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Indie-Publishing 411: Chat with Vania and KT–Imprints

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Indie Publishing Chats

Imprints are fun . . . some say frivolous. But if you have any long-term plan to publish books, having an imprint is another way to claim your work. If you think really long term and are successful as an author you may want to publish other writers’ works. Joanna Penn, not long ago, created her own imprint. While she’s not accepting submissions, she certainly has what it takes in terms sales and exposure to draw in new talent under her imprint if she so chose. Never write-off something that could be part of your brand, as you never know what the future holds.

Let’s listen in to the chat I had with KT about imprints.

KT Daxon
What are imprints and how important are they? Personal preference or encouraged for Indie authors?

Vania Margene Rheault
Imprints are the name and logo of the publishing company you set up for yourself when you publish. They are a personal preference, but your name will be listed as the publisher of your book on CreateSpace if you don’t have one. They aren’t encouraged as much as owning your own ISBN numbers, but they go hand in hand.

KT Daxon
How does one set up an imprint?

Vania Margene Rheault
The first you have to do is make something up. Something you like, something short, though, so it doesn’t take up a lot of room. Something that means something to you. I’m a romance author, and I love coffee, so I made up Coffee and Kisses Press. BUT and this is a big BUT, you have to make sure it’s not taken by someone else. Coffee and Kisses Press was like, my 4th choice.c&k2

I had a friend draw the mug, and my son did the rest. I share this imprint with @drwillisbooks. David doesn’t write romance, but he wanted an imprint and they are kind of hard to think of. So many are taken.

KT Daxon
So you both use this when publishing?

Vania Margene Rheault
He only has one book under this imprint. He published other books with iUniverse, and they have their own imprint. But yeah, all mine are under this imprint. I bought my own numbers and I knew I wanted my own imprint from the beginning.

KT Daxon
You say so many are already taken, how do you advise other authors on creating their own? Coming up with names is difficult for me, and in turn drive me crazy until I figure it out.

Vania Margene Rheault
I’ve read up on it, and they say that if you think of something personal, it’s easier to be unique. Like your pen name. I know how you made it up, so I mean, keeping it close to your heart it’s easier. But I suck at stuff like that too.

KT Daxon
Would you recommend I use my pen name as my publishing imprint?

Vania Margene Rheault
I would suggest you think of something cute. Especially if you’re going to stay with writing romance. PillowTalk Press. On the shape of a pillow. LOL But I bet that’s taken.PillowTalk Publishing

KT Daxon
Hmm

Vania Margene Rheault
Actually, it’s not. That’s funny.

KT Daxon
Hmm, I don’t know if I’ll stay with romance. Down to Sleep is Romantic Suspense … the next book after this is likely considered Contemporary Romance? Hahahaha! Hmm …
How much does getting your own imprint cost?

Vania Margene Rheault
Nothing. You pay for it when you buy your own ISBN numbers. Unless you hire a designer. Then that would be an extra cost.

KT Daxon
Even better, LOL. So, when you buy your ISBN numbers, you will just include that during that purchase?

Vania Margene Rheault
You can look for ideas on Canva. They have logo templates. Yes! Great question. You need to have thought of your imprint name before you buy your numbers because there’s a field for it.

KT Daxon
I know what will be running through my mind now. LOL That’s all the questions I have for now on imprints…that I can think of. Oh! I have one more. How can you find out if an imprint is taken? Is there a site?

Vania Margene Rheault
No, you just Google it. Most of the time if there is a publisher or a press associated with it, it will be the top few search results. But I used all the search engines to make sure: Yahoo, Bing, Google. You get slightly different results, and it’s better to be safe than sorry.

KT Daxon
I got one I will check out…where on Canva can you use to check for logos?

Vania Margene Rheault
If you go to Create A Design, it’s under the menu, Marketing Materials. I made mine before I knew Canva existed. I have a tab on my website that explains my imprint and the books that are published under it. You have to be careful on Twitter if you are ever approached by a “press” or a “publisher” who wants to publish your book. It could be someone trying to publish your book under their imprint, and they don’t have any real publishing experience or distribution channels. They run your book through CreateSpace, just the same as you would then take a cut of your profits. So be very careful when someone approaches you–especially during the pitching games like #pitmad.

KT Daxon
Good to know!

