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As the recently self-published author of Tales of Mysdrym: Ancients Stir, a new contemporary fantasy series for young adults, I thought that it would be fun to try and gather together the most important lessons I've learned from this experience and pass them along so that others wouldn't trip over themselves quite as often as I did.

Over the last few months, I have worked with CreateSpace, proofreaders, betareaders, an editor, and a cover artist to help make my book a reality. I have been fortunate to work with wonderful people, but even so, there've still been a few hiccups along the way.

Before I dive in, let me point out that these are based off of my personal experiences with Amazon.com's subsidiary self-publishing company, CreateSpace. Some of these may not apply if you're going through another website.

If you choose to use CreateSpace for your own work, you can technically do the whole thing for free through them. I'll get into that in more detail about prices and the like below, but this website is very user friendly, and it helps you step by step as you gather everything you need to publish your book.

I chose to use CreateSpace because I'd heard wonderful things from relatives, and one of my college professors—Tim Brookes, author of several awesome books both published through traditional and self-publishing mediums and the mastermind behind EndangeredAlphabets.com—spoke very highly of self-publishing.

So, without further ado, here are 11 things that you should know to help with self-publishing:

1) Your Budget. Even if you are printing your book for free through a website like CreateSpace, that doesn't include marketing, editing, proofreading, interior layout design, or the book cover. Take a look at how much you can afford to spend on the project overall. Do you want someone to make a book cover for you? Do you need a proofreader (the answer to this question should always be yes)? Do you want to advertise on a website? How long would the advertisement run?

Facebook, for example, offers different prices with varying results, from $5 to $20 a day. That can add up pretty fast. Figure out what you want and shop around. Unless you can do everything I mentioned above (even if you think you can, you probably shouldn't), you are going to have to spend a little money to finish your book and get it out into the world.

2) Free Has Its Limits. I published through CreateSpace. As awesome as they are, to someone who doesn't know anything about publishing, there's a lot of draw in paying for some of their services. Don't. You can find cheaper. For instance, they have an option to buy 500 bookmarks for $139, shipping not included. I went through Overnight Prints (http://www.overnightprints.com/bookmarks) and got 2,500 bookmarks for less than $100, shipping included, and I received them in about 4 days, when I'd selected the 10 day delivery. I was impressed with the quality, as well.

CreateSpace's cheapest book cover service is over $300 and uses generic stock images, and to get something truly original, you have to pay over $1000. I was able to get a custom drawn cover for less than $250 elsewhere.

So, as easy as it is to let them handle everything, if you're willing to go the extra click to a search engine, you can find better deals that won't bleed you completely dry.

3) Your Timing. If you advertise on a website—whether it's paid or simply something like tweets—a month before your book comes out, people will forget. You need to make sure that you're building hype as you get closer, instead of letting it dwindle.

4) Your Target Audience. You need to know more than just who they are. Where do they shop? Would it be practical to send out bookmarks to stores, or do they mostly use ebooks these days? Perhaps they prefer physical items, but are more likely to buy them online? Knowing this will also help with figuring out where you want to advertise.

5) Where Do You Want To Sell? The easiest path is to sell online. If you sell through CreateSpace, then you make 80% of your listed price, minus production cost. Through Amazon, it's 60% minus production cost, and through a bookstore, it's 40% minus production cost.
If you want to sell in a bookstore, however, then you'll have to jump through some hoops. They aren't too tricky—most of them just require money.

You'll need an ISBN so that bookstores can carry your book, along with a vendor's contract for many stores, including Barnes&Nobles or to be listed on the website Ingram. Ingram is basically a massive data base of books that allows stores to browse, find, and purchase them in a timely and cost efficient manner.

One important thing to consider: many independent bookstores don't carry self-published books at all, so unless you really, really dream of seeing it sold on a bookshelf somewhere, you may want to stick to online.

In addition to selling it online, you may want to consider whether you want to have it be a physical copy, an ebook, or both. While ebooks themselves are cheaper, more people have say $7 to spend than $15, so that avenue may help you reach a larger audience.

6) Pricing. Everyone involved in making your book available gets a slice (obviously), so keep that in mind with how much you plan to charge. If you're simply going through your printer, like CreateSpace, then they'll have a set fee and you get the rest. If you want to have your book sold in a bookstore, then you will make 40% of what the book's cost is, minus the printing fee (at least that's the deal if you're using CreateSpace).

