ADVENTURES IN SELF-PUBLISHING: Go for Gold!

Self-publishing is now a realistic alternative to traditional publishing. This series looks at the challenges faced by any writer hoping to self-publish. In this article Antony Quinton looks at the steps from manuscript to published book.

When you buy a book it has passed through several stages almost like assembling a car. Your book – although an artistic endeavour – is also a product. When you self-publish it’s like you are in a 110-metre hurdle race! This article discusses my discoveries about each hurdle of the publishing process I scrambled over on my writing journey.

The stages can be divided into four main processes: 

Writing, Editing, Preparation and Publishing.

WRITING

• Draft:  It took me ten drafts and six years to complete my first middle grade science fantasy manuscript, Jayne and the Patchworlders. The most important part of the drafting process is: Get the words down! Once you have completed the draft no matter how messy it is, your story is complete.

And breathe… Go and have a break. Leave the draft for at least a month or two. This will give you necessary objectivity when you return to it. Now you must approach your manuscript as if you've just received it as an agent or editor at a publishing company. The keyword is objectivity. No one cares more about your story than you. However, you must try to view your story as you revise, dispassionately.

EDITING

I actually love editing. I spend two years as part of an editing team for a multi-volume Dr Who fan fiction anthology. I learnt so much from the experience. I used two approaches to my editing workflow:

• Developmental edit— I read the whole work through to get a feel of it. You need to look at the story structure, its framework and characters. Then I went through scene by scene looking at the story from the macro (bird's eye) point of view. I used to go through and put comments in to remind me to rewrite and ask questions about the story as if I were the reader.

• Copy edit— Once I was happy with the structure of the story I then turned the microscope onto it. I examined each scene or story beat in turn. I read each sentence and paragraph removing any that didn’t work, reshaping others so that they flowed better, tightening up dialogue and removing grammatical, spelling and style errors.

PREPERATION

Now is the time to be brave. You need somebody else to read it.

Enter the beta reader, whose purpose is to read the story and give their opinion. What works, what doesn’t and tell them to be brutally honest and even give them a question sheet with specific things you would like them to look out for. I would avoid using family or friends if possible. Ensure your beta reader is a person who actually likes and understands the genre. If you have a child in your family, you could ask them or a teacher or another children’s writer. Alternatively, you could join a writer’s critique group.

Then send it to a professional editor for their analysis. Ensure it’s someone you will be able to work with and usually they will be willing to give you an idea of how they work with writers and a sample of their editing feedback.  I did not have the funds to do this but I did ask others to read the story.

• Proofread: Even traditionally published books miss the odd typo or punctuation error. Take your time to read the manuscript in small sections. Remember to look out for homophones –  there/their/they’re, than/then and your/you’re – are common ones. Software like Autocrit and ProwritingAid can be useful at this stage.

Once the body of the book is polished to within an inch of its life you now have to turn it into a book. This process will be different depending on the format. I’m going to keep it simple and focus on an e-book.

• Design: An important aspect of any book is its visual appeal. One of the standouts on this is Cressida Cowell’s How to Train Your Dragon series. Everything has been carefully planned to appeal visually to young readers. The illustrations, the fonts used and of course the cover. If you traditionally publish, this is province of the art department. A self publisher has to outsource this. Unless you have illustration and graphic design experience do not design and create your own cover. 

As a proud member of the human race, I would not let the computer do it for you either. That’s a personal opinion based on the fact that there are illustrators out there trying to earn an honest wage. The only time I would use AI or a tool such as Canva is producing a cover mock-up to give an artist a closer idea of your requirements or to produce promotional materials. 

• Front and End matter: These are the parts of every book that are not the story. They include the copyright page, title page, contents, dedication or epigram at the front. While at the end of the story you can put authors’s notes, the credits usually known as acknowledgements and an author bio.

PUBLISH

Now your book has rolled off the production line you can publish it, right?
Well yes and no. You see there’s a whole other process that needs to run in parallel with producing the product. That’s the marketing process and will be discussed next time.

RESOURCES

A useful overview written Lauren Davish on the Bookbaby blog.
Self-Publishing a Children’s Book

An article on different story structures on the Fictionary blog by Angie Andriot.
Examples of Story Structures

A Bookbaby article written by Lisa Taylor.
Self-editing

An article by Dave Chesson about the parts of a book.
Front and End Matter

A useful website with a wealth of information about design and illustration in books.
Association of Illustrators

*Header image: Ell Rose and Tita Berredo

*

Ell Rose is the Illustration Features Editor of Words & Pictures.

Find their work at https://fourfooteleven.com

Follow them on Instagram and Twitter

Contact them at illustrators@britishscbwi.org

Tita Berredo is the Illustrator Coordinator of SCBWI British Isles and the Art Director of Words & Pictures. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter or www.titaberredo.com

Contact her at: illuscoordinator@britishscbwi.org.