anthology, Book design, Guest Speakers, Journal, publishing, self-publishing

How to Grow Your Book – Presentation by Sheila Deeth, 20221120

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Go to https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/GROW-YOUR-OWN-BOOK.pptx for Sheila’s Powerpoint presentation on self-publishing with amazon kdp, or read on for notes from her talk.

How is Selfpublishing Like Growing Things?

  • Prepare the soil – create your kdp account. Having a kdp account should simplify claiming your book if you are one of the authors in our anthology too.
  • Prepare your seeds – Write and format your book. Probably you’ll write several different books and choose the one you want to use.
  • Make labels – or in this case, find the things you’ll need to create a book cover.
  • Transplant your seedling – upload your book to kdp
  • Water it and watch it grow – set up sales channels, create your author page, etc.

Prepare the soil (your kdp account)

First you’ll need to have an Amazon account:

Go to amazon.com (or amazon.co.uk) and create one if you don’t already have one.

  • Click on “create your amazon account.”
  • Give them your email address
  • And set up your password
  • You don’t need to give them your credit card unless you’re buying something.
  • You can always remove your credit card after purchases, to stop them storing it (Go to account>payments).

Then collect these things together to create your kdp account:

  • Your country – Your book might be available all over the world, but what country will you be paid in?
    • Your tax information – they have to tell the taxman when they pay you.
    • Your bank information – they need to know where to send the money. (If you’re in the UK, they’ll need international – IBAN and BIC/SWIFT – codes for your bank.)
    • They can’t pay by Paypal. They can pay by check, but only after you’ve earned enough, so you might be waiting forever.
    • They can only pay INTO the account, but you might want to use a separate account just for online stuff, to be extra safe.

Prepare the seeds (your book(s))

Let’s assume you’ve already written and edited the book you want to have published. So now you have a Word doc (doc or docx) on your computer. You can print it out on standard-size paper. But how do you turn it into a 6×9 inch (or any other size of) book?

  • You can pay someone—google book design and you’ll find several companies eager for your money
  • You can DIY, which is what we do to create our own pdf and epub files.
  • You can use KindleCreate, which lets you create the kdp (ebook), epub (another sort of ebook), and/or pdf (print book) FREE with Amazon’s software.
    • Download KindleCreate (google it; it’s FREE). Then install it.
    • Open KindleCreate and start a new project using your doc or docx file.
    • Choose which things you want to have in the contents.
    • Make some fun choices about how to start chapters, format headings, etc.
  • And save.

Kindlecreate has advantages and disadvantages:

  • KindleCreate produces a really nice ebook file from your doc or docx. PLUS, you can edit inside kindle create and fix some of those errors you didn’t notice before, so it’s a good addition to your editing tools.
  • KindleCreate makes a “good enough” pdf file too, but doesn’t give you much control over widows and orphans – pages that have only two lines on them; pages that start with one word at the end of a paragraph,  etc.
  • KindleCreate can’t cope with complicated tables and multiply nested lists in an ebook, so you might need to use something else (Calibre for example) if you’re creating a book of sports analyses.
  • But KindleCreate is FREE and easy to use. You choose.

For more guidance on how to do make your book just using Word, look at these pages on our website:

A book template is a great place to start:

  • Google “kdp book templates”
  • Click on “download templates with sample content”
  • Save the “zip” file somewhere useful
  • “Extract” the file and store its contents somewhere useful
  • Open the “English” directory and choose your book size (e.g. 6×9) from the options available
  • Open the template file.

The book template doesn’t give you everything, but it does give you:

  • The right page size, so you can see how your book will look
  • Preset margins and gutters so you don’t need to guess what they are and how to set them
  • Preset fonts and line-spacing, again taking the guesswork out of it. You can choose your own fonts of course, and you might want larger font sizes and bigger line spacing for, say, a children’s or preschool book.
  • A good idea of what goes where – ISBN, dedication, acknowledgments, contents list, etc.
  • A good idea of where to start a chapter, say in the middle of a page
  • Headers and footers, page numbers etc.

Edit the template to create your book.

  • Story book (or novel) with chapters – easy; just cut and paste your text into the relevant places in the template.
  • Poetry book with images – remember you can use images as background in Word – you can do lots of clever stuff with Word, but remember, images do tend to more around unpredictably.
  • Picture book – Replace the text with your image, then, maybe, add your text in a text box over the image.
  • If you’re going to have a contents page, make sure you update it!
  • Then you save your book.

Word lets you save as pdf, but you should always look at the pdf to see if it looks good. Try to avoid having pages with just two lines of text, or lines with just one word. Follow those links on our website to find out more.

