Help!!! I’ve Dived into the Indie Ocean—and I don’t know how to swim!!

with guest blogger Helen Gray.

Publishing is an ocean. And its ever-changing tides and currents can be frightening. So what are some rules for “swimming” in this indie ocean? I looked at some water safety rules to see how they might apply.

1. Swim at your own risk. No one else will be responsible for accidents or injuries.

In indie publishing you have total control of your work. You also have total responsibility. And reap your own rewards.

For me, it was having six manuscripts with my editor when the Heartsong Presents line closed. They were written to fit the HP guidelines, and a couple of them had already been near misses with traditional publishers. So my choices were to (a) lengthen them beyond what I felt I could do without diluting the stories, (b) let them molder on my hard drive, or (c) publish them myself. 


2. Avoid diving headfirst into shallow or murky water of uncertain depth. You may find yourself in too deep.

I’m a timid soul. Rather than plunge, I decided to stick my toe in and test the waters. I had a four book series and a two book duo. I chose the smaller risk.

Back when I first began to consider going indie, I signed up for the January Seekerville class, Amazon KDP for Beginners, by Rogenna Brewer. Then I took some more classes. I printed all the handouts and put them in a binder. When I made the decision to go indie/hybrid, I got out that manual and read through it again. I still refer to it when I run into questions. If I don’t find the answers, I contact a friend.

3. Obey all pool rules. 

There may be some tough requirements (undertows). Be aware of current movement. Change is ever constant.When preparing a manuscript for traditional publisher submissions, you need to follow publisher guidelines—genre, word length, etc. There are rules in indie publishing as well. 

COVERS: You must have covers that fit specifications. I decided I couldn’t do a professional enough cover, so I went looking for cover designers. When I contacted Rogenna Brewer, she immediately grasped what I wanted, and her prices were a little more attractive than the other designer I was considering. It only took a few days for her (with my input) to come up with a pair of covers that I really like. You can find samples of her work, ordering and pricing information at her site. 

EDITING: You need to have your books edited. Which I had done, but I knew they needed fresh eyes. Ruthie recommended an editor (her daughter) and gave me her email address. I contacted Beth Jamison, and she did both manuscripts at a very reasonable price. 

FORMATTING: You have to format your books to meet specifications. I decided I could learn to do that. So I went to my manual and pulled out instructions for both digital and print formatting. I also went to the Kindle Direct Publishing (Amazon’s digital publisher) and CreateSpace (Amazon’s print publisher) sites and printed the instructions provided there. Then I went to work—and got both manuscripts done, except for a couple of elusive glitches. I went to Springfield and met with author Carol Moncado for a tutoring session, and she guided me through the uploading of both these books. 

If I can learn it, you certainly can!


4. Never swim alone. Swim with a buddy.

Join groups, like CIA (Christian Indie Authors), a private Facebook group for Christian indie and hybrid authors who are focused on providing resources and discussions for Christian indie book production, publishing, and promotion.  Attend conferences. The only one I regularly attend is ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers), but I know a number of Seekers and Villagers attend RWA (Romance Writers of America). The workshops are great, but being able to network with other writers, editors and publishers is invaluable.

Find a mentor or critique partner, someone who can encourage you, pick apart your work, and make you a better writer.

5. Dive only in designated areas.


Choose where you will publish. Amazon’s KDP and CreateSpace are popular, but there are others, and they require different formats. 

Smashwords is a distributor of indie/self-published ebooks. They distribute to online retailers such as the Apple iBookstore (51 countries), Barnes & Noble, Sony, Diesel, Kobo (multiple countries), Flipkart (India’s largest online bookseller), Oyster,Scribd, Baker & Taylor (the Blio platform and Axis360 library service), Page Foundry and many others. If, like me, you shudder at the idea of formatting and sending to all those places, you might going to the Smashwords site and reading about them. 

Be prepared to keep learning.    

6. Watch out for sharks.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of scams out there. 

When you set out to publish your own work, be careful who you hire for services. Watch for those who advertise support and instruction to authors, and then include fees. Or ones who try to tie up your rights so you can’t publish the book elsewhere. Or make you pay for formatting and then not release the files to you unless you pay a further fee. These people are pitching for business, not offering a publishing contract. Legitimate publishers don’t operate that way. You might find this Publishers Weekly article helpful. 


HOW AM I DOING?

The jury is still out. I’m treading water, dog paddling, hoping I can learn to float. I’ve got this two book series out. Whether I continue with more will depend on whether these two swim or drown.

