Self publishing - tips and tricks?

[kevkojak]

I've been writing on and off for about fifteen years and recently decided to try an get a full book written, instead of just short stories and half finished (abandoned!) ideas.

I don't expect to be the next JK Rowling, in fact I don't expect to make a single penny from it, but it's something to tick off the bucket list and with Kindle books literally anyone can become a published author these days.

...Well, if you know how to do it right, that is!

Currently I'm writing onto Microsoft Word (2013) but I've been watching a few "Self publish in ten easy steps" sort of videos and it looks an absolute minefield, particularly the process of formatting your book for their site. I know one or two of our members have self published online, so I'm wondering if you could share any tips.
Primarily, if you could go back to the beginning when you were still in development, what would you do differently???

Thanks to all.

[Dave O'Sullivan]

I self published earlier this year. KDP is klunky to use to say the least but also the best way to do it as it's the largest platform.

I actually had my book formatted for me via an editor using a site called Reedsy. I made a couple more tweaks after I chose the page sizes on KDP.

Then it was a case of manually sifting through it to make sure there were no pages with just a word or two on them - known as orphan words.

If you don't want to pay to have it formatted, just pick up another book and see how they've done it - starting chapter's a third of the way down the page etc..


Dickbrowne is really your man for this as he's published a few I believe.


Out of interest, what kind of book is it?

[kevkojak]

Cheers Dave.
I have three works in progress which I wouldn't mind picking up again. All Fiction, mixed genres, I suppose sci-fi fantasy if I had to narrow.

It appears romance and erotica pay the money these days, I might have to squeeze some of that in if I can remember what it's like!