A Vocabulary Refresher
for Self-Publishing Authors

A brief history of self-publishing

Book publishing really started out with a do-it-yourself, handcrafted ethic and stayed that way for a long time until the timeline diverged around the 16th century with the emergence of the world’s first publisher. And even after that, authors continued to publish their own books. Here is a brief history of self-publishing from 2000 B.C.E. to 2000 C.E.

Today, self-publishing is considered on par with traditional publishing, producing tons of success stories like chart-topping titles, title acquisitions, and TV show and movie adaptations.

Traditional publishing vs. self-publishing

To understand self-publishing, you can juxtapose it with traditional publishing as well as delve into the different self-publishing approaches that are generally acknowledged.

Traditional publishing means finding a literary agent who will represent your work to a publisher who will turn that work into a published book. Meanwhile, self-publishing means taking matters into your own hands to create a home for your work. Of course, the quality of that home would be directly proportional to your skill level and the resources that you already have or can afford.

You can create a book totally from scratch at little to no expense, although you’d have to be well-versed in editing and book design or ask friends to help you out. You’d also have to look for printers in your area, learn bookmaking, or simply create digital-only copies of your book.

If you have money to spare, you could hire an experienced publishing professional to find and coordinate a number of independent service providers such as an editor, book designer, and publicist. It’s like hiring a licensed general contractor who gathers subcontractors and supervises the execution of the plans for a construction project.

If you’re looking for professional support in just one place while keeping control of your book, you could try supported self-publishing. Supported self-publishing companies typically offer a wide range of packages and services tailored to meet different budgets and goals.

How do you choose? Well, there are pros and cons to each approach; it all depends on what you need and what you are willing to compromise on.

But frankly, traditional vs. self-publishing is a false dichotomy. You may self-publish your book, only to have a publisher acquire it somewhere down the road. You may start out traditionally published, only to resort to self-publishing when your book goes out of print. Similarly, the self-publishing approaches aren’t so cut-and-dried. You could get your book edited or designed by a friend before handing it over to a supported self-publishing company for printing and promotion, or you could purchase the cheapest publishing package and take care of promotion.

If there’s one thing you should keep in mind, it’s that you want to get your book to your readers. So take the time to explore and understand all the ways you can go about achieving just that.

Editing

Just the thought of having to re-read your own work and being on the lookout for every mistake or error can be exhausting. But it is a step you have to take if you want to publish a book that’s as polished as possible. Now you could easily hire experienced professionals to take care of it. They’ll pore over your work and make all the necessary revisions, send it back for you to review—and presto, it’s done.

But before you do that, consider two things.

One: the truth is, no one understands the nuances and thought behind each word and comma in your book like you do. And while the argument could be made that you are, therefore, “too close” to your work to do a good job of editing it, there is no downside to doing one thorough review and polishing before deciding to submit it to a professional.

Two: depending on how long your manuscript is and what kind of editing work it needs, costs can run up to hundreds, even thousands of dollars. If that is a consideration, doing an initial self-editing may help bring the price down.

When you do decide to hand your manuscript over to professionals, you should be aware of the different types of editors you might need to work with:

• Developmental editors analyze elements like characterization, plot, pacing, etc., for fiction. For non-fiction, a developmental editor will check if the content of the book is complete and appropriate for its intended audience. You don’t want to throw around a lot of jargon, but it’s so easy sometimes to assume that your audience knows what you’re talking about.


• Content editors look at things like punctuation, word choice, and syntax, for example. They know exactly how to phrase and punctuate a sentence. They can hack away at weak qualifiers and unnecessary adverbs to get straight to the meat of a scene.


• Line editors look for grammatical errors, typos, inconsistencies, and other issues in your book.


• Proofreaders are the last line of defense, making sure nothing slips through the cracks and your book stays as error-free as possible.

Design

To share your story in the best way possible, you have to create a great reading experience—and design plays an important role in that regard. You want to have a book that is eye-catching, easy to read, and easy to navigate. You want your book to look good, but not have any intrusive decorative elements that will distract the reader from the story. You want a book that readers can easily get lost in.

