ePublishing, Doing It My Way And Having Fun And Loving My Freedom

One of the most exciting things about epublishing for me has been the idea that I can be my own boss and don’t have to be dictated to by big publishers.  Nor do I have to have my book on hold for six months while they get round to reading and assessing it.  The idea of it was enticing, and the reality of it has been amazing, mostly because I’ve been forced to learn things I didn’t know before and with knowledge comes the power to achieve.

I started out knowing about Lulu.com and that was exciting enough.  Huge challenge to get my Word doc to be accepted by their converter.  Then I broadened my knowledge base and discovered a bunch of different options for distribution - Lulu, Amazon for Kindle, Barnes & Nobles for Nook, iBookstore, Sony, PDF, Stanza for mobile upload.  Wow.  And I came upon my greatest discovery so far.

Smashwords.  It takes your Word document and converts it - using software they call the Meatgrinder! - into 10 different formats.  Once your book has passed their reviewers, they make it available to all the relevant distribution outlets, everywhere!  And, get this, they charge the least commission.  Plus they allow you to download the different types of files for free.  You’re allowed to give them away or sell them privately, but not en masse. 

Understanding that wretched Meatgrinder’s needs was a nightmare.  Smashwords provides a pretty good how-to, but it’s amazing how easy it is to not realize you’ve done something you shouldn’t have when you’re working with Word.  After eleven frustrating attempts to get it right I had to strip my whole book of formatting and start again.   Gaaahh.   But the thing is done and Meatgrinder finally accepted my offering.  Hah!

I’ve also learned how to create my own PDF version and link it to a service, eJunkie, that will accept payment through Paypal and provide the download of my book automatically.  It costs me $5 a month.  So I’m starting to feel as if I’ve made some progress in the fundamentals of creating my ebook, selling it privately and also making it available to all the different distributors.

And now the next phase of this journey begins.  The marketing.  I’ve heard so many authors complain about how their books don’t sell, on Amazon, or Lulu or wherever.  I suspect they don’t do any marketing.  Selling books, whether they’re made of paper or are digital, might seem as if it’s about luck but I reckon it’s all in the marketing.  In this product-satiated world, people buy what’s put in front of them, and I don’t think it’s very different with books, digital or paper.

I guess it’s just about talking to people, reaching out to them, sending out press releases to journalists and papers all over the world, maybe even radio stations.  Everybody wants to be on the New York Times Bestseller list, but I’ve also got my sights on small towns.  And I’m going to be sending my ebook to celebrities and asking for their endorsements.  I guess I’ll have to find them through their agents.  I’ll find a way.

This is such a remarkable time for me.  I’ve run businesses before, but always I was more running scared than running business.  I never felt I was in the driver’s seat.  In any case, I hated the business world.  It was always so hostile and inhospitable, terrifying, draining.  I always felt as if I was an outsider who would never be accepted into the elite circles of successful businessmen and women.  I was exhausted on the inside.

This time round I’m doing the business of my own art and it’s totally different.  The world looks big to me, and sometimes that’s daunting, but it doesn’t feel inhospitable and I don’t feel like an outsider any more.  I also used to feel hemmed in, but I don’t feel that any more.  Right now the image I have in my head is that I’m in the driver’s seat of quite a small, not very fancy car.  It’s exactly what I want it to be, because I can manage it.

And I’m on the open road.