If you are considering a plunge into the Indie Ocean, you can download Mark Coker’s The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success  FREE. 


Is this the route for you? What are your reasons for going indie?


As a giveaway I’m making Bandit Bride free for download today and tomorrow to launch my big dive into the deep end of the pool. Help yourself. If you enjoy it, go ahead and play life saver and write a review. I’d appreciate it!

Bandit Bride is available FREE today and tomorrow. 

She's Robin Hood of the Prairie. He's a Texas Ranger. Can they possibly be a duo? 
Having lost her parents, and in danger of losing her ranch to an unscrupulous opportunist, Jackie (Jacinda) Laughton is surviving in Dodge City's heyday, but not without a load of guilt and estrangement from God and the church. In desperation she and her best friend have resorted to banditry. Donning disguises, they are the popular "Whip and Blade" who hold up the lender's stagecoach runs, keeping the money they need and distributing the rest to more of the man's victims. No one suspects they are young women. 

When Hoyt Travers, a Texas Ranger, arrives in Dodge and shows an interest in her, Jackie finds herself drawn to him, but wary of the danger he represents. He learns the truth and offers to marry her to protect her, but can she accept such a sacrifice and hide her love that might never be returned? She must learn to accept God's forgiveness and trust God for her needs.

Prairie Bride is set to release tomorrow. 

Bryn Farrell grew up during Dodge City's heyday as a cattle town. Rudderless since her fiancé's death, she crashes into Ty Shelton, an old nemesis from school, as he is racing to the last of the big fires of 1885 with a bucket of water. She is drenched with freezing water, but her spirit is not quenched, and she returns to help fight the fire. 

Practical and reserved, Ty is a wheat farmer who takes care of his widowed mother and younger brother. When he rescues Bryn from the first blizzard of the big "die-up" of 1886 and must take her home with him, he is trapped in more ways than just the storm. He does not need the disruption of flighty Bryn Farrell in his life. But forced proximity during the storm forces him to have just that--and new feelings for her begin to change, as does his perspective of her. 

Can Bryn fall in love with a farmer and live a life of housework and washing dishes? Can Ty love the lively prairie girl who has intrigued him for years, but is his opposite?

Helen Brown grew up in a small Missouri town and became Helen Gray when she married her pastor. They have three grown children. If her writing in even a small way touches others, she considers it a blessing and thanks God for the opportunity.

Making the Most of Indie and Hybrid Publishing!

I am not an expert.

This is from my famous Thelma and Louise trip to Manhattan with Tina... Isn't she cute?

I talk like I am, but I'm not. If you want experts, go see Marie Force or Hugh Howie or JA Konrath (and you will find adult language on some of those sites because you have a gathering of multi-genre authors.)

I'm not going to discuss the pluses and minuses of every little thing, not because I don't have opinions but because I'm usually wrong. I've had egg on my face regularly, so I'm avoiding the need for yet another facial. BUT... I'm a hybrid author, I'm making enough money to live comfortably, and that's what I'm talkin' 'bout, my friends!

Maintaining priorities... 4 generations of Blodgetts: Dad and Mom, Dave, Bethany and baby Elijah. Elijah's now four and Grandpa's gone home to heaven after a long, drawn-out battle with Alzheimer's, making this moment so precious.

A lot of you know me. You know I don't care about the frou and fluff of writing, I don't seek rewards and awards, although I take my business very seriously, even when I'm tongue-in-cheek. In short, I love writing and I work at it daily to make money.

IF YOU'RE NOT INTERESTED IN MAKING MONEY, IF YOU FEEL GUILTY ABOUT GETTING PAID TO WRITE BEAUTIFUL STORIES, THEN STOP READING NOW AND COME BACK TOMORROW FOR OUR CRAZY FUN NEW YEAR'S EVE PARTY!!!!!

NO GUILT ALLOWED AT THE SEEKERVILLE ROCKIN' NEW YEAR'S EVE BASH 2014!!!  

I made just shy of $9,000 on my indie books in 2013. They were out for 4 and 5 months respectively. So for a less than $800 investment, I cleared about eight grand apart from my contracted novels. That's about 2K/month.

I more than doubled that in 2014. When the smoke clears this month, I'll have made approximately 20K on my indie work alone in 2014. Down below I'll show you how one body of work affects the other.

No one likes to talk actual figures in this business, but it is a business and if you don't talk actualities, people get a pie-in-the-sky image of what goes on.

In Seekerville, we like to straight-shoot the facts for you because the more you know, the better equipped you are to handle it.

We've all heard about major success stories.