You’ll need an epub (standard) or kpf (from Kindlecreate) to upload to kindle. Word won’t let you save as kindle yet, but Kindlecreate and Calibre are good free programs that take Word docs (or docx) as input and output in ebook format.

Make Labels (Cover Your Book)

Unless you have software for creating pdf files, you won’t be able to create a complete book cover until you start uploading the book. Then Amazon will allow you to use their cover creator.

  • You can use stock images offered by Amazon. (There’s quite a variety, but someone else may use the same image and have an almost identical cover.)
  • You can use stock designs offered by Amazon (but be aware that if it’s not “simple,” it will be very obvious which other books used the same design).
  • You can use your own images. (Often a good idea.)
  • You can add the title to the image first, before uploading it to Amazon (Paint or any other such program will work) or just let Amazon tell you where to put it. Bear in mind, Amazon’s choices may be a little limited.

Before you start making a cover, you need to have:

  • Title (and subtitle, and series, etc)
  • Author name(s)—
    • you can’t change the title or the author(s) after submitting your book, so GET THEM RIGHT!
    • Also, your submission will be rejected by Amazon if the title and author name(s) don’t agree with what you typed on the front page of your book. If the author is Fred Bloggs inside, it must be Fred, not Frederick Bloggs on the cover. If the author are Anne and Elsie inside, they must not be Anne & Elsie outside…
  • An image, or an idea about an image
  • Some thoughts about the design you would like.

See https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/help-2/how-to-research-your-title/ on our website for details about how to choose a good title. It’s not as simple as it seems. For example, unless you’re writing erotica, you probably don’t want a title that brings up lots of erotic novels or images when searched for on Google or Amazon.

  • Search for the title on Google, and be willing to change it – what does it bring up?
  • Search for the title on Amazon – what does it bring up?
  • Make sure your title will attract the readers you want to sell to.
  • Make sure readers looking for similar books have a chance of finding yours.

For the cover image

  • Amazon has lots of free images.
  • Pixabay, Unsplash, Wikimedia etc also have free images (but be sure to check what you’re allowed to do with them).
  • Or you can use your own image.
  • Try to find something that fits the theme of your book.

If you’re using your own image, have it ready before you start the upload. Ideally it should be the same size as the book (e.g. 6×9 inches) and 300dpi, or Amazon will complain that it might not print clearly.

If you’re creating your own pdf cover file, download a template first – Google kdp cover templates.

Plant your Seedling (Upload your book)

You can stop, save, and return later while you’re doing this, as we proved when Sheila’s computer ran out of power while planting “Millworks Framing Life,” our latest anthology, during the meeting! Amazon will ask for the following details:

  • Language (English?) – I’m not sure how you answer if it’s in two languages!
  • Title (and subtitle) – GET IT RIGHT! You can’t change this afterward!
  • Author (and contributor) name(s) – Amazon limits how many names we include, but any contributor can ask them to add the book to their page and Amazon will oblige. (Again, you can’t change this later, so GET THE SPELLINGS RIGHT!)
  • Short description of your book (could be the same as the back cover blurb).
  • Age range (if appropriate).
  • Keywords (e.g. short stories, anthology, space-time physics… Research similar books)

So, what do you do?

  • Go to kdp.amazon.com (or kdp.amazon.co.uk) and log in with your Amazon credentials.
  • If you’ve already set up your kdp account, this will take you to your “dashboard.”
  • Click on the big “CREATE” to add a new book – Buttons change. It may say “Add new ebook,” “Add new hardcover and ebook,” “Add new…” Just read the words and do what makes sense.
    • Or it may lead you to a page that offers to add new ebook, etc.
  • Simplest is to add the ebook first. So choose this and start filling in the information.
  • Click “save and continue,” “next,” or whatever new word they provide at the end of the page.
  • You need to have your files ready for upload (though you can save and come back later).

Upload the kpf or epub file for your kindle book. You can reupload this as many times as you like. If you spot an error before releasing the book, fix it. If you spot an error after releasing the book, simply edit the book and upload the new file… as many times as you want. Just bear in mind that someone may have purchased the “bad” copy.

Amazon processes your file and often makes a list of spellcheck errors. These are worth looking at, just in case you missed anything.

If you have a cover image with the title and author names on it, upload this. Otherwise use their cover creator:

  • They’ll offer you some designs using images from your book, and some with no images. Choose one.
  • Click on the image to change it – you can upload one from your computer or use one of theirs
  • Click on the title to change the font or color.
  • Be ready to click in different places till you work out what helps and what doesn’t. Free software is great, but it always changes, so you have to be ready to experiment.

Remember to preview your book. The previewer is really good and lets you look at how the book will look on a tablet, a phone, and a kindle reader (black and white version), and how it will change when the user changes the orientation, size of font, etc.