All this you can achieve if you invest in an attractive book cover, the right graphics to complement the text, and a readable and functional interior layout. Let’s tackle those elements one at a time.

Text formatting & layout

Let’s talk about your book’s actual text. Now this might seem like a simple and straightforward element, but there’s a lot more to it than just arranging words on a page. In order to create a professional-looking book that’s easy and pleasant to read, there are a number of things you need to consider:

Remember—when preparing your book’s interior pages, you have to strike a balance: they have to be designed well to enhance readability, but you shouldn’t go overboard and risk distracting your readers from the actual story. Basically, the rule of thumb is: don’t use anything that might affect your work’s readability.

Preparing your book’s interior design can be a long and tedious process. Fortunately, there are a number of online tools that can help you prepare your interior layout easily, such as Book Design Templates. If you need access to fonts too, you can download your selection from Google Font, the League of Moveable Type, Font Squirrel, and My Fonts.

Images and illustrations

Even if images are worth a thousand words, not all books need them. So how do you decide whether this element is necessary for your work or not? This is a decision that depends mostly on you, the writer. You’re the one who knows your story best; you’re the one who knows what’s best for your story. But there are a few things you need to consider: (1) your book’s genre and topic and (2) the message you want to convey.

Unless you’re publishing a graphic novel or photography book, it’s quite possible to produce a book that’s all text, with the cover design as the sole graphic. You see many titles of this kind in the fiction and even the poetry genre. But if you’re publishing a children’s book, that’s a different story. Illustrations are particularly useful for your audience, and it’s not uncommon to see books in this genre that are more images than words.

Now, think about your book’s message—consider whether images will help you communicate your ideas. If you’re publishing a memoir, including photos from your life would make your story seem more credible. If you’re publishing a fantasy book, having a map of your fictional world will give your reader more context. If you’re publishing a business book, images can help you explain complex concepts that you’re introducing.

Some aspiring authors take photos or create illustrations themselves. But if you need help, there are a number of resources online that give you access to graphics you can use. As mentioned above, there are stock image websites that come with a fee. There are also Public Domain images on Flickr and Pixabay that you can use for free, and websites like Pexels that allow you to use their photos with attribution. Just make sure to confirm the terms of these websites so you don’t run into any copyright issues later on.

Cover design

Your cover design is often the very first thing that readers notice (you can think of it as the face of your story), so it’s important that you put a lot of thought into this element. Plus, knowing exactly what you want will make working with designers a lot easier. When planning how your book cover will look like, keep these tips in mind:

• Do your research.

For most beginner authors—and even veterans—cover design is a tricky aspect. After all, a lot is riding on it. (You may have the best story in the world, but it would fall flat without a good cover design.) A good way to get started is to look for inspiration in other books with the same genre or topic. Find out which appeals to your style as well as what most readers respond to.

• Visualize a design that reflects what the book is about.

As much as possible, your cover should give readers an idea of what they’re going to read—a sort of tease to what the book is about. You don’t have to spell it all out on the cover, but the design should be connected in a way to what’s inside the book. Create a board on Pinterest and pin the images related to your ideas, or do it old-school—cut up images from papers and magazines to create a vision board.

• Minimize clutter and have a focused design.

Make sure your imagery isn’t confusing. You want to make the reader interested, not turn them away. Think about what message you want to convey in your book cover and focus on that.

• Make sure the text is easy to read.

We understand if you want to insert a lot of information on your cover. But in this case, less is more. Make sure that the text you do include in the cover is essential and not something you can squeeze into the back cover text instead.

• Don’t forget your back cover.

You should put as much thought into the back as you did the front. It would also be best if there is a continuous, seamless design flow between both covers (i.e., use the same colors or texture).

• Consider what the digital versions of your book will look like.

Will the book cover be attractive enough? Can people still make out the text? You may even want to think of another design for the e-book altogether.

• Only use images with permission.

You don’t want to run into any copyright issues later on. Make sure you use images you’ve already purchased or commissioned, or you can visit royalty-free websites and get images that are free for commercial use.