Do you have to be major to be successful?

Of course not. Most of us aren't going to write The Hunger Games or Twilight, and if we did the craze would be over by the time we're done and people would be hunting for the next Louisa May Alcott and there you are with five unwanted dystopian novels.

OOPS.

Write what you know and what you love but here's the caveat: Do It Well.

I was blessed to be part of two anthologies that held the top two spots for historical anthologies... Lovely reviews for the most part, LOL! There is no fooling the public. Readers are smart and have so many choices. Give them your best so they reach for more of your work!  I keep records of my indie sales and screen shots like this to promote myself to new publishers. 

On her "Future of the Ink" blog, Penny Sansevieri offered predictions for 2015... She says this:
"THE RAISED BAR":  "It’s here, that raised bar we all keep talking about. With all of the hundreds of thousands of books published, many more of those (more than ever) will go unnoticed. Right now the average sale for a self-published book is 100 copies. I believe that number will drop to 10 or less."

In the old days (like five years ago, oh my stars, the speed of this industry revolution is hysterical, isn't it???) if you sent your work into a publisher/editor and it wasn't ready you were embarrassed to realize it later. Well, that's changed, hasn't it?????

Now people publish really awful, sophomoric things and they wait to be patted on the head by a hungering readership clamoring for cheap books. News Flash: That's unlikely to happen. The reading audience is wide-spread and critical and they know how to use the review button. Handle with care!!

Your first and foremost job is to write a great story. Funny, serious, emotional, romantic, diverse, divisive, intuitive, dystopian, thrilling, horrific, comical, etc... WRITE A GREAT STORY.

Do not trust your own opinion on this. Really. I mean that. I'm not being intentionally mean, but learning to write books that people love, embrace, keep and re-read isn't a given. It's a learned skill like Pele with a soccer ball, Jeter at shortstop and Manning in Denver.

It doesn't happen overnight, or when you're scribbling 10K of stream of consciousness stuff  in one day or on the first manuscript (or for most of us the second or the third or fourth... of course I am a SLOW LEARNER!!!)

Polish. Edit. Submit. Repeat. Repeat again and again and when editors tell you what's wrong with your story, don't crumple their rejection/revision letters.

A beautiful love story, filled with redemption and forgiveness... I've sold 1000's of copies for .99 because it's such a beautiful story of healing... this way it's affordable for anyone. I polished this book by using advice I'd received from editors who rejected it. It is my highest selling indie book and has over 200 unsolicited reviews. Those are my favorite kind of reviews... 

If an editor gives you advice, get to work and fix it even if you're so sure they're wrong, that they know nothing and you are the NEXT BIG THING!!!

Take that advice, treat it like a free college course and do it.

Read. Read voraciously. Study. Emulate. Copy. Mince words. Dice. Slice. Re-write again and again.

There are no gimmes.

And then, when you're ready, scan the publishing horizon. I'm a farm girl, so if you're wondering what a "hybrid" author is, I liken it to a really good tomato. You take the looks of a Mountain Pride, mix it with the taste of a Beefsteak and you come out with a tomato that looks great, tastes amazing and resists blight.

Our roadside stand in August... Tomatoes, corn and squash. :)

Hybrid authors are like that. They're dipping their toes into traditional royalty-and-advance-paying publishing and producing independent work on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Apple, etc.

It's a juggling act. The interesting part of this act is to keep everyone happy.

This is your fork in the road, your "yield" sign.

1. I was traditionally published first. This is not always the case, lately there are authors who are independently published FIRST and their sales generate traditional publishing interest in them. My buddy Mary Virginia Carmichael is one of those.

2. I am not counting small presses in the traditionally published arena, not because I'm mean (we've already ascertained that, I am mean, but well-meaning, don't ask me to explain further, okay? I can't.) but because if no one is paying you up front to publish you're book, it isn't a "traditional" publishing contract the way I'm defining it here.

3. I am a category romance author for Love Inspired. Before you arch a brow or sniff aloud, let me remind you that in five years I have nearly a million books in print from my various venues, and category romance is a big part of that. I'm delighted to count tens of thousands of readers as my buds!!

4. I have an amazing agent. If you are pretty sure you don't need editors and agents in your life, I respect that.  I do need them. I love that my editors look beyond what I see and point out things I miss... I love that my agent isn't afraid to hunt up deals for me while encouraging my independent work because she understands that everyone likes a paycheck! And she's not afraid to scour the bushes!

