Things I Forgot (and Learned) After Publishing Dusted: Part 2

In my previous post I focused primarily on the interior but, as all published authors know, the interior is just the beginning. The bane of my own existence happens to be the cover, especially...

The cover margins

It’s times like this I’m glad I have a big, clunky, powerful laptop instead of a lithe little manuscript writer. Book covers are a huge pain if you have no idea what you’re doing (I don't.) Even if you do manage to create a gorgeous cover that works out beautifully for Kindle things will be a little trickier for a paperback version. Createspace likes to have extra room to allow a cutoff point.

That means this:

Pretty!

Will now look like this:

Blarg!

Correcting this problem will vary. I managed to fix this on Dusted's paperback cover by having extended black edges. Wanderlust, meanwhile, I just made the text smaller by a few points and moved my author name up closer to the model's...ehrm, tooshie.

The real problem came with the cover for Book 3.

"But Jennifer!" you cry, standing up and allowing your multiple copies of my books scatter to the floor, "You only have two books published!"

Yes, my overly good-looking reader, I do.

I was only 14k words into my next project when I decided to create to create a cover for it. I actually designed it before I even wrote Wanderlust. This was met with some skepticism of anyone who knew this, because why should I bother to make a cover for a book I hadn't even finished writing yet?

I had a couple of reasons. The first is that I hate making covers, or rather, I hate the process because it bogs down getting published once I'm ready to finalize things. The second was that I hoped it would provide me with motivation to actually finish it. If I had a cover it would make the project feel more real and, thus, I would be more committed to it.

But I digress, the cover for Book 3 fought me at every turn.

Even though I don't know a lot about graphic design I at least do my homework enough to fake it. If you do a Google Image search of "action book cover" you will come up with covers that have BIG TITLES that span the entire width of the cover.

Your brain just read my capitalized words wrong and is now giggling.

I wanted to do the same for Book 3.

The problem with this is that I had to tweak the text size to within an inch of its life, each time reuploading to Createspace every new time only to find it was still being cut off. Not only did I have the title in this manner, but the subtitle and the author name as well, each one needing their own fixes every time.

Frustrating? Absolutely. Worth it? You bet.

Then again, it wouldn't have been so bad if I had realized I should...

Keep detailed notes about the cover

This one might sound a little dumb, but I have had to start all over on a cover from scratch because I didn't have any details written down. Let's say you have a main title font and you need to reduce it by just a few inches. Grabbing the text and shrinking it will cause an eyesore so it's best to take it down only a few points in size.

...So what size is the font right now?

Well great, now you have to play a guessing game and work your way to the correct size. Except now you have the problem that you don't know what font you used and you have to find that one again or else settle with one that looks pretty similar because you can't remember.

Nope it's still giving you grief so you're just going to start all over.

...now where did you download that image from in the first place?

My own problem arose because I like to add black text behind the white text for some pop (and to keep the white from getting lost in a brighter part of the cover) but I found myself not knowing the font size and starting all over. This became a double frustration when I had to adjust it for the paperback edition.

Ever since I had this problem I began creating a document whenever I make the cover. This is what the cover notes for Wanderlust look like:

KINDLE EDITION

Main title font Boopee size 550

Subtitle Boopee Size 288

Author Boopie size 192

PB EDITION

Main title font Boopee size 500

Subtitle Boopee Size 250

Author Boopie size 144

They're not that far off in size difference from Kindle to paperback based on the numbers, but it's a pretty significant one when every pixel counts. It only gets more complicated if you add more fonts (the cover for Book 3 contains two different fonts and I have seen some book covers contain 3+)

And, while pretty much out of your control, this is something new I learned since publishing Wanderlust

The book spine

Books with spines are like a capital U while books without spines are like a capital V. It wasn't until I was partway through the cover of Wanderlust that I discovered it wouldn't have a spine.

Why are spines important? Well, because you can read the title on them. I'd give you an example of spineless books but I don't currently have one at my disposal. Basically take five pieces of paper and fold them in half. That fold point is the spine.

I'm not a fan of Wanderlust being a spineless book, but I'm not going to kid myself on the size, either. It's just 10k words.

So how big does a book have to be in order to have a spine?

I did look this up and the answer is 130 pages, but Createspace can bend some rules and add a spine to books as small as 130 pages. Wanderlust, at 5x8 size, is less than 50 pages. I couldn't add that much padding even if I wanted to. This also translates to needing about 25,000 words minimum in order for your 5x8 size book to have a spine.

Update: It has been a couple of months since I wrote this. I have since received a copy of Wanderlust and found that, technically, it does have a spine, it just happens to have one small enough that Createspace can't technically call it a spine. It does, however, have a satisfying flat spine in case you were wondering.

ISBN

The ISBN is a unique identifier of a book that gets assigned as one of the steps in the publishing process. Think of it as a home address or telephone number for your book. For example, if you plug 1546604650 into Amazon's search bar you will come up with the paperback edition of Wanderlust.

I strongly suggest having the ISBN assigned last just in case you have some physical changes you want to make. I learned this the hard way when I decided I wanted to make some changes to Wanderlust. I really wanted a spine, so I decided to pick the smallest format for a book that Createspace will allow, a smaller size meant more pages, which would make for a thicker book. It would be tiny, Patterson's Bookshots size (which, I must admit, is a brilliant idea) but it would have a spine.

When I went to change the book size down from 5x8, however, Createspace wouldn't let me.

It was then that I learned, apparently, the ISBN locks in your book size. In order to change the size I had to delete the whole project and start all over again (which I realized was pointless because 5x8 is actually the smallest size Createspace has available.)

Oh well.

Finally, we come to our last point.

It's all the little things you have to wait for

Publishing, even self-publishing, takes time. I began publishing Wanderlust on May 8th and wasn't finished until May 13th. This was a very rushed publishing process (that I'm a little ashamed of) because I was trying to meet the deadline of the UK Storyteller Contest, which was May 19th. Most of this was a whirlwind of work on my part that took only an hour or two followed by 24-48 hours of waiting between steps (it's taken less for me, sometimes only an hour or two.)

What were those steps?

Well, first you have to submit your manuscript to Kindle Direct Publishing. Once you've done that there will be a 24 hour waiting process while they quickly review and approve the material (as well as the cover) to make sure it can be published.

From there you have to hit the big GO button and it will be 24-48 hours before it shows up in the Kindle store.

For Kindle, that's it.

Getting a paperback is trickier, and longer.

First, Createspace has to have 24-48 hours for a similar approval process.

Once you're done with that it's time to proofread it.

Digital proofing is faster, but if you're ordering paperback proof copies, like I did with Dusted, it will take about two weeks for shipping for each version of the proof. Not counting the actual time it took for me to proofread, make changes, and resubmit, it took a combined total of months just waiting on the shipping process as Dusted had several different proof versions.

Once your paperback is as close to perfection as you can get you press the big GO button for it.

It will take 24-48 hours (or is it 24-72? I can't recall) for your paperback edition to show up on Amazon.

There is now one last little thing to wait for before it becomes official.

Linking the Kindle and paperback editions

A book is a single product, available in different formats and editions.

Dusted looks like this:

Wow, used copies!

Wanderlust, meanwhile, looked like this:

So how does this get fixed? Normally Amazon is good and can automatically link them in 24 hours (which they explain here), which is what happened with Dusted. There are some times, however, when something falls through the cracks, which is happened to Wanderlust. They like you to wait 48 hours before contacting them to request a linking. I hope I did wait 48 hours but it was probably more like 42.

When I sent them a request it said it would take 24 hours (or longer).

Authors are some of the most patient people you will ever meet.