  • To get out of the previewer, try to find something that says you approve, or, failing that, something that will take you back to the book description. Free software isn’t always logical.

Back on the description page, they’ll ask if you have an ISBN (see below). You don’t need one for an ebook, but if you have one, be sure to get the publisher’s name correct.

The final step is pricing.

  • You own the rights to your own book.
  • You can distribute it to lots of countries (though it may not sell well, depending on the language).
  • Amazon sets minimum prices (so it gets a profit from each sale).
  • You can choose to receive different percentages, but note, one choice involves their removing the cost of downloading the book before they pay you.
  • Try to set a price that’s not too cheap (or no one will look) and not to expensive (or no one will buy).

When you finish this process for the ebook, Amazon will ask if you want to make a print book too. Say yes. They will set everything up with the same title, authors, book description, etc., saving you lots of effort. Then they’ll ask if you have an ISBN (again). You DO need an ISBN for a print book (it’s an international reference number). But you DON’T need to buy one! (See below)

Then you upload, or make, the cover. If you use the cover creator, you might need to watch for:

  • Does the image appear in the right place? Sometimes it gets magnified or moved and you might need to edit it – e.g. by putting one copy next to another in the same file and reuploading it as a new image (landscape instead of portrait for example) for the print book.
  • Does the text on the spine look right (and not too big)? Sometimes cover creator gives you spine text that Amazon rejects as too big to print on the spine. So… you just have to be patient and redo it.
  • Text size and splits between lines can be annoying, but just experiment. Shift enter lets you break a line without introducing a paragraph break, so that’s helpful. It’s probably best not to let the text go outside Amazon’s predefined boxes or they may reject the cover.
  • Pati says use different font sizes and ideally some different fonts, for visual appeal. Failing on the different fonts, use italics somewhere.

And now it’s time to preview the book again.

  • Make sure you typed the ISBN correctly inside the book. You might want to check the title and author name as well.
  • Make sure all the pages look right.
    • Check headers and footers
    • Check the contents lists the right page numbers
    • Make sure all chapter headings match each other, etc.
  •  Watch out for images that go outside the boundaries (they rejected our submission and we had to fix it).
  • Make sure the text on the cover doesn’t go outside any boundaries (they rejected our Sunday submission on Monday and I fixed it).

Just a note about ISBNs

ISBNs are purchased from Bowker in the US, and from other locations in other countries. They basically have a monopoly, and they charge a fortune, unless you’re rich enough to buy lots at once. If you’re a big publisher, like Amazon, you can get them for peanuts, which is why Amazon will happily give you a FREE ISBN if you don’t have one of your own.

If you use an Amazon ISBN, Amazon is the publisher of record. Stores won’t want to buy the book from Amazon (for obvious reasons) so they’ll only sell your book on commission (you bring them copies; they pay you, say, 60% on each sale). But stores won’t buy your book anyway unless you’re really lucky, so…

If you want stores to buy your book, you might want to publish on, say, Ingramspark. They’ll sell you “cheaper” ISBNS (say around $80 each). Then they will be the publisher of record.

If you want to be the publisher of record, you’ll have to buy your own ISBNs. But then you can publish the same book, with the same ISBN, on Ingram and on kdp, which means you can use Amazon’s cheap prices for your own copies, and let Ingram deal with distribution.

Water the book (and claim it on on your author page)

If you don’t already have an amazon author page, create it as soon as your book releases.

  • From your kdp dashboard, go to “marketing” (probably top right tab). (You can try going straight to https://author.amazon.com/ if you haven’t signed up for kdp. It might work.)
  • Find the button for “author central”
  • Find the button to “manage” your author page.
  • Choose your marketplace (what page are you setting up?) then click on manage.
  • And now, unless you already have books there (you might, if you’re one of our authors), they’ll want you to help them “find” a book that “belongs” to you.
  • Then you can add an author bio, link your blog, add a photo, and do other good stuff.
  • Sheila had an email from Amazon on the Monday asking her to approve several authors—I suspect that’s because they’re trying to add the book. I approved them. Hope it worked.

If we didn’t list you as one of the authors:

  • Click “add books” to add the book to your author page. (Or, if you don’t have a page, click “find book” to create the page.)
  • When it asks you to select your author name from the list of authors for the book, choose “my name isn’t there.”
  • Then look for the “contact us” button—it may be at the side or the bottom of the page.
  • You are contacting them “about a book” and “by email”
  • Give them the book title and ISBN or ASIN
  • Tell them you are one of the authors
  • Ask them to add the book (if you already have a page), or to give you an author page with listing that book.
  • Then wait. They are usually very responsive.
  • BUT… Sheila is not usually very quick to check the library’s email, so PLEASE email admin @ portlandwritersmill . org (remove spaces) to tell her she may need to “approve” you.

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