5. I think editors now realize that authors need to make a living wage, and we can do this... and chart our own destiny... by doing what we love if we're productive writers. For those of us who love to write and write daily, there is nothing more gratifying than knowing you can support yourself doing the job of your dreams. (Mind you, it has taken me 5 years of being published to be able to reduce... not retire... the day job.) This is partially because of the new ease of indie publishing.

6. Understanding independent publishing isn't difficult because it changes daily. Therefore you really can't understand it completely, so if you produce an amazing story.... and then keep the price reasonable... (a lot of authors are starting to get greedy now, as if they need to make $7 off of every e-book they produce. I am happy that the greed factor missed me entirely) your audience will come.

7. Productivity is important. Write, write, write. Genre stories (romance, sci-fi, thrillers, etc.) seem to sell best. When those fans find an author they love, they buy lots of books.

Proof of that: I published "Try, Try Again" on July 29, 2013. I published "Running on Empty" on September 9, 2013. My backlist e-book sales then were about 200/quarter.

Now my backlist e-sales are over 2000/quarter.

That's a ten-fold increase, primarily from folks who buy an indie book and then go hunting for my other stories.

How wonderful is that????? And that's not just wonderful for me, it's great for my publishers... although I don't think they initially saw the benefit to them, it's clear now.

My indie book sales might not rival the big guns, but they're in the tens of thousands and that's huge to me. It provides me with a monthly paycheck from Amazon and with good scheduling of releases (including our joint effort Hope for the Holidays editions) I've been able to see the return on investment quickly.

Back in the #1 spot for historical anthologies... and at $2.99, 4 great stories, it's a wonderful deal!

My advice to you for 2015 is "discernment". If publishing is on your horizon you need to discern your readiness, not by your standards, but by the reading public.

Discernment is clutch. Make each element of your story sing with humor, pathos, joy and grief, the human emotions that touch our hearts will touch the hearts of readers.

I've talked too much (like always!) but I want you to go into 2015 with as clear a picture as we can paint of the many changing facets of publishing...

I've got e-books to give away today to celebrate indie publishing! 5 people will get their choice of any Ruthy or Seeker e-book. A perfect time to have me pay for a book you've been wanting! Tell me in the comments what book you'd like to have, I'll throw your name in a spankin' clean cat dish, and

From me to you...

God bless you for being a friend of Seekerville, a lover of God, fiction and romance... We're honored to be on hand to help you!

Coffee is on!!!!

Ruthy Logan Herne is living her dream, writing sweet books while holed up with small people on her farm in upstate New York. She thinks possums should stay off the porch and leave the cat food alone. The possums, it seems, have other ideas. She loves God, chocolate, family, dogs and America and is constantly amazed by how blessed she is!

Secrets of an Indie Author Cover Designer

with guest blogger, Lacy Williams.

 Hi, Seekerville!

A huge thanks to Tina and the ladies for hosting me, I’ve always had fun when I visit here.

One thing you might be surprised to know: in addition to being an author, I am also a freelance cover designer.

Some of my covers:

I loved the post you had back in July with one of the Love Inspired cover designers (http://seekerville.blogspot.com/2014/07/inside-cover-design-with-love-inspired.html ) and I thought it might be fun to show the difference in how one indie author/freelancer does it.

The biggest difference: I use stock art, not models at a live shoot. Although I’d love to, when I grow up…

It’s really important to understand copyright for photos, the difference between commercial and personal use, and licensing on the different stock art websites. That’s a whole ’nother post for another time. I will leave you with this sage advice: Read. The. Fine. Print.

Finding the right piece of stock art is one of the longer parts of the process. Not only does it have to be the right price for my budget, it also has to have a certain feel depending on what book the cover represents.

(Before I started creating cover art myself, I used to make funny faces at the cover art questionnaire for my traditional publisher, especially the question where it asks, “what is the mood for this cover?” and gloss over it quickly with some unhelpful statement, like inspirational, sweetly romantic. No longer. Now they get detailed information. Because there is a difference between, “they’re probably arguing, so sparks flying” and “she’s secretly in love with him”.)

I will spend hours browsing for the right stock photo to use as the backbone for my cover. Last year I stuck to sites like www.istockphoto.com and www.shutterstock.com but when iStock changed its plans and got pricey, I had to go elsewhere (hey, I have a budget and so do my clients!). This year, I found www.depositphotos.com, they have a great selection of photos and very reasonable prices.

