I began to relate my efforts in my blog after my first draft was complete.  That’s something.  I still have not created a website.  I plan to over the Christmas Holidays but I did purchase a couple of URLs for about the price of my business cards.  One for my story title and another for my publishing firm.  You don’t need to establish a publishing firm but I was advised to and did it even though I wasn’t clear I understood its importance.  Turns out it is nice for other steps in the process like registering a limited liability corporation.  Also not necessary but if I make any real money it will be good for financial record keeping.  It cost $35 to register an LLC with the State of Colorado online.

Along with establishing a business entity, you should register with the IRS for an EIN, an employee identification number that is the business equivalent of a social security number.  This isn’t necessary either but again is wise.  The EIN, LLC and publishing firm were all good to have for when I opened up a checking account at the bank.  With these things in hand, I was able to register an account with a publisher.  I went with Ingram Spark.  Their role is essentially a distributor.  You could register directly with Amazon or Apple iBooks.  You will want these financial items in any case as you’ll need to setup an electronic bank transfer for your expenses and royalties with these publisher/distributors.

I took care of these business tasks while my book was with an editor for three or four weeks.  This included spending another $100 plus on ISBN codes.  As an indie publisher, I didn’t need to hire an editor.  I already had my second draft by this time and I was gaining confidence that it was readable.  I am so glad I hired an editor.  My third draft, based on her suggestions, is a thousand times better.  This cost me $800, which was very reasonable for my number of pages.  I could have hired additional editing services, like someone to check for typos or someone to design my cover and book layout before publishing.  I had help from friends on correcting typos.

Sort of wish I’d have paid what is called a book coder to design my book layout.  Might have cost me a few hundred dollars, but I still had to spend money buying a copy of Adobe InDesign.  I’m actually subscribing to an online version for $29 per month.  Having to learn how to use this software was harder than I anticipated.  The really difficult part is not knowing the format expected by publishers.  The print versions were straightforward but designing the eBook took me a full week to get right.  Actually two weeks if I count the time it took to fix an issue I discovered after reading the iBooks sample.  I could write another blog on just that process.  I probably will.  Ping me if you have questions on self-publishing.  Happy to share my experience.

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File Upload

26 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by Ed Mahoney in Novel

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Cyber War I, Ingram Spark

dreamstime_xl_23425046

I became a published author today.  Maybe.  I’m not really sure.  I clicked on some buttons to upload my novel Cyber War I to Ingram Spark.  They claim to have a fully automated publishing process, but the final message on my screen suggested I wait a couple of days to hear back.  That’s funny on multiple levels for me.

A technology theme I emphasize in my story is automation.  Different characters present various points of view.  My personal view is complicated but to be clear, I’m no Luddite.  My objective in the book is to give the topic attention, to gain awareness; because I suspect many people equate automation to robots and consider it a futuristic thing.  My point is it’s already happening.

The other funny angle to this is based on perspective.  Ingram Spark is automated after I performed serious manual book layout design work.  I had to subscribe to Adobe’s InDesign graphic design package, design the layout of all pages in between the covers, and separately design the cover.  None of this was rocket science but it was significantly more technical than formatting pages in Microsoft Word.  My sweetheart editor walked me through designing the layout for my internal pages.  I spent three hours last night and seven hours today working on my cover designs.  One for the ebook, another for the paperback, and yet a third for the hardcover.

I received a couple of error messages after uploading, both related to my covers and not the text.  The error messages were clear enough I was able to fix the issues and resubmit.  Ready for the next phase of publishing when I hear back from them.  Now off to shower before meeting up with a buddy to watch the CU/Utah game at Folsom Field.

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