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Publishing a Book!

Welcome back to my Life of an (Independent) Author series. This article is going to accomplish two goals: Give you a clue what it takes to publish a book and announce my next book The Prodigy and the Telepath, coming out October 20th!

The Prodigy and the Telepath

So, of course, I’m going to touch on my new book first. Prodigy is the next novelette in the Psi-Prodigy series. Eric D’Tra’val was only five years old in The Accident and now he’s thirteen and has gained more powers. The problem is there are voices in his head.

Eric finishes burying his adoptive mother when the voices play on his grief, pushing him to run away. When he hears of trespassers on old mines he owns nearby, he jumps at the chance to flee and hops on the maglev into the Arizona desert.

In comes Sarah, a very sensitive emerging telepath able to hear his thoughts even through his defenses. She tells him, “not all your thoughts are your own.”

What began as a chance meeting turns into an adventure of a lifetime with gun-toting miners, a flooded mineshaft turned to struggle for survival, and spiritual warfare as the voices try to claim Eric’s soul.

If that piques your interest, check out the Amazon link below.

Components of a Book

So, do you know everything that goes into independently publishing a book? It’s not just write a best-selling novel, upload to Amazon, and wait for the royalties to flood your inbox. In reality, there is work to be done even before you type “The End.”

Before “The End”

Line up your developmental and line editor
Line up your book cover creator
Start thinking about marketing your book

No independently published book should ever be published without an experienced editor. A developmental editor will find the flaws in your manuscript, characters, and continuity you just can’t see. Having gone through this process three times now, I can confidently say each of my manuscripts had imperfections and outright ugliness that needed work. That’s what a good editor will do.

Find one that works with your genre. You don’t want a non-fiction editor working with your space opera. Best way to find one is to ask your professional organization (remember last month’s article?). They will have plenty of candidates for you. You’ll want to check when they will be able to work on your manuscript. Some editors could be booked months out.

Similarly, book cover designers could be booked out months, especially the independent contractors. Some companies, such as GetCovers.com and 100Covers.com, have a plethora of creatives working on covers, so getting a cover created in short order is possible.

Marketing will be a constant months-long process. A lot of it is figuring out what draws people’s attention and tweaking your approach to find your readers. After my first two books, I decided to hire a book marketer to show me what I was doing wrong. I found mine on Fiverr, Lucia Gracewell (@luciapro1). She’s a great person to work with and her work is spectacular. Check out the Amazon descriptions and A+ content on my books. She has a way of drawing you into the story.

Between “The End” and Release

Your book’s cover is being worked on and you have your manuscript back from your editor for final edits. Now what?

Back Cover Copy and Author Bio
Formatting
ISBN and Copyright
Set up ARC readers and street team
More Marketing!

The Back Cover Copy is a critical piece to marketing as it has to draw your potential readers into needing to purchase your book. Hype it up! What are the key points of your story which will excite your readers? Just don’t give away the ending. Oh, the blurb for Prodigy above was distilled from my own back cover copy.

Formatting is one of the more overlooked components of a book. I used Word for The Accident and it did a passable job. You really need to either hire someone to typeset your manuscript or purchase formatting software to do it. On the software side, there’s Atticus, Scrivner and Vellum. (Vellum only works on a Mac.) There are others. I use Atticus. For freelancers, look to Reedsy or Fiverr.

ISBN and copyrighting are necessary to protect your work. Bowker.com is where you need to go in the U.S. to purchase ISBNs and even set up your copyright filing to the U.S. Copyright Office. If you know you are going to write many books, Bowker has package deals to save some money.

Another critical component is the ARC team. ARC stands for Advance Reader Copy. Find a bunch of people you would be willing to give a copy of your book prior to release so they can read it and start posting your praises! Family and friends are fine, but if you want them to post reviews on Amazon, the Amazon AI may determine they are too close to you and nix their review. Yes, I’ve had it happen.

Check with your professional organization and do a call-out asking for ARC team members. Give them your back cover copy and see how many bite. The more the merrier and their reviews will give you the needed boost when your book releases.

Post Release

Your book has finally been released! You can sit back and watch the reviews pile up and the royalties accumulate. Right? Nope, you still have more work to do.

Even more marketing! It really won’t end.
Set up editorial reviews
Start writing the next best seller!

Marketing is going to be an ongoing adventure by itself. After release, you have your ads to keep tweaking, but now, you want to search for opportunities to present yourself to the public. This could be podcasts, writing articles (like this one), and guest blog posts. You should also seek venues where you can set up a table and hawk your books directly to people. Craft shows, county fairs, and book fairs are such examples.

Editorial reviews are not the same as customer reviews on Amazon. These are written by professionals and at a cost. Because you are purchasing these reviews, they are not allowed on Amazon, except specifically in their editorial reviews section. However, these reviews can give readers an independent source for information about your book. There are many, many companies which will review your book for a price. Research and select ones that fit your budget.

Yes, the last component is to start writing your next book, whether it be a standalone or part of a series. Sometimes, the life of an (independent) author never ends. Yes, I’m already writing the next Canthany story. I expect it to come out in the first half of next year.

See you next month.

Want to follow my journey and read my blog? Sign up on https://www.kebauthor.com

My books on Amazon:

Canthany Rising: https://www.amazon.com/Canthany-Rising-Christian-LitRPG-Adventure-ebook/dp/B0GZ598XPX

The Accident: https://www.amazon.com/Accident-Story-Faith-Psionics-Supernatural-ebook/dp/B0FSH7NPPF

The Prodigy and the Telepath: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HGKNM19N

Kenneth Bliss writes Christian science fiction and Christian LitRPG fantasy featuring spiritual warfare, battles reminiscent of TTRPG encounters, and heroes whose faith shapes the outcome of impossible conflicts. As an unabashed nerd, he has read hundreds of sci-fi/fantasy books and played TTRPGs and MMORPGs for decades. He turned his sights to the written word to express his love of God, sci-fi/fantasy, and psionics. He lives near a small town in Michigan with his two cats.

Author website link: https://www.kebauthor.com