Once I’ve found the exact right photo for the cover, say, this one…

 

…I create a new image file in Photoshop Elements and drop the stock art in. Don’t they just look lovely? This is actually a great image because it doesn’t need any tweaking before I get going on the cover. But sometimes the couple is right but the background is wrong. Or she’s supposed to have brown hair instead of blonde. In that case, I’ll spend time fixing what’s wrong. I can erase the background and drag a new one in, if needed. I can use the Color Replacement Tool to change the color of her hair (or dress, or his shirt). When you’re using stock photos, sometimes you have to accept something in the photo that doesn’t completely fit the story exactly… or find a better photo to work with. Because I don’t have models and because I don’t get to choose the clothes that these people are wearing, I’m more limited in what the final cover design will look like. However, you can always use a well-placed title to hide something you don’t like in the photo… :)

This photo is really great, and I’m going to use it as-is. Next, I need to have some idea where the different pieces of the cover will go (title, author name). This is a branded cover for Inspy Kisses, an author co-op that I belong to, so there is a flash line with our logo across the upper one-third of this cover.

 

It’s also part of our branded look to have the title in the upper part of the cover and the author names at the bottom.

 

Okay, the top half looks great, but those author names are impossible to read. What’s a girl to do? There are several tricks out there, like using a solid-colored box to highlight the names (or sometimes the title, if there isn’t a clear space on the cover for it). However, we used a Gradient on the first two covers in this series, so that’s what I’m going to use here. A Gradient is a way to fade something on the cover. It can add transparency if you’re folding two photos together, but in this case I’m going to use it as a solid color. I also use a small white gradient to made the blue sky behind the title disappear a little, so the title is more visible.

 

It’s looking pretty good, here! We’ve got a romantic couple, all our author names and a title.

But wait. This is a Christmas collection, so maybe we want to go even more wintery. I know! Let’s add an effect to get snow on the cover.

Um… but I don’t know how to make snow. I’ve never done it before.

Okay, I’m going to let you in one my Super-Secret, never-before-shared cover creator tip: YouTube. Don’t laugh! It’s a treasure trove of tutorials. Within a couple of seconds I have found two videos that look really promising, and I follow the instructions and voila:

 

This is actually just a picture of the Layer that has my snow. When all the other layers (titles and pictures) are visible, you get the full effect, but this is the snow by itself.

Now, just to add to the fun: That big, red gradient looks so… Plain. I use some special paintbrushes to create some snowflakes

 

and we’re there! Here is the finished product:

 

This is the final cover for our USA Today bestselling anthology, Mistletoe Kisses. We actually used this cover in a 3D boxed set cover, but I prefer the full-on cover shot myself.

Creating covers isn’t usually a step-by-step process for me (other than I have to find the stock art first!). Sometimes it gets circular. For instance, I flip-flop the placements of the title and author name. I go searching for fonts because what I have isn’t working. I try a different background.

And sometimes, I spend three hours working on a cover, and the author hates it.

But this is a process that I really enjoy. It uses a different creative part of my brain than writing or editing a book. For my own books, I’ll often create a cover while I’m still writing the book. Having the visual part of the book is a motivator for me and spikes creativity as I write.

So here’s a question for discussion. I recently stumbled onto a Facebook discussion where people were almost getting into fisticuffs over the answer: Do you love/hate covers with cutoff heads (borrowing my friend Regina’s cover as an example)?

 

Or prefer covers with the full hero/heroine on display?


 

 A Cowboy for Christmas 

 After an accident leaves her injured, Daisy Richards stays secluded at her family’s Wyoming ranch to avoid the town’s gawking stares. Yet handsome cowboy newcomer Ricky White insists she can do anything she dreams—ride a horse, decorate a Christmas tree…even steal a man’s heart.

Once a reckless cad, Ricky is to blame for what happened to Daisy. Now reformed, he wants to make amends by setting things right for his boss’s beautiful daughter in time for the holidays. But Daisy doesn’t know Ricky’s responsible for her predicament. When the truth is revealed, will he lose the greatest gift he’s ever received—her trust?

 Comment today for a chance to win a $10 Amazon gift card stocking stuffer. Winner announced in the Weekend Edition. And we're throwing in a print copy of A Cowboy for Christmas as well. Merry Christmas!

 

Lacy Williams (www.lacywilliams.net) is a USA Today bestselling author of 19 books and novellas. Her December 2014 release, A Cowboy for Christmas tells the story of one cowboy’s quest for redemption—and how it leads him to fall for the woman he handicapped. If you’d like to get a free ebook, sign up for Lacy’s newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/Tk-rn . Lacy is also the Managing Editor for Redbud Press, a new inspirational romance publisher. Find out more at www.redbudpress.com