So if you want to charge $5 for a book and the printing fee is $2, then you make $3 if it's sold online. However, if you sell it in a bookstore, you'd get $2, minus the printing fee, which means you don't make anything. CreateSpace is pretty neat in this regard and won't allow you to sell to stores if your 40% is equal to or less than their printing fee.

7) Fonts Have Copyrights! The good news is that pretty much anything in MS Word is permitted to be used in mass production. However, if you found a neat little font online that is just perfect for your cover, you need to check with where you got it and see if you can actually use it. Companies don’t generally sue authors, but they do go after publishers (read that as self-publishers included) for stealing their product.

On the bright side, if your heart is set on that font, you may be able to buy the rights to use it.

8) Get a Second Set of Eyes. Or More. It doesn't matter how proficient you are with the English language, you are bound to make a few typos in your life. Have someone else read your work. If you can't afford an official editor, have a friend who fits into your target audience read it and give you feedback. They'll notice any glaring errors, plus you'll be able to see if they were able to follow your book and drew the conclusions you hoped they would.

Of course, an actual editor is desirable in this instance, but if you can't afford one, try to find someone who doesn't mind reading your work multiple times to review the changes, and who has a good grasp on grammar and spelling. You want to make sure you're moving in a direction that makes your book better, not more convoluted.

Lastly, if it's a friend reading your book, make sure they are reliable and have a backup plan! Some of your best friends may promise to read your work and never get around to it, no matter how patient you are with them.

9) If You Need Cover Art, Check Tumblr. There are so many brilliant artists on Tumblr, and many of them do commissions. Further, because many do not consider themselves professionals, they'll charge you less for work that's just as beautiful.

Giving them credit for their work on your book helps get their name out there, too, so it can be a mutually beneficial project.

10) The Internet Is Your Friend. You are your own publisher, which means you are your own marketer. If you're not out there telling people to buy your book, no one is. Try not to drown people in your advertising, but you do need to be a little aggressive.

11) Don't Assume Professionals Always Get It Right. If you have someone write the back of your book for you, check it. CreateSpace wrote mine, as well as the information for the Amazon.com page. In 350 words, I had to correct 14 grammatical errors, typos, and other errors, and rewrite several paragraphs that were too far gone to save.

Also, it's not just CreateSpace. I've heard horror stories from friends who chose the traditional publishing process. They've mentioned times when their books were passed down to junior editors who did not choose the right career path, and ended up with huge chunks of text simply removed because the editor had never heard the reference before and didn't bother to look it up.

With that in mind, always look over the work. Better yet, try to stay actively involved. Don't hover, but ask for weekly reports and for a chance to see how their service is coming along. It's better to step on a toe or two early on and get things right than to wait until the end and find out it all has to be redone.

Self-publishing takes a lot of work, a lot of time, and, unfortunately, no matter what anyone says, it's not free. However, you have options and so long as you're willing to put in the effort to find them, your book can still come out amazing, without costing you a fortune.

If you found this useful, please let me know, and if you have any further questions, I would be happy to answer them or help you find someone who can. Also, if you have any suggestions for me that could make this better, or help me with publishing future books, I welcome the feedback. As I said, this is my first time publishing, and it has been an amazing learning experience.

As I move more firmly into the marketing stage, I will try to compile some tips on marketing as well.

Also, if you're interested in Tales of Mysdrym, you can check out my signature for more information.

Yep, yep! This is great to add :) It really helps sales to think outside the box for places to sell your work.

However, I would like to stress that it is still pretty difficult to get independent bookstores to buy the book, so again, unless you are really, really set on seeing it on a bookshelf, you may want to forgo that option.

One reason independent bookstores may not carry a work is because a lot of the time, they aren't offered discounts for purchasing the book that are as substantial as the ones offered by traditional publishers. For example, traditional publishers may offer them 45% of the listing price, while self-publishing websites only offer 25%. Plus CreateSpace, for example, doesn't allow them to return the books if they don't sell, which makes it a bigger risk on the bookstore's part.

