Problems of a Self-Published Indie Author exactly as I have experienced them over the past five years.
I’ll go through this in the order I’ve learned these lessons.
Indie Author Problem Number One
Mistakes. Writing mistakes.
“But Andy!” you say. “You paid for a professional editor!”
You’re right. But I make mistakes that slip past even the editor. I was reading Zombie Turkeys after it came back from the format editor. It was perfect–except I had the wrong character name in one sentence. Zombie Turkeys had over eighty named characters. (I know–that’s too many for a 54,000 word novel. I haven’t repeated that mistake.)
I’m glad I found it on the last read through before publishing. But that doesn’t solve every problem.
My Second Indie Author Problem
What about book covers? I complicated things by asking for and paying for a full back cover illustration plus chapter icons.
I have a great illustrator, Sean “Fuzzy” Flanagan. But artists are creative types. And Fuzzy was doing his first commission with me. The covers weren’t always done when I needed them. Also, they had to be in precisely the correct format for print books.
This took time. I made mistakes. I missed schedule dates.
But wait–there’s more! Kindle (and CreateSpace) have very strict guidelines on covers. My Createspace (print) cover for Zombie Turkeys was not acceptable for Kindle. It had too much blood on it. So I had to switch the colors after I released the book. That took time away from sales while it was being changed. Here’s the Kindle cover for Zombie Turkeys.
Do you have any questions so far? Ask me. I cover the whole publishing process in my blog post here.
My Next Problem: Getting Audible AudioBook Completed
I bet you didn’t see that coming! I wanted to publish each of my books in as many formats as I could. Audiobook publishing with royalty share was easy–you put your book on Audible for audition and you select the best voice actor.
I hit a home run with my first voice actor, Phil Blechman, who’s voiced Zombie Turkeys, My Undead Mother-in-law, and Paranormal Privateers with his voice actor assistant, Raven Perez.
So what’s the problem? My Undead Mother-in-law is six hours long. I had to listen, very carefully, to every minute to make sure there were no mistakes. And there were some in almost every chapter.
You try to read for six hours without making an error, let alone acting with the right nuance. And this doesn’t count production errors like too much background noise, or voices that are too soft. Audible is very picky about its volume levels. They rejected some chapters all by themselves.
All in all, audiobook production took much longer than I expected.
The Final Problem – Changes Later On
Once you publish a book, it never changes, right? Wrong.
Each time I publish a book, I updated the books I published to show all the books I have. That way, I can possibly entice people to buy my other books.
No biggie, right? Wrong. I have to update the front matter, and the back matter, the preview of the next book. I also put in links to the other books.
This only has to go through format editing for print and ebook formats–but it still must be done.
Then there’s the time I changed a book cover because the old one wasn’t selling. But that’s a story for another time. I’ll tell you if you ask me. Hint It’s this next book:
How to Publish in 5 Easy Steps by self-published author Andy Zach. Do you have your book all ready, but have no clue about publishing? Follow these 5 simple steps and see your book appear on Amazon Kindle.
Ready? Set? Go!
Enjoy all four novels in audiobook, paperback, or Kindle format!
Andy’s four books in his first series he published on Kindle, The Life After Life Chronicles.
“That’s nice Andy, but it doesn’t help me get a regular Amazon account.” Right. Here’s the REAL FIRST STEP: Create an Amazon account on Amazon. Just a regular old account here: Click here. Of course, if you already have an Amazon account, just sign in.
Then what? You create a Kindle Author account here. Click here.
You’ll need to tell Amazon if your account is a person or business, you’ll need a place to receive payments, and you’ll need tax information.
That wasn’t so hard was it? Now you’re ready to create your book.
Secret Supers – the first book of my second series.
Your Second Step to Self Publishing
You need to create a book. This is done in three steps. The first is the book details, listed in the six steps below.
I’m assuming you’ve already written it and you’re looking to publish it.
Log into your Kindle Author KDP account. Use your Amazon account if necessary.
Go to your KDP account homepage and click on Bookshelf. I’ve circled it in red below.
3. Next, you’ll see the choice of creating the Kindle book or a paperback book. Since the paperback has longer lead time, I always create that first. You can create either or both in any order. Click on the + Paperback option. You’ll see this.
4. You can put in your book title and subtitle here, as well as the language. You can also put in the series number and order.
Sam Melvin, Zombie Detective
For example, I’ve put in my soon-coming book Zombie Detective – The world’s only detective specializing in zombies in here. I also edited the series order of my Life After Life Chronicles series so Zombie Detective is number 2.
