While I had never planned for any of this, I have spent a lot of time over the last seven or so years writing. In addition to 100’s of articles, I wrote a book with a publisher and also created a very nice eBook with the help of my friend and mentor, Neal Schaffer.
At one time, I had begun to explore self-publishing but, coincidentally at that exact same time, a publisher unexpectedly approached me about writing a book on Social CRM. Neither the publisher, nor the topic, were even on my radar. At any rate, this moved the topic of self-publishing off of the table.
I wrote that book and I hated every minute of doing so. I particularly chafed at having to submit chapters to editors and then having to chase after them to get those edits back. Honestly, the happiest day of my life was when that was all over. I bought some copies to give away. I never actually read the book. I had already read it enough.
A few years ago I began to document how I created, and ran, my for-profit B2B networking group … NetWorks! Boise. My thought process was to have something to give to someone should I ever agree to sell the business. Happily, I entered into an agreement to do just that, with one of our members, a few months ago.
I had also thought about the possibility of publishing this document as a book. After all, it was already mostly written. The timing seemed right. It is very much a how-to book. It is longer than your average eBook but, shorter than a traditional book. Here is how it went.
Too many choices
I knew that Amazon was a popular self-publishing platform. What I did not realize was that there are actually two separate platforms, KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) and CreateSpace. You can actually use either, or both, depending on what you want to do. I wanted to create an eBook and an accompanying paperback.
If you want to create an eBook … KDP. If you want to create a paperback … KDP or CreateSpace. If you want to do both … either KDP alone or KDP and CreateSpace. I chose to do both on KDP. There are other differences between the two services but, all I cared about was selecting the most seamless process.
KDP Jumpstart provides step by step instructions which are actually quite well done. There are also a ton of other support articles that are spread out all over the place. They should be better organized as this added to my confusion.
Creating an account was pretty simple. Email support is better than most I have encountered but, I do have very high expectations so very few companies will get an A. I’ll give them a solid B.
Into the weeds
KDP offers a Microsoft add on (I had to upgrade my Word to 2016) which is quite good. This is the best way to create a document file that is properly formatted for both your eBook and your paperback. I will say this, I know Word a lot better now but, I will continue to use Google Docs as my preferred writing platform.
Get started by opening your document in Word and then select a Kindle theme and a book trim size. The add on will then format your document automatically. However, formatting in general, was very frustrating for me as I have only a basic functioning knowledge of Word.
They changed my font to Merriweather 8 pt. but, I found out that this was normal. It took me awhile to figure out how the table of contents worked. I had an issue with the format for chapter titles. It took me several attempts to add page numbers and headers (¾ of the way it only added the header and numbers to every other page).
When using Kindle’s eBook preview tool, a ton of other formatting errors became apparent. Page breaks, rogue fonts, and some that I never did figure out (I erased all formatting on these and started over). My advice is to be sure to use this tool! It will also show you how your book will look on a tablet, a phone, and a Kindle.
I had included some images of our forms but, they did not format in the viewer so I took those out and created links to the actual documents on my Google Drive. I had some text boxes and they didn’t format either so, I removed them and used block quotes instead.
In another section, no matter how hard I tried, I could not get the stinkin’ bullets to match the font so … I changed them to numbers that did match the type style. I probably could have fixed all of these formatting challenges but, my workarounds were much easier and … much faster.
I had already created a cover on my own (I’m not graphic designer) but, Kindle’s cover creator automatically showed me some options that were pre-populated with my title, subtitle, and name. I took the first suggestion and made zero, yes zero, changes. Really, I just wanted this to be over.
I knew that when you published a paperback and ebook on KDP, book info would transfer over from one to the other but, I missed where you can set up either kind of book and then simply add the other. I mistakenly had set up two separate books. Fortunately, both were in draft so I deleted the one (after confirming with support).
Finally, after my eBook published, I created the paperback. Creating the paperback and a back cover (eBooks do not have a back) is pretty straight forward and the preview tool, of your actual book, is pretty awesome! You can also download a PDF copy as well as order a proof by mail (printing costs plus mailing … under $6).
I was pretty happy that I ordered the proof because … remember the 8 pt. font? In the Kindle version of the book, they increased the font size. In the printed copy … you needed a magnifying glass to read it! So, I went back to Word and increased everything to 10 pt. except that, regardless of how hard I tried, I could not change the font size on the table of contents. Finally, I just gave up. Who reads the TOC anyway.
I was able to upload my manuscript with the edits (it replaces the existing one on file) and then just said … I have had enough. Hit publish. All was good until I peeked at the “look inside” feature of the book on Amazon. It appeared that my preface had been cut off?
I panicked as I had already published and even ordered some copies for myself. Fortunately, and I did not think that this was possible, I was able to upload the manuscript again. In retrospect, I am pretty confident that the preface was fine to begin with.
Finally, you will want to verify that your eBook and your paperback are tied together on the same page. If you have an Author Page, you will want to add these to that. If you don’t have a page, create one.
Overall, I would rate my experience with using KDP as very good. Certainly, if I am ever stupid enough to write another book … it will be a breeze.
Why?
While I was deep into this process, I was talking with one of my cousins and we discussed my latest adventure. He asked me if I was excited to get this book done and published. I had to think about my answer. I had been editing/proofing it for over a week while simultaneously trying to figure out all of the publishing steps.
I haven’t made any money on my real book and I expect to make about the same on this one. I don’t even like writing that much. Writing and editing a book even less so. Since I don’t expect to make any money, and I don’t like doing any of it, why in the hell am I doing this?
It’s for the experience and learning how to do something new. That’s it. For me, it’s more about the process than it is the actual product. Another bucket list item to cross off. Maybe now I can get to some of my fun to-do’s! Oh yeah. I almost forgot … “How to Build a For-Profit Business Networking Group”.
Craig M. Jamieson
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