Vania Margene Rheault
Yeah, it’s kind of scammy. But if they have a pretty imprint and a website that looks legit, it’s easy to get taken in. Everyone wants a contract and not everyone is as careful as they should be.

KT Daxon
Is Press the only thing you can use or are their others?

Vania Margene Rheault
You can use press or publishing. Those are the two main ones.

Our chat fizzled out after that because KT started experimenting on Canva. She wants to keep her imprint a secret until she publishes, so I’m not allowed to post what she came up with during chat. But if you need ideas for yourself, Google imprints and click on Images for the results. You’ll get an idea of what you need to come up with. Here are a few other articles on imprints:

Should Self-Published Authors Create Their Own Publishing Imprints?

A Quick Lesson About Publishers, Imprints, CreateSpace, and Bowker

Why You Should Create Your Own Publishing Imprint

A long time ago, I also wrote a blog post about imprints. If you’re interested, you can read it here.

Thanks for reading! Next up we’ll talk about having your author photo taken, and the advantages and disadvantages of trying to remain anonymous online and still try to sell books! See you there!

Vania Blog Signature

Indie-Publishing 411: Chat with Vania and KT–ISBN

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When I first started out, ISBN numbers were a mystery to me. They aren’t so much anymore, but the prices haven’t changed since I started–they are still one of the most expensive things you can spend your money on when you self-publish.

Take a few minutes to listen in to our chat about them. Whether you decide to buy them or not is a personal choice, but it’s always a good idea to have all the facts before you choose.

Take it away, KT!barcode_design_elements_vector_set_519833

KT Daxon
What are we starting with first?

Vania Margene Rheault
Should we start with ISBN numbers? There’s quite a debate about them.

KT Daxon
Sounds great! What are the pros and cons when it comes to buying your own ISBN numbers vs using CreateSpace’s free ones?

Vania Margene Rheault
The biggest pro is that you are protecting your own work. I like knowing I own my work free and clear. Using a CreateSpace ISBN number doesn’t mean they own it, but they are listed as the publisher in the product details. Some people don’t mind it, but if a reader has been burned by an indie book,  it’s the quickest way to lose a sale.

createspace as publisher

This is from someone who took the free number.
The other pro is yes, you can list an imprint you create for yourself as the publisher, lending a bit more professionalism to your book.

imprint as publisher

KT Daxon
Which also doesn’t help separate you from other indie authors when you share the same “Publishing Name” I would think professionalism would be up on the top of an authors list?

Vania Margene Rheault
Yes. But that goes with the biggest con. ISBN numbers are expensive, and not everyone can afford them. If you publish with IngramSpark, they make you buy your own.

KT Daxon
I’m very excited to learn about imprints…as for the cost of the ISBNs, they are expensive but is it worth it to buy your own?

Vania Margene Rheault
Here’s where people are divided. Some say it’s worth it, some say they don’t care. The professional opinion of the Alliance for Independent Authors say you should always buy your own. But with CreateSpace giving them away, and Kindle Direct Publishing give you an Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN) lots of people forgo buying their own numbers.  It’s a personal choice. Personally, if you can afford it, I say you should. Even if just for the vanity (and fun!)  of being able to use your own imprint.

KT Daxon
I really can’t see myself doing it any other way. Self-publishing is a journey, why wouldn’t you want to go all in?

Vania Margene Rheault
I guess cost is the main issue. After you pay for editing, maybe formatting, maybe cover design, there’s not much money left for something you can get for free.
Another con is if you’re going to be slow to publish. The best deals are in packs of 10, 100, and 1000. If you only publish once a year, it doesn’t seem worth it.

KT Daxon
Do ISBN numbers expire?isbn number

Vania Margene Rheault
No. Once they are yours, they are yours. But you can’t sell them or give them away. They are registered under your name and imprint. I called and asked them that. 🙂

KT Daxon
So as long as you wrote 10 books in your lifetime, it wouldn’t be a waste….if one could afford it?

Vania Margene Rheault
Five books. One for the paperback and one for the KDP version. Any version of the book needs a new ISBN number. I’m thinking of publishing my books in Large Print. That would require another ISBN. So one book could have four or five ISBN numbers.

KT Daxon
Such great information to know. Knowing that each book requires a different number, shows me that it IS worth it to get your own. Even if you had to sell something to afford it. (Which is what I considered, haha!)
Does CS and KDP have unlimited free ones?

