Self Publishing - A Beginner's Guide

Are you ready to publish a book, but not sure where to start?
This video will give you a good insight into self-publishing. Listed below are the details referred to in the video.
Draft2Digital (D2D)Charge no fees for formatting or updating your book.When you distribute through D2D, and a reader buys a copy of your eBook, they’ll take 10% of the retail price of that book, for that sale. They offer book distribution services to many major platforms.
They also make it easy for you to do formatting, update your back-matter, see your book sales, and set up sales pages for each of your books. When combined, you can save time and money, prevent headaches, and work on writing your next book!
Just opt out of the ‘new release’ mailing list; you’ll do better to set up your own email list collector.
IngramSpark Self-Publishing Fees as at 30 January 2024(IngramSpark boasts that it’s the largest book wholesaler in the world, so it’s no surprise that it has better distribution than KDP)There’s a $49 fee for setting up a new print book, and a $25 fee for a new ebook.
Currently, IngramSpark allows you to set up the book in both print and digital for a bundle deal of $49 (the same as a print title alone), which you can take advantage of if you’re not separately self-publishing your ebook with KDP, Google Play, or any other ebook distributor.
Once your book is published, there’s a good chance you’ll have to make at least one revision down the line.
With IngramSpark, you’ll pay revision fees, too. There’s a $25 fee for revising the cover or manuscript, and if you need to make changes to both, you’ll be making two $25 payments for a total of $50, because IngramSpark treats cover and interior revisions separately.
Using IngramSpark’s and KDP’s respective royalty calculators, here’s what you can expect: for a 250-page, 5”x8” print book (a pretty standard trim) listed at $9.99, you’d be making $1.40 in author royalties with KDP (at a 60% royalty rate with $4.00 in printing costs), while with IngramSpark, you’d earn $0.61 (with $4.78 in printing costs).
You can offset this by setting the list price higher than average, but you don’t want to go too high. Otherwise, you risk losing potential readers because your book isn’t priced competitively.
Four key points to consider with self-publishing:
1. Useful if your book is intended for a limited audience.
2. The self-publishing process is much quicker than waiting around for a response from a literary agent.
3. Self-published authors get to choose their editor and book cover designer.
4. Indie authors get a higher percentage of royalties from their book sales. In traditional publishing, authors receive anything from 7 - 25 percent, but self-published authors can receive up to 70 percent.
Four counterpoints to consider with self-publishing:
1. Self-published books aren’t often accepted into book shops like Waterstones, so indie authors have to do all of their promotion online.
2. Indie authors don’t have a management team to organise book signings and publicity events for them.
3. It can be considerably harder to gain visibility, to build an audience, and to generate an income.
4. Self-publishing costs are borne by the author from the onset.
Footage:
Cottonbro studio - www.pexels.com/@cottonbro/
Tima Miroshnichenko - www.pexels.com/@tima-miroshnichenko/
Photos:
Yan Krukau - www.pexels.com/@yankrukov/
Vlada Karpovich - www.pexels.com/@vlada-karpovich/
LinkedIn Sales Navigator - www.pexels.com/@linkedin/
Product School - www.pexels.com/@product-school-1299359/
Cottonbro studio - www.pexels.com/@cottonbro/
LoboStudioHamburg - Pixabay user_id:13838
1139623 - Pixabay user_id:1139623
Geralt - Pixabay user_id:9301

[@sodor_dan-da-man]

Fantastic. Typing up my hand written manuscript now. So all these videos very helpful. Thank you

[@MaboPete]

It's surprising how going over the first draft can revael any weak areas or 'empty' avenues relating to the work that you might like to include. It's quite a labour, and taking time-out to do something completely unrelated helps to 'reboot'. It sounds like you are making good progress.

[@sodor_dan-da-man]

@@MaboPete thanks. Yes indeed. Regards reading just the first chapter again I re worded some parts but overall mostly it's how I originally wrote it. The most annoying thing though is laptops and Chromebook( I use Chromebook) try to replace English spellings for American one's. Even when adding the word to dictionary. Oh well. The wonders of modern technology.

[@MaboPete]

@@sodor_dan-da-man Is it your preference to use American spelling for this particular book? I use MS Word for all the draft work and keep back-ups after any revisions just incase. They do stack up.

[@sodor_dan-da-man]

@@MaboPete I prefer UK spellings. Backed up the typed on drive

[@MaboPete]

@@sodor_dan-da-man Try this: In the 'Languages and inputs' section, select Languages. To change your Chromebook's language, next to 'Device language', select Change. Type or choose your preferred language. Select Confirm and restart.