There is a way around this, though it's a lot of work. If the author buys their books at printing cost (mine is about 1/3 the price of the book), they can then cut out the middle man and work directly with bookstores, offering them a larger cut of the profits and the option to have their money refunded if they can't sell the books.

This requires a much more hands on approach on the author's part. And it's not really as cost effective as selling books at a reading or just online.

To use my book, at $14.99 with a $5.17 printing cost, I would make $0.82 per book sold in a store through the Ingram listing--side note, you pretty much must be listed on Ingram to sell to stores. CreateSpace will list your book for you, if you buy an ISBN.

Now, if I were to buy the books at printing cost and then turn and sell them to the stores, I would have to sell them at a low enough price that the store could make a 45% profit. They want to make about $7.00 per book. So for a $14.99 book, I'd have to sell it to them for about $7.99. At that point I'm making $2.82 per book they buy, which is less than what I make if people just buy the book off of Amazon.com or CreateSpace.com.

So with more work for less, it's really more of a vanity thing to see your book in a bookstore, if you self-publish.

So long as it is the proper file type and fit the size requirements, yes.

Even if you go with stock images, hiring a good freelance cover designer can really make the cover stand out and look great. Don't underestimate the design, it can be just as important as the images or illustrations used!


And I'd add -- be careful how much money you spend on these kinds of advertisements. Whenever you're thinking about how to spend your budget, think about your own buying habits. Have you ever purchased a book because of a banner ad? If so, what was it that grabbed your interest? If not, why?


Yes. This is due to limited space, discounts, and also the ability to return. (Since many self-published books are print-on-demand and distributed differently, the process for returning stock that doesn't sell can vary.

If you have a local store (and particularly if you are known to be a good customer of the store, not just popping in for the first time hoping they'll do something for you) you may be able to ask them to sell on consignment. That means you provide them with a few copies of the book, they put them on the shelf, then they give you a cut if it sells. But this is more complicated for them and they still have to make hard decisions about their shelf space. I've known bookstore managers who say they get requests for store events or selling self-published books at least a few times a week.

Also keep in mind that they really aren't shunning you when they say no. They really do have limited space. My first book stayed on bookstore shelves for around a year, maybe a bit less, and it was published by Scholastic. But they rotate their stock, and if a book isn't selling as well, it's dropped from the orders and they bring in new stuff.


Offering to swap with another writer is helpful. More motivation on both sides to get it done because you're each getting something out of it. Finding good writing partners is super helpful. But if you can hire an editor, you probably should. At least a copyeditor. They're wonderful; they catch punctuation errors and misused words and typos, but also consistency issues and more. I love copyeditors.


I recommend that you don't use the possibility of exposure/getting their name out there when you talk to an artist about hiring them. Artists are flooded with people asking them to do work for free or very cheaply because they'll get exposure out of it. The reality is very few jobs bring in any benefit as far as exposure.

It's also a good idea to have a contract with the artist outlining what rights they're selling to you as far as the use of the art goes.


Just want to suggest you (general 'you' not you specifically) be careful with your marketing approach. If you're using, say, Twitter and most of your tweets are about your book and where I can buy the book, I'm unfollowing. If you're an interesting person who sometimes mentions that you have a book, I'm more likely to follow. Get involved in conversations with people and don't always feel like you have to jam your amazon link in there. Share other writers' book news. Share interesting articles and blog posts. Write your own blog posts on various topics. You're more than a marketing machine! smile


I do have an important suggestion for you. I checked out the link in your signature, and it took me to your website. Nowhere on your website could I actually find a link to your book. You don't show your cover, and most importantly, you don't have a link to amazon for anyone interested in purchasing it! Good luck to you on your self-pub journey! I think knowing you always have more to learn is a great attitude. 3nodding

Yes, yes! I got that you weren't suggesting that, but I wanted to make sure I threw it out there for anyone who might not know and accidentally annoy some artists. It's definitely a great thing to hire independent artists who maybe haven't established themselves yet. It can be a mutually beneficial arrangement. Involving money, haha. smile

Thank you for taking the time to pass on this information! whee This is extremely helpful. I'm getting myself set up for self publishing, and you mentioned several things that never even crossed my mind (fonts and Tumblr artists, specifically). Traditional publishing has its appeal, but I'm so glad to see that self publishing is gaining more attention and respect.

Thanks, you're awesome! heart