Hello all,

So this is mostly for the self-publishing people. There’s been a lot of back and forth about how to make publishing affordable. Obviously with self-publishing, there are a lot of expenses and nuances to the process. Sites like Createspace and Lulu make the process easier, but it’s still a lot of work and decision-making.

Below is a list of expenses, what to pay for and what not to pay for… Keep in mind though, this is my own opinion. So if you’ve had other experiences or disagree on where the priorities are, feel free to leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.

So let’s get started…

You’ve written your book and you’ve decided to go with the self-publishing route. Awesome! There are quite a few advantages here, but also several disadvantages. I’ve explored these in other topics, so feel free to take a look back through my posts.

Now obviously with self-publishing, you’re going to incur a lot more in the way of up front costs for publishing. Let’s go through them one at a time. I’ll address what each one is, how much it’ll cost, and whether or not you can avoid it.

1. ISBN Numbers…
   There’s really no way around this one. If you want to publish, you need at least one. If you plan on mulitple formats, you’ll need more than one. At the very least you’ll need 2; one digital, one print version ($100/apiece.) Many publishing services out there will offer you a free one… but you basically hand over the rights to the book if you do that and get less of a return on your investment. You also have limited options as to where you can sell your book.
   In short, you can go with the free option if you’re really strapped, but it could come back to haunt you later.
2.  Copyright registration
   There are several different trains of thought here. Many argue that the ISBN is sufficient. Others say that it’s worth shelling out the $40 for the copyright to protect yourself in the case of copyright lawsuit initiated by you or someone else in the future.
   With these, I’ve adopted a ‘better safe than sorry’ philosophy. I pay for mine. I guess you can avoid it for now if you must, but remember that if someone plagiarizes you, you’re going to need register your work before filing a claim. (United States).
3. Cover
   I can’t stress this enough, the cover is likely the most important part of what you’re going to pay for. Plan on a price of between $250-$900 for a truly professional cover design. My advice is to get in good with an artist and set up a good working relationship. They tend to offer discounts with the promise of future work. However DO NOT try to low ball them. I see this all the time and find it disrespectful. They work hard and often don’t get much for their work. Pay what they ask and if you can’t, then try to find another artist who will work within your budget. Either way, ALWAYS pay your artist. A lot of services will offer generic covers… AVOID these. One, other people have used them and two, they tend to be fairly plain and don’t really draw attention to your book.
   Finally, unless you’re artistically inclined, please don’t try to create the cover yourself. It rarely ends well and often looked a lot better in your head. While you can translate your thoughts from energy to the written word, an artist can take that written word and come up with an amazing design for you.
4. Editing and Reviewing 
   Not going to lie this is fighting with the cover design for the most important piece. A lot of services and sites offer proofing… for a rather hefty price. I know $.05/word doesn’t sound bad… but when your book is 80k to 100k, that $.10 becomes thousands of dollars. If you go this route… be ready because you’re not going to break even on your writing for a while.
   My advice here is to seek out writing groups. There are a lot of people on both good reads and other sites that are as anxious as you to have someone edit their works. Help them and they’ll help you.
   If all else fails, there are plenty of college students with writing or journalism majors out there looking to make some money. They’re usually pretty cheap too ($100-$300).
   DO NOT RELY ON SELF-EDITING! While it is important, and independent pair of eyes is absolutely essential.
5. Advertising
   This is one where I would say that you can get away without paying… If you’re good at social media. Create accounts on all sites, gain as many followers as you can, and occasionally peddle your works. Get people interested in what you have to say, and they’ll find the way to your book in fairly short order.
   If you need help or can’t navigate social media very well, then go ahead and shell out for the advertising (on average $30/month to $2,000 total)

In the end, I would say to expect your book to cost you roughly $800 on average. $400 is the MINIMUM. Anything less… I’d say don’t even bother because you’re going to be cutting way too many corners.

Anyway, hope this helps. We can discuss it further in the comments if anyone has any further advice or questions!

