For Writers: How I Self Published Hearts of Prey


Whenever I go to book signings or vendor events, I always meet at least a few other writers. Many of them are not yet published. They often tell me their plans to send out query letters to agents and publishing houses, to which I say, "Cool. I hope that works for you. If it doesn't you can always do what I did." I then shamelessly tell them that after querying 20 agents and getting a steady stream of "your book just isn't quite what we are looking for" letters in reply, I decided to self publish.

 I've heard that you need to query 80 agents before you give up, and I've also heard you have a 1 in 1,000 chance of landing a literary agents. I don't like those numbers at all, and after getting rejected twenty consecutive times, I didn't doubt them either. About that time, self publishing started to sound like a pretty great way to bring my manuscript from the messy place of word documents on my computer to the realm of published fiction. No, I didn't get a $100,000 advance, or get to move directly into writing the sequel while someone else distributed and publicized my book. But what I did get was complete control of my art and its future. 

Not very long ago I was the one asking how to self publish a book. I got pretty lucky in that this question was unexpectedly and thoroughly answered for me. It was my my first night attending a writers group, and that night there was a guest speaker who explained to all of us the steps he had taken to self publish his book. In fact, he had self published several books. At some point he was able to quit his day job working in I.T. and hire his wife to be his assistant. Eventually, he started publishing other people's books, too, in a kind of hybrid vanity press operation. That year he was on track to make over a million dollars. Self publishing didn't sound so bad after all!

With a new commitment to publishing my book, I started on the path which I am still on today. The first year was a little grueling for me, because I'm not a real resourceful learner when it comes to technical things like publishing. But one google search at a time, I figured it all out. Now I'm confident enough in the process to share it with others. So here are the steps I took to publish Hearts of Prey:


1. First off, and most importantly, I finished my manuscript. It doesn't have to be perfect yet, but it does have to be complete. 

2. When my first draft was done I sent it off to a group of friends who I knew I could trust to not blow rainbows up my ass, so to speak. I tend to reread what I write the day I write it and catch a lot of errors and story holes that way. I don't do any other proofing before I send it to this group of "beta readers." They will forgive me for my spelling errors. The point is to get some opinions on what is working and what isn't working right off the bat. Since these people are your friends, family and fans, you typically aren't going to pay them for this. I try to at least buy them lunch though!

3. Once you get their feedback you can make any changes they suggest that you agree with, and you probably won't agree with all of them. 

4. The next step is the editor. It might be tempting to skip this expensive step, but you really shouldn't. An editor can take an amateur story and make it look professional. I'm gonna be honest, you won't catch all of your own spelling and grammatical errors. You also might miss a simple story hole (I thought the car was red, not black), or even a big story hole (didn't he die a few chapters ago?). Seems like a no brainer, and it is. It's just one that you will need to save up for. A good editor will cost you between $500 and $1,000, and if you want to spend more than that you certainly can. There's a good chance that your grandma will offer to edit your story for free and you could go this route, but if grandma doesn't have experience editing I would be careful. Editing isn't just reading. In fact, avid readers struggle with editing because they can't kick back and enjoy the book. Editors must stop frequently to make notes and corrections. You can choose how to proceed with this, but for me, editing is not a place I'm willing to skimp. 

5. While the book is being edited I look for cover designs. You can have someone make a design for you, or you can order a premade one that fits the motif of your book. I have done the latter through a company called selfpubbookcovers.com. The covers are about $100 if you're just doing an e book, but if you want your book in print you can add another $150 to that to have the artist design a spine and back for you. 

6. Another thing I do while the book is being edited is I write the book blurb, which is the cliffhanger description of the story that will go on the back of the book. I also write or update my short author bio for the back of the book. You will also want to have a nice picture of yourself for the back. You could pay to have headshots taken and this is certainly the most professional way, but this is an area where I skimp and just have my bf take some pics of me until we get a good one. During this time I also write the preliminary pages of the book. This is the copyright and acknowledgement pages. Of course a big publishing house would do this for you, but if you are your own publishing house you get to do it yourself. It's really not that hard. You can just copy the format of the copyright page from another book. One more thing to do while your book is being edited: create a website. You really should have one so readers can find you. A Facebook author page is also a good idea. I designed my own website using Wix. It costs me about $150 a year and looks decent! https://www.jenniferschultzbooks.com/

7. Now you have your book back from the editor. You now can do your final edit. I have learned to take my time with this step. You want it to be polished. And don't forget to add your preliminary pages and a title page to your manuscript. 

8. When you have your final draft, you are ready to format your document. Some people are techy enough to do this themselves. I am definitely not, so I pay for this service. If you only want your book to be an e book, you can get this done for around $200, but if you want your book printed as well, the formatting will cost about $350. There is no way to skimp on this step. If you don't know how to format your book yourself, you will have to pay. Otherwise your book will always be a very well polished word document. The formatting process should take about two weeks or less and when it's over you will have one file for your e book and one file for print. 

9. At this point your e book is ready to go! I publish through Amazon right now. Eventually I will explore other options, but the truth is, Amazon makes pretty easy. You create a Kindle Direct Publishing account, upload your formatted manuscript and your cover art, pick your price and watch the sales role in! The printed version still needs a little more work. 

10. Now you can pay that $150 to have the spine and back of your book designed. When this is complete you can go back to Amazon, upload your formatted copy for print, your cover art and your back and spine art and submit. You then order your first author copy. It takes a couple days to print and ship. Amazon now does all its own print on demand. If the copy looks good, your printed version is ready to sell. You can order author copies too, which are sold only to you at the cost of printing, and have some on hand to sell to family and friends and bring to signings and bookstores.

Then, all of the sudden, you are a published author! 

Of course, now there is the world of marketing to consider, and most writers don't love this part of it. However, all of them gotta do it, even the rich and famous ones who get the $100,000+ advances. 

If you made it this far, you must have some interest in self publishing, and I hope this blog gave you a little direction on your journey. It's not a real intuitive one for a person who probably just wants to be left alone to make up stories in the basement, as I do, but it is a way to make a future for your writing. It doesn't need to sit on the computer and gather virtual dust while you wait for your 1 in 1,000 chance to score an agent. You can take control of your art today.  

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