Whether you’re creating your book cover yourself or hiring professional help, there are a couple of design resources available online to get you going. If you need images, you can visit stock image websites like iStock and Shutterstock (although these often come at a price). If you want to create your design from scratch, there are online graphic design tools that are easy to use, like Canva. And if you just need some inspiration and ideas, you can visit cover design depositories like Book Cover Archive.

Should you do everything yourself?

We’re sure you already have a vision of what you want your book to look like. Maybe you want to emulate all those best sellers placed on prominent bookstore shelves, or perhaps you want something that reflects your personality as a writer.

Whatever your goal is, you should take it into account when you make the decision to prepare your book’s design yourself or hire professionals like us to take care of it. Ultimately, if you want your book to look professional, the latter is your best option. But with enough patience and knowledge, it’s also quite possible to achieve everything on your own. The important thing is, you create a book that looks professionally made. And investing in good design will help bring you in that direction.

Book sizes and formats

The most common size for a book is 6” x 9”. This is a good, readable size and is considered the go-to for many paperback novels, memoirs, and non-fiction books. However, there are other trim sizes available. When picking your book’s size, consider the following:

• Your book’s genre or topic

While it’s not a definitive list, the image shows common book sizes used for certain book genres and categories.

• The printing method you plan to use

If you choose to print your book through digital means, the trim size you eventually use is limited to the options available to you (this selection depends on the publisher and/or printer). This is fine if you’re publishing in a standard genre like fiction or nonfiction.

If you are planning to publish a photography book, art book, coffee table book, or such, you may want to go with offset printing. This method allows for more flexibility and lets you print your book in a custom trim size.

• Your page count

How many pages does your book have? Take note that your chosen trim size might affect your work’s page count. The smaller the size, the more pages will be required for content, and vice versa. And since most printers charge based on the number of pages, trim size will affect your budget and pricing as well—and eventually, your book’s marketability.

Have you decided whether to publish your book in print or e-book format? There are a number of formats available when it comes to publishing a book. And the great thing is, you don’t have to be limited to just one.

• Digital (E-book)

Compared to other formats, this is generally cheaper to produce and distribute. Take note thought that you will need to prepare for different e-book formats: the standard EPUB, PDF, and MOBI for Amazon Kindle.

• Printed (Softcover, Hardcover, Leather-bound)

If you want a more tactile reading experience, you should consider making your book available in print. The binding you choose should be based on your budget, your book’s genre, and the audience you want to reach. Softcover is more accessible and common, hardcover is more durable, and leather-bound feels more premium.

• Audio

These days, books aren’t limited to just the written form. If you want to reach out to on-the-go booklovers or even those not that fond of reading, you should consider publishing in this format as well.

Marketing copy

Traditional publishers have in-house experts dedicated solely to writing marketing copy for each book, so you can imagine the weight of this particular task.

Strictly speaking, you needn’t worry too much about how your book title, blurb, and author bio will influence your buyer’s decisions if you don’t plan to sell your book in the first place. Otherwise, those three elements must work together to create a good impression on anyone who picks up your book.

Book title
Consider these titles and the famous books that they eventually morphed into:

• First Impressions → Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• The Last Man in Europe → 1984 by George Orwell
• Strangers from Within → Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• The High-Bouncing Lover/Trimalchio in West Egg/Among Ash-Heaps and Millionaires → The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Men Who Hate Women → The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Although many historical title changes remain the matter of conjecture, a number of the final titles above resulted from an editor’s or publisher’s intervention. Try workshopping your title with people you trust to make it more commercial or less off-putting to a certain demographic, among other things.

Blurb
A good blurb is at least a paragraph long and ideally limited to 200 words. Anyone who looks at the back cover of a book isn’t expecting to find a detailed description, in the same way that a viewer doesn’t watch a trailer to find out how the movie ends.

If your book is a work of fiction, state the setting and main characters of your book as well as a hint of the major conflict they face. If it’s nonfiction, state what your book is about, how it's unique, and why the browser should buy it.

