Bountiful Books
Cloudy thoughts on the creation process
Hey! How are you today?
I’m feeling that post-holiday slowdown a bit more than last week. Although suffering from food poisoning over the weekend certainly didn’t help in finding my feet and the right pace.
Either way, it’s time for that train to start its journey down a new path. Maybe after just a moment more waiting in the station.
To keep it easier on my healing hands and misty mind, I’m not going to jump into any complex ideas or background archives. I thought it would be a good chance to let you in on some of the practical details I’ve had to learn about publishing books.
While writing may hold a certain esteem and glamour, actually ensuring the things are printed and formatted correctly also takes up a good chunk of time. Most importantly, how the words and the cover actually look greatly impact that ever-important first impression.
Riding Writing
When I started this adventure last year, all I really knew how to do was write. Head full of stories, fingers ready to type, I lacked the experience and knowledge needed to really publish a book.
I decided to focus on the physical copies first and foremost. My thinking was that the ebook would be good enough if the document I was working on looked okay.
There was a lot I needed to get right before I could get to printing anyway. Measuring margins and coming up with a cover, it very much felt like I would be over-prepared after setting up everything I needed for the book.
Trim Sizes
Spine Thickness
Paper Type
Sufficient Gutter
Between learning all the new jargon and fitting the text into the correct dimensions, I ended up not even having the spare peace of mind to think about the ebook. Better said, I was very overwhelmed and feeling the pressure to get anything out by Demo Day.
The result was a success—kind of. The first copies of Besnowed were shipped and found their way into the hands of people around the world, but there were quite a few printing errors.
More than the missed typos and strange spaces, the tiny font size was the most apparent and abhorrent offender. While still readable, it was a shock to say the least when I saw that there was something wrong.
That was an easy enough fix, but there was another glaring issue. Besnowed was printed on stark white paper. A quick lesson in what exactly is possible to edit and change later, and I decided to learn to live with that one.
Spoiler alert: you can’t change the color of the pages once the book is published—at least not on Kindle Direct Publishing.
Somewhat reluctantly, I’ve come up with a believably artistic excuse for the pages of Besnowed:
Printed on white paper to mirror the image of a cold, snowy landscape.
Regardless of how true it was at the time, I certainly like how it sounds now. I don’t know if it completely draws attention away from such a big mistake, but I like to think the book is better for its imperfections.
More human as the flaws in its production remain on its pages—in some small way.
At worst, the whole experience left me better prepared when it came time to go through the process once again for Maneus.
Electronic Elements
Writing and releasing Maneus went much smoother. A minor change that helped solve any possible issue was ordering a review copy before publishing. With the comfort of checking actual pages with my own hands, I was assured there wouldn’t be any major surprises waiting to be discovered.
The only real speed bump came in setting up the two-page map used in the physical versions of the book. That was truly annoying and I spent hours if not days fighting with margins in a desperate attempt to make it work.
Suffice to say, I’ll be avoiding two-page spreads as much as possible!
I also experimented much more with titles and subtitles and all that good stuff while putting together Maneus. It’s a long book split between various sections to emphasize different styles. All that comes across decently on the pages of the actual book, but it stirs the pot of a messy recipe for the ebook.
In fact, for both books I largely just ignored the virtual copies. I would look through the tests provided by Kindle Direct Publishing, and if they looked okay, then I thought it was okay.
However, there was a lot hiding between the lines in the metadata and smaller details that make reading an ebook more comfortable.
My problem was thinking of everything in terms of a printed book. You can get away with some janky solutions when the data doesn’t matter. As long as it looks good, then who cares about the path to the printers?
The answer is ebooks, they care a lot. Using non-standard styles and inconsistent chapter formatting may work when brute forced onto the pages of an actual book, but it breaks key features on kindles and other ereaders.
The biggest problem was the loss of clear chapters.
I—somewhat naively—thought that uploading the word document would then lead to some computer magic that automatically made everything fit and work correctly.
That is not true. My uploaded manuscript turned into more or less a giant text file. That works fine as a bare minimum medium for the story, but it’s also below the standard of what I think most ebook readers expect.
So, I’ve recently gone back through both Besnowed and Maneus, reformatting the documents so they work better as ebooks. The real lesson was learning I need to either build a book from the ground up that works with electronic and physical formats, or I need to take the time to rework the text to fit both mediums.
Dreamed Desires
I really only learned about the benefits that come with focusing on an ebook when I released Revification. Since I only planned to release it on Kindle, it accidentally turned into a unique opportunity to learn about the differences between physical and virtual books.
And now that I’ve reworked Besnowed and Maneus to be better ebooks, I thought I might as well release a physical version of Revification as well. A nice way to test my knowledge before starting another new project.
So, I’m doing just that—beginning with a new cover. Rather than using the stock image I found after searching for “wormhole,” my sister Molly is drawing something that will expand to cover the full book.
I’m in no real rush to release it, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if physical copies of Revification were available by this time next week!
Until next time.
Cheers,
JMB