-Jim

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have multiple published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

Thanks for following my work! I’ll admit that my library read books has increased exponentially since the advent of audible. I’m admittedly a much faster writer than I am a reader… if that even makes sense.

To answer your question though, my absolute favorite story is a fairly old novella that I’d read in High School for summer reading credit.

Strange Highways by Dean Koontz.

I’ll admit that the man’s writing has gone… in rather odd directions recently and the religious undertones are far more glaring, but this was back during some of his best writing. This book, which thanks to a Christmas present from my wife I now own a signed limited first edition of, is actually a collection of short stories. The first story in the book is the novella for which the collection is titled: Strange Highways.

I’m rarely on the edge of my seat when it comes to a book, so it should come as a rather big surprise when I say that this book had me on the edge more than any movie I’ve ever seen.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

The novella is about an alcoholic loser of a writer named Joey Shannon. He returns to his hometown, which is a former coal town that has become a ghost town as it is slowly emptied of people by the federal government when thousands of acres of burning coal beneath it threatened to collapse and turn everyone to cinders.

Joey inexplicably finds himself at a crossroad from many years earlier. He can be redeemed from his alcoholism if he takes the tougher road and manages to save Celeste Baker from murder by his psychopathic brother, P.J.
Joey is thrust back in time again and again in replays of the same scene when he fails to stop his brother before the power to believe gives him the needed strength.

The book has gotten mixed reviews, but manages to maintain a 3.8 rating on Goodreads. There is quite a lot that you have to take for granted in the book and I’ll be the first to admit, that it’s far from perfect, but I’ve read it five times and am on my sixth read as we speak. I love this book, especially the ending and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes thrillers dealing with the dark side of religion, but has a greatly satisfying ending.

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Note:
If you have read my books, PLEASE log into Amazon and post a review. I really love to hear everyone’s thoughts and constructive criticisms. Reviews help get my book attention and word of mouth is everything in this business!

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Note:
If you have read my books, PLEASE log into Amazon and post a review. I really love to hear everyone’s thoughts and constructive criticisms. Reviews help get my book attention and word of mouth is everything in this business!

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

Let’s face it, we’re all fed up with sequels and prequels, right? Once a story is over, there’s nothing wrong with declaring a happily ever after and leaving it at that. Once a story is concluded, the heroes have been through enough, and it’s time to move on to bigger and better things so they can live out their days in peace.

So why then do the stories keep getting rehashed? Why do we continuously invade their lives with forced plots that thrust characters back into hard situations that make the entire world less believable and even in some cases, damage the first story? Why did the orphanage from the first Blues Brothers wind up closing? Why did the Gates family get thrust into another historical mystery? Why is Disney following up on literal happily ever afters?

Well… there’s a couple of reasons for this… First, sequels are safe. Even if they’re many years out of date. Both literary and visual media companies want followup stories because if an audience liked the first story, they’ll pay to see/read the next one in a line… no matter how poorly done it is. Some because they love the characters and want to revisit their world, others just to see how badly it all get’s messed up.

Unfortunately, they’re right in this line of thinking. New titles and original movies that aren’t based on anything are often hard sells by comparison. If you write a story that is completely your own, not based on any modern/historical events, based in an established world, etc. You’re going to have a hard time. The same can be said about movies. I spoke in another post about the criticism that Hollywood is out of ideas. I don’t agree. Hollywood produces original movies all the time. The problem is that they’re usually given a smaller budget, little to no advertising, and go relatively un-celebrated. So next time you go to the movies. Take a look at the sign and check out one of the movies you don’t recognize and haven’t heard of. Usually, those will be your original stories.

So at some point through presequelitis, we’ve all got to come to terms with the fact that followup stories/movies are never going away. We can complain and moan all we want, there will always be an audience for them. Like it or not, there will always be an audience for movies such as Ghostbusters Answer the Call. These are not going to go away and I don’t think they should…

HEAR ME OUT!

There are right and wrong ways to do sequels and prequels. First, prequels need someone to keep an eye on continuity. If your prequel is going to poke major potholes in the better followup, then it may be time to abandon said story. The worst thing you can do is damage established norms, because that’s how you lose your audience.

