Thoughts At One In The Morning is proud to present a blog post series for unpublished writers on the self-publishing world. I have asked four indie authors to share with you the different steps they have taken on their journey. They will discuss the writing process itself, the steps in between, and publishing itself. Please join us every week for a new topic on the journey to becoming an indie author!
Our Indie Author panel:
Marie Landry, author of Blue Sky Days
You can find her on her blog Ramblings Of A Daydreamer.
A.M. Hargrove, author of The Guardians Of The Vesteron series
You can find her on her blog A.M. Hargrove.
Avery Sawyer, author of Notes To Self
You can find her on her website The Teashop Girls.
Michelle Flick, author of The Owens Legacy: Revelations
You can find her on her blog Oh! For the LOVE of BOOKS!.
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This week on The Journey of Self-Publishing:
A.M. Hargrove: I published with Smashwords and let them handle everything besides Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I did Amazon and B&N on my own.
Avery Sawyer: I publish with Amazon and Smashwords. Smashwords distributes to B&N and iTunes.
~Publishing~
Who did you publish with?
A.M. Hargrove: I published with Smashwords and let them handle everything besides Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I did Amazon and B&N on my own.
Avery Sawyer: I publish with Amazon and Smashwords. Smashwords distributes to B&N and iTunes.
Marie Landry: I went through Smashwords and Amazon. Smashwords distributes the book to every ebook site imaginable (B&N, Kobo, Diesel, etc), and although they distribute through Amazon as well, I liked the idea of having the Amazon dashboard and being able to keep up with sales in real time.
Michelle Flick: Amazon, CreateSpace, and Barnes and Noble. They have been good to me so far.
Michelle Flick: Amazon, CreateSpace, and Barnes and Noble. They have been good to me so far.
How long until it was approved and ready for the public?
A.M. Hargrove: It's crazy easy to do, takes only a few minutes and within a day, you're live.
Avery Sawyer: Amazon happens in about 12 hours, Smashwords is immediate, and approval for premium distribution to B&N and iTunes takes about two weeks.
Avery Sawyer: Amazon happens in about 12 hours, Smashwords is immediate, and approval for premium distribution to B&N and iTunes takes about two weeks.
Marie Landry: Pretty much overnight for both. Smashwords runs it through their system to look for errors, and once it’s approved it goes live on the site immediately, but it takes about two weeks to be accepted into their ‘premium catalogue’ where it’s distributed to all the other online retailers.
Michelle Flick: Not long at all like - 3 days for each site. It was crazy fast.
Michelle Flick: Not long at all like - 3 days for each site. It was crazy fast.
Was the formatting what you expected?
Avery Sawyer: Yes, it’s not hard to do.
Marie Landry: Pretty much, yes. I’d done a lot of research beforehand so I knew what to expect, and I had followed all their guidelines. Luckily there were no problems, and it all went really smoothly.
Michelle Flick: I screwed up... a lot. I had to redo it... a lot. I stress again - follow the directions.
Michelle Flick: I screwed up... a lot. I had to redo it... a lot. I stress again - follow the directions.
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Thank you for the great advice on publishing!
Join us next week when our Indie Author panel will be going over Promotion and what you can do to get your book on the radar of readers.
~If you liked this, check out the earlier editions of The Journey of Self-Publishing series~
I am deathly paranoid about formatting and publishing. I live in fear of sending something out into the world only to have it be riddled with mistakes. Plus I am not even slightly tech savvy so I may have to get someone else to do things for me!
ReplyDeleteI think as long as you have a pro do the formatting, somebody who has done it plenty of times with good results, you should be okay. :)
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