Birth of a Self-Published Print Book

by J. Lea López

It was painful. It was emotional. There were thoughts of "why am I doing this again??" There may have been some crying.

No, I'm not talking about childbirth, I'm talking about book birth.

I've been quiet on the FTWA blog for a bit, partially due to life and partially due to fighting with the formatting for my novel, which I self-published in ebook format at the end of May. This past Sunday, five and a half months after the ebook was published, I submitted the FINAL corrected file for the paperback edition to Createspace to be approved and distributed. I'd researched the digital side of self-pubbing a lot more than the POD side before I released my novel earlier this year. I thought digital would be so much more difficult than print. Boy, oh boy, was I ever wrong.

All I Wanted Was a Font!

I didn't think I was being unrealistic or overly fancy. I wanted a cohesive look to the print book, so I thought it would be nice to use the title font from the book cover as the font for the title page and chapter headings in my book. It's not an ornate font, but it is one that I had downloaded and installed. Here, take a look:

Nothing crazy. But that font caused 90% of the frustration I experienced with my formatting issues. This post isn't specifically about my formatting process or how I overcame this issue (in short, I had to create images of the text for each heading and use a different program to edit the PDF and insert the high-resolution images) but more about how self-publishing means YOU have to deal with every book birthing pain, from the sleepless nights with baby worries on the brain to the smallest of contractions to the aftercare for the episiotomy (if you don't know, don't Google) you'll need when your baby almost literally rips you a new one in the process of trying to make its way into the world.

It was my decision to use this particular font, and it was my months-long headache to deal with when it wouldn't properly embed into the file. It was my stubbornness that wouldn't let me just change the damn font and be done with it. No way. If I was gonna have this baby, I was gonna do it my way.

You Want Me to Decide WHAT?

My ebook was pretty much no-frills, basic formatting, to help ensure a good reading experience across all readers. With a print book, however, there are suddenly a WHOLE LOT of things to consider that I never would have considered before I started the process. And since there is no publisher (but yourself) there's no book designer (but yourself) or typesetter (but yourself). Which can be a lot of fun, but can also be overwhelming.

You'll make decisions that look good on screen but will horrify you once you have a printed proof in your hands. You'll agonize for hours over which font to use for your text. You'll scrutinize everything because you have to. It's like you have this awesome baby and you want to dress it in pretty clothes, put cute bows in its hair and coordinate its outfits with those bibs that have clever sayings. Who knew there were so many choices? Here are some of the things I never would've thought to look for until I saw them:

• I really like how my name looks in Palatino Linotype, and not so much in other fonts.
• I didn't like how my entire book looked in Palatino Linotype, so I used something else. Turns out I'm picky about the way lower case a and g look, among other letters.
• I loved everything about my chosen font (Constantia, 11pt, in case you're wondering) EXCEPT for the way it squished together the G and the A in Gary, the name of one of my characters. So I had to manually adjust the spacing on those two letters for every. single. occurrence.

Damn you, Gary. Damn you.

• Do I want my chapters to start this far down the page? How about this far? No, maybe this far?
• Do I want to start every chapter on an odd page, or do I want to continue them immediately on the following page? 
• Even if no one can agree on what's a widow and what's an orphan, when blogs advise you not to use Word's widow and orphan control, they say that for a reason. DO NOT USE IT!

WTF Microsoft Word! That's hideous!

• About 50 pages into manually adjusting paragraph spacing to eliminate widows and orphans, I began to question my own tolerance for the buggers. (Hint: I care more about how the tops of pages look than the bottom, and if a sentence extends 3/4 of the way across a page, I'll probably leave it be.)
• Do I like the copyright page immediately on the back of the title page? Turns out, no. I hate it. Who knew?
• Do I want my acknowledgments page in the beginning of the book or at the end? (For me, at the end.)
• My book ends on an even (left-hand side) page. Do I want the acknowledgements on the next odd (right-hand page) or should there be a blank page in between? YES I ACTUALLY DEBATED THIS!

Who Can I Pay to do This? Please, Take My Money!

Hiring out steps you can't or don't want to complete is always an option when you publish on your own. But that presents its own challenges. Where to start looking? How do I know they're good? Where's the fine line between affordability and risking "getting what you pay for"? The few times I started searching the Web for someone to do interior book formatting for print, I was only able to find ebook designers. Plus I didn't want to spend another five or more months researching and vetting (and saving up the cash) for someone to do the job for me. I knew I could figure it out if I just stuck with it. And I did. But boy was it exhausting.

All Hail Traditional Publishing!