Vania Margene Rheault
Yes, they’ll give you as many as you need to publish.

Other questions people have asked about ISBN numbers:

*Can you change the cover without needing a new number?  Yes.
*Can you change the insides without need a new number? Yes–if you don’t change more    than 20%.
*Can you change the size of your book and keep the same number? No.
*Can you change the title and keep the same number? No.
*Can you change your author name and keep the same number? No.

KT Daxon
Great information to know! Especially for those just venturing out. I’ve learned so much tonight!

Vania Margene Rheault
I hope we’ve helped some others, too. Do you have any other questions right now?

KT Daxon
Not at this time. The good thing about these chats, I’m sure we’ll get comments to inspire other chats.

Vania Margene Rheault
Awesome! I’ll dig up a couple of articles on the pros and cons of buying your own ISBNs as well.

It was fun to chat with KT about ISBN numbers. I know they are very expensive, and I like I said in the chat, not everyone can afford them–especially if they pay for other things for their book like editing or cover design.

Here’s what the Alliance of Independent Authors says about buying your own. You can read it here.

Should You Buy Your Own ISBN When You Self-Publish?

ISBN 101 For Self-Publishers

Thanks for listening in! Next time we’ll be chatting about imprints! See you there!

Vania Blog Signature

An Interview with Writer Thomas Jast

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Today I interviewed the deliciously eccentric Thomas Jast. His new book, Exit Strategies, featuring his character, Alex Aberdeen, is now available on Amazon. This is his fourth published book. Come have a slightly scary peek at the world in which Thomas Jast lives. Have you poured a glass of wine? Good. Let’s begin.

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How long have you been writing? What are you working on now?

I did writing journals in Grade 1 to learn English. I assumed that every child was a literary superstar so I overcompensated and hammered out page after page. Little did I realize that writing was going to be my favourite artistic expression and that it would continue forever. I started writing “novels” at age 13 with my older sister’s PC. They were terrible and I truly believe someone would pay money to stop reading them. (And yes, I still have every word I have ever written backed up to a half-dozen locations.)
I’m currently working on a comedy project called Derek Must Die with my BFF Vito Andrews, and this fall I’ll be starting on my next project, Under Gemini Skies, a twisted story of two small-town girls whose friendship disintegrates when one of them gets a taste of wealth and freedom… mixed in with a murder plot, a revenge scheme and an unhealthy dose of psychology, of course.

Exit Strategies is the third book featuring Alex Aberdeen. What appeals to you about her? Why do you keep coming back to her?

I felt that Alex didn’t get a proper ending in Mixed Messages since the original third Alex book never came out. Exit Strategies is entirely new and is set years later, but does the things I didn’t have the skill (or guts) to do back during the original writing period (2009-2010). I have bravely (foolishly?) labelled this novel as a romance and categorized it as such. It’s a love story featuring Alex using everything I’ve learned in life. Mostly bad things. A lot of horrifying things. And it’s kind of dirty and graphic in parts, which isn’t something I’m used to doing.

Do you have more books planned for her?

Always. I have the titles “Trust Issues,” “Systematic Habits” and “Burning Bridges” rolling around in my head. Each one is going to get darker and darker until the text is basically black on black pages. But no earlier than 2020, since I’m moving onto other things for a while. Alex will evolve along with the rest of my work, I hope. Comparing Calculated Regrets to Exit Strategies is unusual because I didn’t even attempt to make them feel similar. I never want to write the same thing twice, which is what a lot of serialized books feel like.

The art on your covers is unique. Can you explain the process of designing your covers?

I generally try to find a “moment” in the book that has a strong visual element to it, something that can be summed up as a single still frame. From Empathetic onward, I found myself moving more toward graphic design, iconography or pictograms. Since indie works are generally found and judged by small Amazon thumbnails, I seem to think that bold, simple images with high contrast stand out more. I’m hoping to catch someone by surprise, have them check it out, and then browse the reviews or a sample.

You publish with IngramSpark. How did you choose between IngramSpark and CreateSpace?

I’ve used CreateSpace years ago on a different project and it was fine. However, as a computer and graphics design nerd, the flexibility and high technical standards of IngramSpark appeal to me. I love the inherent complexity. I love the difference between “black” and “60-40-40-100 CYMK.” That’s my jam.

You publish on Kindle only. What made you decide to go Select rather than publish wide?

