Posted by My research on the subject of self publishing is beginning to come together in my head. A new Cunning Plan is forming, and I can see light at the end of the tunnel which is not an oncoming train. I had bought Catherine Ryan Howard’s book, Self Printed (the third edition, to get the most up to date technological advice) and have been wading through all 130,000 words and trying to get to grips with it. To summarise, Amazon, with their Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) have 50% of the EBook market, and Barnes and Noble, Kobo and Apple etc comprise The Rest. One way of accessing The Rest is by using Smashwords. The Rest all use different reading devices such as the Nook or I Pad and therefore the file formatting for Smashwords is very challenging. One thing Catherine suggests is to upload to Amazon Kindle Direct yourself, because it is (allegedly) quite straightforward, as the file conversion is just for one device, a Kindle. She suggests waiting until you have earned some royalties and paying someone to do the EBook file conversion for Smashwords. I had thought this sounded like wise advice, because my eyes get seriously sore when I spend too long on the computer, and I would prefer to spend my computer time writing, as opposed to wresting with file conversions. Then, while out for a walk last week, I had a light bulb moment. Would it be financially possible to get an EBook conversion company to do BOTH conversions for me? I got a quotation from a company Catherine recommends, and lo and behold, the answer is that yes, it is do-able financially, and in fact their normal quotations are for both types of file conversions. I am so glad I had not invested a lot of unnecessary work into the KDP upload when there is so much else to do! So my new Cunning Plan is to submit the manuscript to them when I get it back from the proof reader in January, while I concentrate on the cover design and the work to self publish the paperback via Createspace. Phew!
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See my other blogs on Self Publishing at https://maresehickey.com/category/how-to-self-publish/
The Write of My Life 