Point of View: I’m In it Now

I have dived into the deep end, and the water’s rising high!

This week, I started seriously working on my first self publication project – The River City Chronicles. Not the manuscript – that’s been done for months. I’m talking about the nitty-gritty work of preparing all the stuff and submitting it to distributors to actually get the book out there. It’s a lot harder than I thought.

I’m using Vellum to prep the book, and it’s been a fricking Godsend. Very easy to use, and so many options. I can see what the book will look like in ALL versions of eBook and print.

The hard part is when I get to the whole submission to distributors part.

What should the price be? What about a wholesale discount? Should I do print with Ingram Spark or Create Space? Do I need a hardcover version? An audio version? An ISBN? A barcode?

How much should I spend? How much can I spend?

My head is spinning.

So… I chose Ingram Spark for print, and made a first go of it on Saturday. I promptly got overwhelmed with all the options. Do I want 6×9 or 5×8 trim size? What font is best? Do I want a glossy or matte cover? What price should I sell it for? How much money will I make per book? What about returns?

So many questions. Thankfully I have a few friends who have done all this before.

I stepped back, took a deep breath, and re-evaluated things. It was clear I needed to be a lot more careful with my page length, as that’s a key factor in determining print cost, price, and ultimate profits from any paperback book. So I scaled back the length, asked all the questions I had, and I *think* I’m almost there on the paperback.

Next I have to tackle the Amazon beast.

How do publishers make this look so easy?

Wish me luck. If all goes well, I might just make my self-imposed release date of May 30th.