I really like Kindle’s KDP Select plan where you get paid when people read the books as part of Kindle Unlimited. As an indie author, many people will give your work a chance if there’s no risk. For a fellow author friend of mine, maybe 80% of his revenue comes from “free” reads and he couldn’t get that with any other plan.

You’re querying a different project. Can you share how that journey is going for you?

I haven’t done as much as I would like but will resume later on this year. I query that book because it’s not my usual indie style and I feel it could be a mainstream success if it lands in the right place. I have no delusions of what is appropriate where: I am aware that a majority of my work is niche and enjoyable for a select audience. But to answer the real question: Querying is soul-crushing and frustrating and probably one step removed from walking around in hell in bare feet.

Do you have any tips or tricks for authors who may be thinking about querying?

Don’t query your first-ever completed novel. It’s probably much rougher than you think, no matter how great the ideas are. You will do much better as your writing skills evolve. The trick is to still *want* to query after all of that time…

You have a limited social media presence. Can you share your opinion on the idea that writers must have a strong social media platform to sell books? Why or why not do you think this is true? If you agree with this opinion, can you give a reluctant author tips on how to work around this?

Leaving Twitter was the very best thing for me and my work ethic. It was a platform of sorts and it did get my name out, but it also paralyzed me from writing new material. What used to take a month now took six, and the competitive and (dare I say…) negative atmosphere eventually sunk me. It depends on what kind of person you are. I’m an obsessive, clingy, dedicated type and what engages me tends to have a way of backfiring. My social circles on there were improved with my peer editing, chat groups, and existing friends. Pushing your indie works on uninterested strangers isn’t very effective so that shouldn’t be the primary reason to use social media. Make yourself and your personality known, and eventually people will want to check out your work.

Exit Strategies will be the first time I release something without the cushion of Twitter, so we’ll see what happens.

What’s next for you writing- and publishing-wise?

Writing one novel a year and releasing a polished novel from the previous year. I want to top Cassandra’s End and am having trouble doing that so far, in both scope and refinement. I want to write a mix of indie and mainstream works because I don’t think one single style or group of content can truly improve your general writing craft. I always want to be out of my comfort zone, even if I fail in the end. I have many completed books I’ve scrapped and don’t regret a thing.

Thanks, Tom, for talking with me! I love chatting with writers about how their journeys are going.

 

You can find all of Tom’s books on Amazon. Calculated Regrets and Mixed Messages are both on sale now on Kindle for .99 until July 18th. Take advantage of this awesome sale and get to know Alex Aberdeen.

Tom’s newest book, Exit Strategies is available now in paperback and Kindle! Follow Tom on Goodreads and Amazon and read about his imprint, eVw Press here.

Thanks for reading! Come back soon.

(Photo credits: Thomas Jast’s personal photo, covers taken from Amazon.com)

Kindle Cover

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That’s great, you say, but paperbacks don’t sell, the cover looks too complicated, and I don’t want to do that right now; I would just prefer to publish on Kindle and be done with it. What do I need for a cover then?

If you’re not interested in doing CreateSpace, then you’ll need to do the cover, yes, and it will just be the front, or rather, the picture customers will see on Amazon. You’ll still need to write the blurb for the product information, but you won’t have to worry about it being put on the back of a paperback.

Open a Word document, make a text box of your chosen trim size, being 5×8, 6×9, whatever. I advise you to do it this way in case you decide down the road to offer a paperback after all, then all you will need to add is the spine and back cover and adjust the page layout (remember all that math . . . yeah . . . ).

When you’re done, saving it in a photo format can be a bit tricky, however, if you’re doing it in Word because there’s no option to save as a jpeg, jpg, or a tiff file, the only files being accepted by Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). They don’t take a PDF like CS does.

What I did when I made the cover for Under Lock and Key, was after I made the cover, I used the Snipping Tool and “snipped it” and saved it as a jpeg. After I did that, I ran it through GIMP and made sure it was 300 dpi. Always make sure your images are 300 dpi or dots per inch, so your picture is clear online.

Cover basics are the same for Kindle: you want your cover to look pleasing, your name and title clear as a small thumbprint for a potential reader to see.

I made a quick one for my e-reader story using a photo I here found so I didn’t have to pay money for a blog post.

2017-03-28

This is a screen shot of the cover I made in Word. There is a lot wrong with it. The title isn’t legible that small in that font, and my name is too dark to be seen. But I’ll leave it this way since this is only an example. Plus the bottom of the Y is cut off (it seems like I like doing that) so you would want to adjust that text box. 😛

Now use the Snipping Tool: 2017-03-28 (2)

And be as precise as you can. If you get some of the white in there, you can crop it out with GIMP when you check it for dpi:

2017-03-28 (3)

Save it as a JPEG file in the Save As Type:

2017-03-28 (4)

Right now it’s going to save as a PNG, so you need to change it to JPEG using the down arrow on the right:

2017-03-28 (5)

That will save it in the file you need. Now you can upload it into GIMP and crop it if you need to, if you accidently snipped some white, and make sure it’s 300 dpi. That’s all you need to do for a cover for your Kindle:

Make it in Word
Snip It
Save it as a JPEG
Run it through GIMP.
Export it under the Save AS so the change in dpi sticks

My picture was only 72 dpi, so I changed it to 300. I exported it to save the changes and this is it:

gimp picture

And that’s all you need. It’s a lot less involved than doing a book cover, and there are a lot of authors who only offer an e-reader option for this reason. Under Lock and Key is a short story, so I didn’t do a paperback for it. But I like paperbacks, and I will probably always offer them to my readers if I can. It might be an expense because I do purchase my own ISBN numbers, but it’s a personal choice.

You can make your cover as simple or as involved as you want. You can buy a template, hire an artist, whatever you choose to do.

When you offer both paperback and Kindle, the thumbnail that shows up is for your Kindle. It’s easy to make a new cover, for the Kindle, but if you’re going to do that you have to decide if you’re going to change the cover in CreateSpace. You don’t to make your readers angry thinking they’re going to get your new cover but they get a completely different one in paperback because you didn’t change it in CreateSpace. I like to keep all my things the same. When I redid the cover for 1700, I changed both. I think it’s courteous that way. I don’t want my readers not to trust me for any reason.

I think that’s it for Kindle Covers. I only need to tell you how to format your Kindle file, and that’s up next!

Until next time!

CreateSpace Recap

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I started this publishing series eight months ago. Sorry about that. But in that time I’ve published a book (two novellas together), wrote 150,000 more words (in the form of 6 novellas that will be published together), and fixed 1700’s typos inside and the cover. I have also started fixing my 2015 NaNo project just so I can say it’s done and move on.

When I started this series, it was my intention to tell you how to publish a quality paperback cheaply and easily.  I think in this recap you’ll see I did that. Even now, I am so tired of hearing that you need to pay for this, pay for that, to publish a quality book.

Indie publishing went from, “It’s not a real way to publish” to “It is a real way if you pay for everything.” No one can afford to pay for the ISBN number, the editing, the formatting, the file conversions. And believe me, there are people who will do it all for you. For a price. But the sad part is if you are willing to take a few minutes (okay, hours), read a few books,  you don’t need to pay for anything.

Let the recap of eight months begin.

  1. You wrote a book! Congratulations. Let it sit for a few weeks, even a few months, write something else, read it again. Have a few people read it. Ask them to look for plot holes, flat characters, scenes that don’t move the story along. If you use Word, download Grammarly. It’s a decent checker for things I miss or wouldn’t think to look for. Buy the Hemingway App for more help ($20.00 is a decent investment). Use anything you can get your hands on to make your work as clear and as typo-free as possible.
  2. Grab a trad-pubbed book and copy the front and back matter. You need the copyright page, the acknowledgments. The title page. Dedication page. The author page. You’re in charge of all it.
  3. Get your author picture taken. I want to see you sitting in a cafe with a cup of coffee in your hands, smiling. Because you just wrote a book, and you’re going to publish it, and you are proud of it, and you’re going to own it, dammit! Have your best friend take it and buy her a cup of coffee for her trouble.
  4. Buy your ISBN or don’t. At the beginning, I leaned toward buying your own, protect your work and all that. But if you’re not sure what your publishing plan is, (like one a year, if that) take the free one CreateSpace gives you. No harm done.
  5. Choose the size of your book. If you’re writing smut you’re not going to be able to choose the smut-sized trim sold in Walmart. But choose the size you want, the color (cream or white) pages you want.
  6. Based on that, download the free template from CreateSpace so you can format the inside of your book. CreateSpace wants you to have an easy experience, a good experience, so you keep using them. The template is easy. Download it, copy and paste your manuscript into it. You don’t need to copy the template exactly. Their template comes with a Table of Contents I do not use. Change the font if you want, maybe the size. And please make a couple different copies of your MS. If something goes horribly wrong, well, that would bad. Play around with the template before you copy and paste your MS into it. See what you can change and what will mess up if you touch it.
  7. Make your template for your cover. If you make changes to the number of pages in your MS, you’ll need to recalculate the spine width and change the paper layout dimensions. I forgot to do that when messing around with 1700. I changed the spine text box but not the paper layout. That’s probably why I had some of my spine color wrapped on my front cover.
  8. Write your blurb. Maybe you already did this. Have one of your beta readers read it, make sure it sounds good. I gave you some resources how to write a good one. It takes a little bit of help, though, so don’t be afraid to ask for it.
  9. I wrote about your cover a lot. Remember, if you don’t like the thought of doing your own cover, don’t. Use the CreateSpace Cover Creator, or buy a cover that’s already done. Hire someone. This series was to help you do it as cheaply as possible. People *do* judge a book by its cover, so if this is something you don’t want to tackle, I don’t blame you. There’s a lot of choices out there.
  10. CS  takes a PDF of your cover (in the Save As option on Word, PDF is a choice). Submit that, submit your interior, and you’re done. They say 24 hours, but it only takes them 12 to get back to you and tell you if it’s approved or not. Remember the flattening warning you’re going to get. That’s okay. Order the proof, check it over. When I got my second proof for 1700 I read it like I was reading anyone and looked for typos. Spend some time on it, because the proof is exactly what people will be getting when they order it. It takes about 5-10 days to get the proof in the mail. If you want your paperback and the Kindle to be live at the same time, don’t go through the Kindle stuff until your paperback is ready to go. Kindle only takes 5 hours to approve your files. You can have them live on the same day. I had trouble with CS so my Kindle version was live for a couple weeks before my paperback was available. That’s up to you and how you want to do it.

 

And that’s it. I recommend Chris McMullen’s book and you can find it here. He explains a lot of the technical stuff with the template and he goes into Word a lot more than I do. There’s a lot of tutorials and YouTube videos out there. When I started eight months ago, I didn’t know as much as I do now. Indie publishing is a continual learning process because things change. I’ve learned to read only things that were written in 2016 or even more recently because old information may not help.

If you need any more help, drop me a question. I’m sure you can Google the answer probably faster than I can answer it, but I’ll be going through this whole thing in a couple more months when Summer Secrets is ready to be published. I’ve come a long way with doing covers in Word, and I’m confident that with the patience I’ve learned, the tricks I’ve taught myself playing with the CS interior template, and the tutorials I’ve watched about picture manipulation, the process will go smoothly. And I hope yours does too.

 

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Promises, Promises

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At the beginning of this publishing series, I promised you could make a nice cover with a picture and some words. I got a little fancy with the cover we just went over, and if you’re reading this all the way through and got discouraged, I apologize. I’ll show you how to make a nice cover now, just a picture and some words. That’s it. I promise.

Start out with a new Word document. Go back to the formula for the paper set up. If your book is going to be 5×8 with cream paper, your page set up calculations will be:

Inches: 5 + 5 + spine + .25 (bleed) = what you need.

A 334-page book with cream pages will have a spine of .835 inches. (334 x 0.0025).

5 + 5 + .835 + .25 = 11.085

Height is always easier because you’re not doubling anything. So the height for the page set up would be 8 inches plus .25 for bleed.

8 + .25 = 8.25

The paper layout will look like this:

paper layout

Word rounded down, and I’m not sure how that affects our calculations. I would guess it’s insignificant or Word wouldn’t do it.

Follow the rest of the directions in the blog post where I typed out the list of steps.

You’ll have your handy template that looks like this:

blog cover template

This template is for a 5×8 trim size with cream colored pages. Number of pages, 334. (A nice, long book. :)) (FYI, You’ll always have an even number of pages because a page has two sides.)

The problem with the picture I like is that it’s square, not rectangle, so when I put it into the template, it stretches. Stretchy is not the same as stabby; sometimes stabby can be a good thing.

stretchy

If you don’t mind she looks a bit stretched out or you swear you can’t tell, that’s your prerogative. I’m sure down the road it will bother you, so you might as well do it right the first time. I guess I don’t need to tell you, to avoid this you can always find a rectangle picture. There are plenty out there and CanStock will even filter square pictures out in your searches.