5. Moving on to the lower half of the book content screen we see:
Fill in the details appropriate to your book. For Zombie Detective, I have Edition 1, myself as the author, Dori Harrell as my editor, Rik Hall as my other editor, and Sean Flanagan as my illustrator. I also supply my book description.
6. Finishing off the screen we have this image:
Supply the details appropriate to your book. Note that book keywords and categories are a whole realm of alternatives that affect your sales. I won’t cover them here. Then click Save and Continue at the bottom of the page.
How to Publish – Your Third Step – Upload Content
What content? Take a look at the Content page in the Kindle process below.
You’ll need an ISBN. You can buy your own for your own publishing company or you can use Kindle’s. I bought my own for Jule Inc.
Since I’m publishing this month, June 2021, I’ll use the Kindle publication date. I also use black & white paper for the interior. If you have color pictures, you have a choice between standard and premium. My Trim Size or book size, will be 6×9 inches.
The next section of content includes Bleed/No Bleed and Matt/Glossy finish on the book. I pick No Bleed and Matt finish for my books. This is another area of printing details I won’t cover here.
More importantly, this is where you upload your completely edited manuscript. Aside from correcting all typos and grammatical mistakes, you should also have at least a line edit done where the editor reviews all your sentences for optimum structure. If you haven’t had your manuscript professionally edited, go and hire one now. Developmental editing can also be helpful. Do your own research on this subject.
Similarly, your book cover should be professionally designed. I cannot stress this enough. Your cover is more important than your book content.If your content is bad, people may never buy another book from you. If your cover is bad, people won’t even look inside!
After your manuscript and cover are uploaded, you’re almost done. Kindle will check the content for any obvious errors. You’ll be able to review the whole book online before publication. Set aside a few hours to do that carefully.
How to Publish – Your Fourth Step – Distribution and Pricing
Distribution–what does that mean? Where Amazon will distribute your book around the world.
Pricing–that seems obvious, what Amazon will charge for your book–but the book’s price determines what Amazon will pay you. Take a look at the distribution screen below.
I always choose ‘All territories’ for distribution. Why not?
Primary Marketplace for the US is Amazon.com. The other Amazon sites are listed below.
Your pricing is trickier than you think. The higher the better? Maybe. You’ll get paid more for each sale–but will high prices hurt your sales? I compared Zombie Turkeys to all the top zombie books of comparable size–and I picked the lowest price for that sized book (187 pages). I’d rather take less per book and sell more books. Do your own price research.
The other areas’ prices are based off the US price. I don’t touch them.
With your prices and distribution set, hit the publish button!
Step 5 – Please Stand By While Kindle Publishes Your Book
You may have to wait up to 72 hours for the book to be everywhere you need. For your own copies of print books, expect a week for the first batch to be printed and another week or more of shipping. You can always pay more for faster shipping, but I hate to do that. This is why I said you have more lead time with print copies.
What about Kindle ebooks? No problem! They’re out there when they’re approved. Enjoy!
If this isn’t clear enough, leave a nasty comment or write to me here.
Geographically, Beta-Earth is mainly our earth in reverse. Plus, there’s a gigantic sea to the east of Italy (Pynti on Beta-Earth.). It’s called the Sea-of-the-Lost-Moon where an immense comet crashed millennia ago.
Beta-Earth is full of many different cultures and many are fleshed out over the first four books. Presenting all these cultures was a major aspect of the series, mostly exemplified in the characters.
How did you build this concept, what research did you do?
Beta Earth Book Two
The original idea was something that always bugged me about Star Trek. Don’t get me wrong, I love most of the series–you can tell from looking around my house. But it always seemed whenever the Enterprise encountered a strange new world, there were, at most, two different cultures, factions, whatever term applied. There were usually only one or two leaders to talk to representing an entire planet.
I wanted more complexity than that. I wanted my “blind alien” to have a lifetime of experiencing new cultures especially as his family grew and all of them would encounter places and classes they never expected to explore.
Some of the cultural aspects were based on our earth’s history; some I made up as I went along. Research? Well, I did a lot of reading about various topics like genetics and matriarchal societies. Had to read up on many scientific principles. Many things came from my own experiences. For example, Joline Renbourn grew up in a cliff dwelling society I based on Mesa Verde in Colorado.
Why did you choose this setting? What’s unique about your world?
Beta Earth Three
The most unique characteristics, I suppose, are the 4 to 1 female to male ratio because of the Plague-With-No-Name. This results from the Plague-With-No-Name that kills three out of every four male babies. In book two, we learn the Plague resulted from radiation from the comet that crashed into mostly what we know as Russia.
Beta-Earth’s technological evolution sort of parallels our own, but doesn’t in others. It’s not a planet accustomed to war. It hasn’t sent rockets into space, no one has visited their moon.
Author Interview – How do you explain the science or magic in your world?
A lot of the science I don’t explain as most of the tale is told in the first person and the characters can only share what they know or comprehend. None are scientists. I did get feedback from early readers who were medical professionals who pointed out details I needed to change. The only “magic” in the series is the gift of prophecy which doesn’t require much explanation.
What was the most surprising thing you found out while researching/writing your latest book?
Beta Earth Four
I’m constantly being surprised by the daily news and magazine reading. Responses from a writers’ critique group are often surprising, especially when they point out terms or sentences I thought were clear but readers were getting confused. I often get surprised by what readers pick up–often what they’ve read is very different from what I wrote.
Author Interview – Regarding characters
How do you go about creating realistic, interesting characters?
I’m happy to admit most of the characters in the series created themselves. After Lorei and Elsbeth were introduced–two poor farm women–I often had characteristics I wanted to give the new women to represent different societal levels or classes. I admit I had Princess Di in mind when I first shaped Joline as I was about to add the planet’s paparazzi to the pressures on the Renbourn tribe and Di’s description certainly fit the bill. I wanted every character to have their own distinctive voices and hope I succeeded in some measure with that. It was a pleasure to shape a new chess piece and then let them do their thing.
When in your writing process do you create your characters? At the beginning, middle, or end of your plotting process?
Beta Earth Five
All along as I have a lot of characters. For example, to get more sci-fi in book 3, I felt I needed a mutant who would be a strong adversary to the Renbourns. Some characters, like Oja Bolvair, started out as supporting players but took on stronger roles as the story progressed.
What do you use as sources for your characters?
Anything and everything. In some cases, I want to set up conflicts between characters so try to have off-setting personalities. While writing book two, my wife wondered if the Renbourns ever played tricks on each other and that suggestion led to a major episode in the book.
Do you ever lose control of your book to a character?
I wouldn’t say lose control but I often find the story going in directions I didn’t see coming. Usually, that’s an improvement on the course I was setting.
What point of view do you write in? How often do you change it, if ever?
Beta Earth Six
One of the unique qualities to the first four books is the alternating points of view. The books are told entirely in the first-person based on the structure of an oral history which each character’s own story is layered in with all the others. As new characters are introduced, they introduce themselves before other characters comment on the relationships that develop. Think the Beatles Anthology or other oral histories of rock bands where all the members tell their memories with all their bandmates.
Author Interview – Regarding plotting
Do you outline your book before writing or do you ‘wing it’?
Beta Earth Short Stories
I had the overall plot already in my head for the first four books before I started trying to shape the “dream” for readers. I thought the story was complete. Than an editor proposed ideas that developed into books 5 and 6 and I had no real “plot” in mind for either of them. Especially book 6 which brings members of the Renbourn tribe to our earth. I had several extended episodes in mind around which the story and new characters fleshed out the plot direction. I had to do some research for that one as it’s one thing to move your characters around on a different planet, quite another to use our earth, albeit our future earth after the impact of global warming.
To what level of detail do you plan your book? Theme, concept, chapter outline, scene level detail?
That varies quite a bit. The themes and concepts hopefully unify the whole series and were in my head from the very beginning. I used to have much longer descriptions in earlier drafts but cut many down considerably to get the story moving.
How much does your plot change as you write? How much does it change during editing?
It can change quite a bit during both writing and especially editing. I tend to write much longer passages than ultimately stay as I cut, cut, cut. I change plots if they don’t seem to go anywhere or I think up something more dramatic. Suggestions from my writer’s group can result in big changes, as in “The Wayward Missiles,” a story I’m working on this year.
Do you plan your plot around a specific story structure? (Hero’s Journey, ‘Save the Cat’, Three Acts, Five Acts, other?)
Depends on the book. Books 2, 3, and 4 were based around huge changes in the Renbourn tribe, especially setting as they kept moving and expanding and taking on greater and greater challenges.
Author Interview – Regarding personal influences
What books, movies, TV, shows, and writers have influenced you?
Oh wow, that’s a long list. When I first started I had Dune in mind and started out with all manner of chapter mottos like Herbert did. Then I decided that was an artificial artifice so cut out all that stuff. I spent a decade of my life as a Mark Twain scholar so can point to scenes influenced by some of his techniques. I can point to others influenced by Ian Fleming and Ann Rice. As I have a doctorate in American literature and crank out tons of book reviews each year, it’s hard to say which books were influences, which weren’t beyond the examples I just gave.
Have any people in your life have been influential in your writing career?
Mostly, my late wife as she was alive while the first five books were in process. My publicist, Karina Kantas, has been immeasurably helpful over the years. As I have over thirty years of publications of all kinds behind me, that’s a lot of editors who contributed to shaping my style.
Author Interview – Regarding blindness
The first book in Beta Earth Chronicles
What are the practical aspects of writing and selling books as a blind person?
Mainly, spending a lot of time on my computer using JAWS, my speech software. I admit many websites are difficult for me to work with so I rely on a lot of help from folks like Karina.
How has blindness helped and/or hindered your writing career?
Well, it hasn’t helped beyond giving me two main characters in the Beta-Earth Chronicles, Malcolm Renbourn and Lorei Cawl Renbourn and describing their experiences throughout the series. After all, the original idea for everything was when I wondered how a blind person could adapt to being pulled to an alternate earth where he understands nothing, doesn’t know the language, anything. How could he survive, more, how could he thrive? So I guess you could say that gave me a unique perspective to start with. I can talk from a blind person’s perspective as I have a lifetime of experience living that.
What do you wish sighted people would know about blind people, where we’re clueless?
I’d say two things: first, many people see a person with a white cane and immediately pigeonhole them as a blind person, not focusing on other attributes. Second, forget all preconceptions you have about blindness. It’s interesting to watch my new girlfriend adapt to having a blind boyfriend as she is amazed by some things, worried by others, and neither amazement nor worry is needed.
Please supply any and all links regarding you and your work.
Dr. Britton does an Author Interview of me, both online and through his reviews of my Life After Life Chronicles. Find out his unique perspective below.
Zombie Turkeys front cover. Click to get a copy!
The title of Zombie Turkeys signals this urban fantasy is intended to be entertaining, not to be taken seriously, and likely a comic romp. You can guess there’s lots of clever twists in the story, and happily the execution is more than what readers might expect.
The yarn is fast-moving from start to finish, opening with the first attack of carnivorous red-eyed wild turkeys very difficult to kill. They can quickly resurrect after death and grow back cut-off limbs. They’re led by a tom full of confidence as Zach gives us this tom’s perspectives from time to time as he builds his flock into the tens of thousands throughout Illinois and beyond.
My Undead Mother-in-law cover. Click to get yours.
I first experienced the bizarre imagination of Andy Zach when I read his Zombie Turkeys: How an Unknown Blogger Fought Unkillable Turkeys (Life After Life Volume 1) which I reviewed for BookPleasures.com on Jan. 10, 2016 HERE
In that romp, blogger Sam Melvin tracked a horde of carnivorous red-eyed zombie turkeys plaguing Illinois in a zombie apocalypse while his boss/ girlfriend Lisa used his blog stories to build her website where the couple hocked all manner of killer turkey merchandise.
Now, in volume 2 of the series, Sam meets a family of human zombies. They’re nothing like the usual relentless undead walkers you’ve come to expect. In Zach’s world, zombie humans don’t mind the changes their bodies went through as the changes are mostly improvements. Lost limbs grow back and bodies don’t quit. In particular, Diane Newby, the undead mother-in-law of the title, becomes a zombie advocate urging her family to share their blood with other people, especially the elderly and disabled, whose ailments are “cured” when the zombie blood transforms them. In addition, Diane “reasons” with savage zombie animals like turkeys and bulls, taming them to behave themselves and obey her commands.
Paranormal Privateers is my third go-around with author Andy Zack. First, I read his bizarre Zombie Turkeys (How an Unknown Blogger Fought Unkillable Turkeys) (2016). Next came My Undead Mother-In-Law (The Family Zombie with Anger Management Issues) (2017). As the titles suggest, Zack’s world of zombie animals and people aren’t meant to terrify readers. Instead, Zack is out to amuse and entertain us with the most unusual situations and scenes most of us will ever experience on the printed page.
Paranormal Privateers continues the weirdness with a handful of returning characters and the type of zombies few of us would want to kill, destroy, or dismember. They’re, for the most part, super-heroes with superior strength, resistance to diseases like cancer, and the ability to regenerate limbs and other body parts. These zombies don’t want to lose these abilities so they carry around vials of infected blood to make sure they have the means to become a zombie again in case somebody cures them.
You’d think after three oddball novels, Zombie Turkeys (How an Unknown Blogger Fought Unkillable Turkeys), My Undead Mother-In-Law (The Family Zombie with Anger Management Issues), and Paranormal Privateers, that Andy Zach would have exhausted all the comic possibilities in his world of killer zombie turkeys and superhero zombie human.
Paranormal Privateers continues the weirdness with a handful You’d be wrong. How about flying zombie pickles? Zombie zucchini? Zombie caterpillars? (How can you tell a zombie caterpillar from a normal one? Andy Zach can tell you.)
