Getting Started as a Self-Published Author

When I started out on my journey to self-publishing, I had no idea where to even begin, other than the word Amazon. A friend told me about his son's girlfriend who had been using Amazon to publish her books, and that she was making great money at it. This was around the holidays last year, so with the hubbub of family and friends, and with our work schedules, my friend and I never could seem to connect again to talk about it, so I decided to do a little snooping on my own...this was in late January, and Surrogate was almost finished, so I was getting a little anxious as to what I would do with it once the finished product was before me.

The first thing I did was go to www.createspace.com - an affiliate of Amazon. It's their print-on-demand division. We'll get to their E-book section in a moment. So, while sitting here looking at this application of sorts, the first thing I noticed is how simple it all looked - everything is so user-friendly, and that's a huge help when you have no idea what you're doing. So, I filled in the appropriate blanks until I came to the one that said ISBN.

Now it's important to note here that CreateSpace will issue you a free ISBN, which stands for "International Standard Book Number," and it's the way that your book will be identified by retailers. In other words, it's the little barcode on the back of your book. The problem with settling with the free ISBN, which I did due to funds, is that when the barcode is scanned, it shows CreateSpace as the publisher. Thus far, this hasn't been an issue for me at all, since I buy my own books and sell them at signing events, as well as the independent book store that I've inquired to and the owner is willing to sell my books in her shop. She uses her own barcode label which she places over top of the ISBN, which is ingenious.

Last night, as I listened to a webinar from a guy who was trying to sell his "third option" of publishing, (the first being Traditional publishers, second being Amazon) I heard him say several non-truths about publishing with CreateSpace, and I want to go over them.

1) MYTH - You can't get your books into public libraries when you're published with CreateSpace
    FACT - I think I have proven quite well that this is not the case. Not only that, but neither the librarians nor their district managers even asked who the publisher was. Now, I'm not sure that this will be the case in larger cities with more sophisticated libraries, but thus far this is simply just not true.
2) MYTH - Bookstores will not be able to stock your books if you have a CreateSpace barcode, because it won't scan...therefore it can't be sold retail.
    FACT - The local bookstores I've contacted told me that it was perfectly fine that I have a CreateSpace UPC code - they cover it with their own barcode, which they have created with their store information, so this is not a problem.f
3) MYTH - You will never be able to distribute to bigger sellers like Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million, etc.
    FACT- This is not true. Actually, it's ridiculous, because part of the Expanded Distribution for CreateSpace in fact ARE these big-name book sellers. Now mind you, this corresponds to the websites, not the brick and mortar stores themselves...BUT it's not impossible. I called the Barnes and Noble closest to my hometown, and spoke to the manager. He told me that B&N does in fact accept Indie-published books, but you have to fill out an application and send in hard copies of your books in order to be assessed. Now, I'm not sure how stringent their standards are, but if they're willing to sell your books online, you DO have a shot, so don't let anyone tell you that it's impossible. It just takes a little hard work to get your book edited to perfection and interesting enough to gain their attention.

As for the e-book process, it's just as simple. KDP, or Kindle Direct Publishing, is another affiliate of Amazon...it's their electronic books division, for folks who prefer to read their books on Kindle, Nook, iPad, etc. This portion of the lesson is a little more complicated, due to e-books needing to have clickable Table of Contents, in order to make it easier to readers to navigate your book - and to pick up where they started from.

I'll be doing one of my Writer's Advice posts, dedicated to how to create a table of contents for your e-book, which will make it sell much more easily. A reader will know at a glance whether they want to read your book, by looking in the "Look Inside" feature on your book's Amazon sales page. If they don't see a table of contents - and I am guilty of this before - they will move on to the next book, which more than likely will have a ToC.

These are just a few things I want to touch on in this post. I'll be doing individual posts on important issues you will need to know to become whiz at Microsoft Word and Amazon's CreateSpace and KDP.

Until next time, I am A.H. Shelton. Thank you for stopping by. :)
You can find out more about me and my books by visiting: http://www.ahsheltonauthor.com