Okay, not quite.  You'll never hear me say that one type of publishing is better than the other, although I think some people have been expecting that from me ever since I first expressed enjoying both the self-publishing process and the results I've been getting. I've been having a lot of fun, and I certainly do not mind those royalty checks showing up in my bank account every month. I even surprised myself by formulating a plan to finish and self-publish a WIP that I was previously sure would be THE ONE to land me an agent. I'll do a print version of that one, too, even though it makes me a little nervous. At least now I know to start working on print options long before I did this time around.

But yes, I do still want to go traditional with some future titles, for varying reasons. Honestly, though? Screw the barely-there marketing assistance I might get from a publisher. I don't care if I could possibly get a big advance. Forget about the bookstore placement. At this point, you know what the biggest appeal of traditional publishing is?

A publisher is like a surrogate that will undergo IVF and carry my baby to term, enduring every last physical labor pain to bring it into the world. (Are the birth analogies getting a little weird? They're weird, right? Hang on, we're almost done.) It's my baby, and I love it, and I will care for it once it's born, but giving birth to it just might kill me. A publisher would mean not worrying about font and typesetting and gutters and margins and "holy mother of Garamond how do I get rid of the running headers on the first page of each chapter?!" because they'll do all that for me. Without me having to get out my checkbook. And when it's all over, I'll have a shiny new baby to ooh and ahh over and to hug and love forever and ever.

Bottom line: Just like a parent will tell you the pain of childbirth is "so worth it," I'll say the same about the long process it's taken for me to finish my paperback. It's an amazing sense of accomplishment and I'm excited for my book to be out there (soon) in another format. Will I do it again? Yes. Will I do it differently? Probably. Will I still keep an eye out for that perfect surrogate to birth future babies if I think we'll be a perfect fit? You betcha.

If you're considering self-publishing, I'm not trying to dissuade you. In fact, I'll probably try to encourage you more than anything. But I also want you to stop and think about all the steps there are. Now double the amount of steps. Now imagine completing all those steps on very little sleep while trying to keep the rest of your life under control and also leaving room to deal with the many unforeseen complications that can pop up along the way. Sound like fun? Congratulations! You're ready to birth your very own self-published print book.

If you're a self-publisher, what was your most frustrating part of the publishing process?

J. Lea López is a shy, introverted writer with a secret world of snark and naughtiness inside her head. She writes character-driven erotica and contemporary new adult stories. Her first novel, Sorry's Not Enough, and her free short story collection, Consenting Adults, are available now. She'd love to tweet with you.

Look Before You Leap, No Matter the Path

by R.C. Lewis

Whether you're going to pursue self-publishing or the traditional route, one thing is consistent.

You need to do your homework first.

I see people failing to do that on both sides, particularly by peeking around at queries up for critique on sites like AgentQuery Connect. People who've sent out dozens of queries already but reveal they don't know the most basic facts about agents, querying, and traditional publishing. People who get requests for partials or fulls, and then ask if anyone knows whether the agent is reputable. And especially lately, people who self-publish and within weeks are getting ready to query.

The message we send when we do these things isn't a good one. Above all, it makes us look like we don't take ourselves seriously as professionals. Traditional or self, we are professionals and need to act like it.

If you're at the point of, "I wrote a novel. Now what?" here are some general steps I'd recommend.

Research All Avenues You have a lot of options, especially these days. You can query agents and pursue publication with a major publishing house. You can submit to some publishers without an agent. Or you can do it yourself and self-publish. Dig way into each and figure out which is right for you and your goals.

Take the Long View Now that you've gotten your hands on all the info possible on the various routes to publishing, don't assume it has to be one or the other. When figuring out what will be best for you, keep yourself open to different routes for different needs. Also keep Plan B options in mind.

Pick a Path and Do the Work Going traditional? Learn how to write an awesome query. Research agents and only query ones you know are reputable. (This is assuming you've already gone through and revised, edited, and polished your manuscript.) Doing it on your own? Your manuscript should be even more polished than a querying author's—consider hiring an editor. Get a killer cover. Form a clear business plan.

I'm not saying there aren't reasons to change our minds. (Remember what I said about having a Plan B?) However, if we do all the requisite work beforehand, there should be little chance of "Whoops! Just kidding. Let's have a do-over."

Decide what to do, and do it with conviction.

R.C. Lewis teaches math by day and writes YA fiction by every other time. Her YA sci-fi novel Stitching Snow will be published by Disney-Hyperion in Summer 2014. Meanwhile, you can find her at Crossing the Helix and on Twitter (@RC_Lewis).