independent publishing

woodtype Okay, so that’s done.

I just updated the last two poetry books I published. It’s not difficult – just a lot of attention to detail. Changing half of your name, and then updating everything accordingly, can get a bit eye-crossing. Especially if there are ebook versions, as well as print versions. I still haven’t decided what to do about the ebooks. The name will have to change there, as well.

Just when it seems I’ve gotten everything fixed… I find something else. So, I check, and check, and double-check. Especially because I’ll be publishing to Amazon and other international distributions, which means I need to ensure everything – but everything – is pristine and perfect. Once you put an ISBN to something and publish it via international distribution, you’re locked in. So, you have to make it count.

Again, it’s eye-crossing.

But now, it seems it’s all set.

I’m digging into Strange Bedfellows, now. From a logistical standpoint, the work is more painstaking, because the file is bigger and takes longer to save. Plus, it’s chock full of images, which now and then have a tendency to shift around on the page – and then throw off the page count. Fortunately, I’m working in Open Office, so the file formats are the same (No M$FT Word for me, thank you very much). Plus, Open Office file sizes are a lot smaller, so there’s less drain on my finite system resources.

And that’s always nice.

If you have the proper tools, you can do amazing things. And if you practice good attention to detail, you can really create some professional-looking products that anybody would think are commercially produced. That’s one of the benefits of having worked in publishing before — both print and digital. You pick up tips and tricks, plus you develop an eye for the kind of detail that goes into creating quality materials.

Some people think that you have to have access to money and contacts and resources, in order to produce professional-looking books. On the contrary, I’ve been doing “guerrilla” publishing since the 1980s, and some of my “amateur” works look just like what you’d find in the bookstores. If you have the desire and you keep at it and you set your sights high –and never give up till you create exactly what you want — great things are possible.

If there’s one thing I’d want people to know about putting their own writing out there, it’s that. What I said above. I’ve come across a lot of people who have either had a sour-grapes attitude (“Well, of course you made something nice – you work for a big company and have access to their equipment!”), or a sort of resigned approach (“I don’t need anything fancy, just some copies made up at the local office supplies store.”)

I disagree on both counts. First off, my books don’t look great because I use my employer’s stuff. I don’t. I’ve figured out how to either use what little I have very creatively, or I found a way to get access to the equipment I needed on an occasional basis. You don’t need to have constant access to a full-feature printer, to crank out a handful of poetry chapbooks. You can mock everything up at the local library, print it out for 10 cents/sheet, and then take it to your local copy shop to create the finished product.

If you want to publish full-length books, you can do it for free at Lulu.com. They have everything you need to publish a full-length book with a nice-looking cover, and it won’t cost you a think to set it up. You can do the pre-production work on the computers at your local library.

As for “keeping it simple” and going with a bare-bones approach… It’s so straightforward, and so possible, to produce a really nice-looking work on your own, that there’s really no reason to do without good design. All you need for inspiration and guidance, is a trip to your local bookstore or library, to see examples for best-practices in book design and layout. And then you just copy what they do.

It’s really quite simple. But a lot of people make it hard in their heads.

Far more important than expensive equipment or professional publishing skills, is a keen sense for detail and what makes a published product look — and feel — great. Once you’re clear on that, everything becomes a lot clearer.

Now… on to updating Strange Bedfellows. I’m writing a new foreword, as well as a conclusion. The story, on the surface, reads like an eco-warrior treatise about the hazards of modern living. But beneath it all, there’s more… so much more.

And there will be more to come about that. Soon.

So, now that I’ve decided to write under a pen name, I must revise all my past books to reflect my new identity. I’ve been publishing on Lulu for many, many years, and I’ve cranked out a bunch of books in the process. I’ve also started a number of projects which I never finished or fell victim to lack of time, so that actually inflates the perceived amount of work.

Turns out, when I look more closely, it’s not insurmountable. And it also turns out that some of those old projects really need to be retired, as they’re cluttering up my space for no good reason.

All told, my past published works that I’m carrying forward consist of: five poetry books, a handful of self-help books, a how-to guide on turning your eBook into a printed book, and a novella. The rest can come down. The podcasting guides, audio production training, and a handful of other odd projects once seemed like a good idea, but they’re not something I want to carry forward. And there’s more to come.