Sequels are a little different. If you’ve written a story and given the idea that all loose ends are tied up and everything is finished, going back and forcing those characters into a whole new story that came out of nowhere causes a lot of problems. Not the least of these are 1. you’re beating on characters that have already taken their bumps. This can come off at mean spirited. 2. You’re straining suspension of disbelief. Suddenly bringing in a new adversary/obstacle that is somehow connected to the original story, but literally no one knew about, and/or mentioned up until now can be tough to follow.

So how can we make sequels work? Well for starters, if you intend to write a sequel to your story, don’t tie up all the loose ends. Leave something for the sequel to grab onto. In other words, spread your story out over a couple of novels. There’s no rule that says everything has to be crammed into one story.

Now let’s say that you’ve finished your story. Let’s say every loose end is completely tied up and your story has been published. People love it and are either screaming for a sequel or you’ve come up with a new plot point that you’d like to explore in that setting. This is where you have to be VERY careful. This is where you run the risk of writing a forced sequel, because its here that suddenly you have to explain where this new plot point comes from and why no one noticed it up until now. It’s a very sloppy way of doing things, and honestly is very transparent.

That said, the best way to go about doing something like this is to turn your story into a series of stories all set in the same world, but with different main characters. In essence, turn it into an anthology series. You can create a whole new set of characters and maybe even grab one or two supporting/minor characters from your previous story to take center stage. You can still have the characters from the first book come in and make appearances, reacting to the situation as you see fit. However they would really need to stay in the background.

The best thing about doing it this way is that you can literally do anything you want as long as you obey the rules you’ve already put in place for the world you created. The story prior to, during, or after the original. When I wrote damnation, it takes place during and after the events of Divinity and does so in a way that does not affect the original story other than bringing more dynamics to the original plot points. In essence, the happenings of Damnation actually expand and emphasize what goes on in Divinity.

Followup stories aren’t going away, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be good!

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Note:
If you have read my books, PLEASE log into Amazon and post a review. I really love to hear everyone’s thoughts and constructive criticisms. Reviews help get my book attention and word of mouth is everything in this business!

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

Hi Jim,

I’ve been writing for some time now and was actually wondering what made you decide to give out writing advice on your blog. Isn’t that like giving away all of your secrets? Couldn’t you wind up giving advice to someone who may wind up outperforming you?

Just wondering,
Craig

Hi Craig,

Just kidding. Honestly, if that happens, great! If honestly I give someone advice that helps them become the next Stephen King, I’ll be happy! (Though a little recognition for it wouldn’t go unappreciated *hint, hint*)

Honestly, I don’t worry about it. No matter what happens, you’ll always have people who enjoyed your work and will always come back to read more as long as the writing keeps up. It’s not like you’re giving out advice to help them write exactly like you do, far from it. You’re just giving them a push in the right direction.

Finally, what is knowledge if it isn’t shared? Of what benefit is it? I struggled through the writing/publishing world with no foreknowledge of the industry because I didn’t know anything about it. So if I can help someone not make the same mistakes and experience the disappointments that I did early on, then why not help?

As to your other question ‘why’? Well there are a few reasons. For one, I like receiving emails from my followers/fans… though I may have shot myself in the foot by promising a personal response to all of them, but I feel I must also admit to a more selfish reason as well.

One of the few pieces of advice I was given when I started trying to get published was to get my name out there. Join a blogging community and contribute heavily to it. That’s how you get notoriety. So I figured the best way was to write about things I knew. I wrote about history, writing, social commentary (which i’ve now stopped unless it pertains to writing, because the world is already saturated with politics.), and fantasy. Before long, I started getting questions about my writing and decided to make an email to accept and respond to fanmail/ questions.
That’s when I found my niche; writing advice. I’ve been doing it ever since.

So while I’ll admit that my motives haven’t always been altruistic, and are a good way to promote my books, I’ve come to really enjoy answering questions and offering my opinion.

Readers, do you have any follow up for Craig? What are other ways you get your name out there?

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have multiple published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim