Publishing one book was a dream come true. Then I began working on the second in the series. I already had forty-five pages written from a couple of years ago, so I had something to work with. The publishing process for “Reawakened Flames” was full of chaos and confusion, but I knew more when I went into working on “Visions and Illusions.” I definitely know that self-publishing is where I want to stay. But there were still many trials and tribulations.
The writing and editing process was smoother for the second book now that I was surer of what I was doing. It also helped that I was just adding on to the same world. I did have to do a lot of research about wolves, hallucinations, and derealization. I learned more about wolves than I ever thought I would. If you write a book about wolves, check out a YouTube channel called Voyageaurs Wolf Project. They have videos showing how wolves behave in their natural environment with detailed descriptions. It was nice to see wolves in action rather than just to read about them.
One big issue to figure out was how to do an ePub. From the beginning, I did not want the eBooks to be exclusive to Amazon. I wanted to be wide and run with all the other big fantasy authors who have their books everywhere. I tried Draft2Digital’s free tool, but I don’t know what kept going wrong. Other people have no issues with it, but my formatting would be destroyed every time I uploaded it to the site. Then I moved on to Calibre. It seemed to be working okay, but I didn’t like that I couldn’t edit anything if there was an issue. When the software needed an update, it gave me an error that it was unable to do so. I deleted the program. Scrivener didn’t seem like a good option, and Vellum was out of my reach because I don’t have a Mac. I really wanted to do the formatting myself because it would be cheaper in the long run. I gave up at one point and thought my books would just have to stay in Kindle Unlimited for the time being. Then I got some surprises.
When I had the “Visions and Illusions” cover made by MiblArt, they sent me a bonus folder in the design package. Inside was a couple of promotional pictures and a title page. The title page had a black and white image of the wolf and the log she is standing on from the cover. It was different than anything I had seen before. I had wanted a title page that matched the cover, but I was just thinking about having the text from the cover. At this point I had given up with going wide, but now I was staring at this title page and didn’t want it to just sit on my computer unused. That’s when Atticus, a formatting software made by Dave Chesson (Kindlepreneur) and his team, was fully released. It looked so easy to use and similar to Kindle Create. And it wasn’t too expensive.
I made a decision very soon after. I made sure I got a title page for the first book and half title images. I decided that I was going to go wide. It was an exciting time because Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) finally released the option for hardcover books, which I want to do eventually. I was going to be able to pursue having my books out wide in as many formats as possible. There wouldn’t be any waiting to hire a formatter to make the ePub. With the plan to set the “Reawakened Flames” eBook as perma-free, I took one last opportunity to go through it and make a few last minute edits and changes.
Then I had another big hit. When I first heard about Russia invading Ukraine, the potential consequences didn’t occur to me until I received an email from MiblArt. I had forgotten they were in Lviv, Ukraine. I took the publishing plan that I had and threw it out the window in favor of a more expedited plan. Luckily, everything worked out.
A couple of other things blindsided me. First was an article from Kindlepreneuer about font copyright. This turned into a headache to figure out font licensing and what I needed to secure. Then I learned about KDP’s bonus content rules. I had read the help pages before, but I must have forgotten this rule or didn’t understand what it meant at the time. I got into self-publishing because I thought I could write my books however I wanted—not be restricted.
For those who don’t know, a few years ago (at the time of writing this) there were things authors were doing with their Kindle books to try to game the system and make more money. These articles from The Verge and David Gaughran explain more. Dale Roberts also goes into some of the issues like in this video as well as others.
One thing was known as bookstuffing. People were putting tons of bonus stories in an eBook to inflate the page count so they could get more page reads for Kindle Unlimited. Amazon caught on and set a rule that bonus content cannot exceed 10% of the total page count. I had a short story that went along with the main story of the second book, but it had to be removed because it was twenty-seven pages. This story will be included in a short story collection instead. I had to then go through all my notes for the other books and pull out bonus story ideas or modify them.
Now that I was going wide, I had to set up the other platforms besides KDP. I was planning on getting them all done a few weeks before release, but I underestimated how long it would take and only got three finished with four to go. However, Barnes and Noble Press is giving me an issue that is keeping me from publishing direct with them, so I’m using Draft2Digital for now to distribute to them.
I also learned that I don’t work well when on a deadline. Instead of it motivating me, it stresses me out. I like to take my time when I am working and make sure I am doing things properly. And sometimes unforeseen things happen that throw me behind like a funeral or what we call in Texas the Big Freeze in 2021. I know from now on to not put myself on a deadline unless it’s one that won’t stress me out.
This round of publishing was not without its headaches, but it was better than the first book. A lot of the mistakes had already been made, and “Visions and Illusions” was published more the right way. From everything I learned the second time, my publishing plan is more streamlined for the third book.