Using the Crop feature, I cropped it using the Aspect Ratio, portrait 2:3.

crop

Fix the dimensions of the picture so it fits into the 5×8 box.

crop1

It brought them closer, but that’s okay.

So this is what I have so far:

back cover done1

I downloaded a new font. I used the same picture on the back, but flipped it and lightened it. I did forget to mention in the last post that you probably want to put the price above the ISBN box. That way if you do happen to have a book sale of some kind, you can have the price on there, and if you put it on discount, customers can see that it is.

back cover done2

If you think the cover picture is too bold for the white spine and the back cover,  you can lighten up the cover edges a bit like this:

back cover done3

You can do what you want with the blank space by the ISBN box. Maybe your author picture, maybe your imprint picture. Whatever. But I did what I promised you from the beginning, I gave you a lovely cover with just one picture, no fancy picture effects you need to learn how to do. Oh, wait, take all the lines off. I swear, there is always something.

back cover done4

And don’t worry about the cursor. That will go away when you save it as a PDF to submit it to CS. Also, remember not to freak out if this is all you have and you want the Kindle cover too. CS will offer it to you, and you can download it.

I think this is it for covers. I’ll post a recap of everything I’ve talked about then I’ll tell you how to format your file for Kindle.

Thanks for reading!

 

Before You Publish: Part 2

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One thing you’ll need to decide on is if you want to buy your own ISBN and if you want to create your own imprint. They kind of go hand in hand because if you want your own imprint you’ll need to purchase your own ISBN number. But let’s back up a second. If you know me at all, you know I always, or at least, TRY to give credit where credit is due. I read primarily two books when I was researching self-publishing before I tried it. The first was A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Book Sellers by Chris McMullen. You can look at it here. He runs a wonderful blog about self-publishing as well. The other, a friend gave to me, and it’s called APE: How to Publish a Book. Author Publisher Entrepreneur by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch. You can find it here. Both of these were self-published. Both of these contain out-of-date information which I learned the hard way.  I fully get behind researching anything new you want to do and there are more up-to-date books out there to read, but these two will play a significant role in the information you’re going to need, so I encourage you to check them out. Anyway, I did learn a few things from these books, and I’ll cut out the information you don’t need, or has changed since these books have been published.

Let’s do . . . imprints. If you decide to have one, it will take a little bit to make one. An imprint is that little logo you see on books. You know what I’m talking about, but let me find some:

Penguin has the cute little penguin, Pocketbooks has the kangaroo reading, you get the idea. Indie authors can do this too. This is mine. My good friend @DRWillisBooks designed the mug and my son did the rest. It took a long time to figure out what I wanted and I had to Google my ideas to make sure no one was using it. I went through three ideas c&k2before I found Coffee and Kisses Press. David’s top choices were taken too, so we’re sharing this one. That can be a great idea if you’re close to someone. Later on, when you publish more books, you can create a website for youevw pressr books under that imprint, like my friend Thomas Jast. This is Tom’s imprint. He has a website that goes along with it, and you can check it out here. Choose an idea that is close to you and there’s less of a chance that someone is using it. Chris McMullen didn’t use an imprint. Guy Kawasaki did, and he said in his book he used the first letters of his kids’ names. I like mine; I adore coffee and I write primarily Romance. David loves coffee too, and his books contain a hint of romance, but what he has published and what he’s working on are mystery/thrillers. His books aren’t so happily ever after, but well, coffee. If you don’t want to go through the hassle, it’s up to you, but I think it makes your book look a bit more professional. My imprint is on the spine and on the title page of my paperb13694223_10154133120265751_1418775752_oack.

Another thing about an imprint is when you publish your book with an imprint, the logo and name you chose is your publisher. These are my product details for my book on Amazon. You can see it says Coffee and Kisses Press in the Publisher line. This will say CreateSpace if you do not choose an imprint.

It’s up to you and what you want to do. It’s costly to add an imprint because you can only do it if you buy your ISBN number for your paperback book, and I wanted you to be aware. 🙂

product details

chris product details

I think I’ll stop there and go into ISBNs another time. I do have things to do and will be out of town for a little bit, but when I get back I’ll write what I know about ISBNs and what a pain they are. 🙂

Have a great weekend!!