Author bio
Your author biography should have the following elements:

• Reasons you are qualified to write the book, usually based on your professional background or education. Are you an expert in this field? What unique insights or experience do you have that give your book credibility?
• A few personal details that humanize your name yet also relate to the book’s subject matter in some way

A good formula to follow is a maximum of 50 words that include the following details: education, current career, other publications, family information, and city/state of residence.

Check out this blog post for a list of all the things that readers can expect to find at the end of a professionally written book.

Similar to marketing copy, book registrations are optional. But when secured, they give you benefits that far outweigh the hassle of obtaining them.

International Standard Book Number (ISBN)

An ISBN is a 13-digit unique identifier that’s basically the fingerprint of each edition of your book—softcover, hardcover, or ebook. It sits quietly at the back of your book and allows any interested reader, bookseller, librarian, or distributor to efficiently find or market your title.

Will you need one if you’re simply publishing to realize a personal project or for a small group such as your family and friends? No. But you do need to secure an ISBN if you plan on selling your book and making it available on different channels.

Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN)

The LCCN is a unique identifier used by the United States' central library to track submissions for the library's permanent collection. Getting one isn’t a prerequisite for publishing. However, if you’re planning or wanting your physical book to appear in libraries, then you should strongly consider applying for one. Note that your book must be at least 50 pages long to qualify, so many children’s books may not be applicable. The Library of Congress also reserves the right to refuse cataloging.

Copyright

Your book is a product of your hard work and talent, so it is just right that you own it—every part of it. This means protecting your published work from potential reproduction and selling of your book without your explicit permission. Copyright laws exist for this specific purpose.

Generally speaking, as soon as you put the pen to paper, your work is already protected by the U.S. copyright law. But to give yourself a higher level of security and confidence over what should be your intellectual property, you can file for registration with the U.S. Copyright Office. Doing so will create a public record of your authorship.

Remember: this goes both ways too. Before publishing your work, you also need to be mindful of whether you are infringing on the rights of another person’s property. Make sure that you use images and content from a public domain or that you’ve secured a license to use them.

How much does it cost to get your book published?

When stacked against traditional publishing, which seems to let you get your book published at no cost to you, self-publishing may not seem like the best option. But the truth is, choosing to self-publish your book doesn’t have to cost you a lot. Self-publishing allows you to set your own budget, call the shots when publishing your book, and keep all the rights to your content.

Here's the cost of each publishing approach:

• Traditional Publishing: 10%-15% literary agent commission (before taxes)/marketing expenses

Most publishers don’t accept unagented manuscript submissions. Given that a publisher will typically give you at least $5,000 as an advance, your literary agent can get as much as $750 from that. Even finding a literary agent can cost as much as $25 a month if you opt to subscribe to a database. If you do attempt to shop your manuscript around yourself and manage to snag a publisher, you might still have to worry about expenses for your book launch, marketing collaterals, etc. since publishers don’t usually go all out when promoting first-time or relatively new authors.

• Handcrafted and General Contractor Publishing: Up to you

If you’re handcrafting, you might already have most or all of the materials and tools you need. If you’re hiring a general contractor, you should know what third-party providers typically charge. The Editorial Freelancers Association’s rate chart is a good place to start your research.

• Supported Self-Publishing: $999+

At AuthorHouse, we organize our services into packages to make it easier for you to select exactly what you need. Our starting package costs $999, and our other packages scale up from there to offer much more beyond the basics.

How can you make the most of the self-publishing experience?

As someone who knows the level of creative effort and energy that goes into writing, you should expect the same for the process of turning your story into a book and getting it to your readers. Is it easy? No, it isn’t. But is it impossible? Not for those who have a solid understanding of or background in publishing.

And for those who don’t quite have that, it can be done with help from supported self-publishing companies like us. With guidance from our team of publishing professionals, you can:

• Provide input on the design and layout of your book
• Take advantage of a la carte add-on services that can help polish your work
• Select the promotional tools that best fit your plans

We simply provide the services, advice, and expertise you need to reach your goals. That means you get the book you want in the market a lot faster than you would with a traditional publisher—and you have the potential to earn a greater amount on each copy sold.