tips for writing

ABC of self-publishing

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Overview and introduction

Here is my ABC of self-publishing.
It is my story on why and how I became an author, publishing two books: “Toxic Capitalism” and “Laugh And Get Wiser”.

ABC of self-publishing

late nights… trying hard…

The first book was done through a “Vanity Press Company”, a bad experience that led me to go “indie” and do self-publishing totally myself. That required mastering a software “SCRIVENER” and enrolling as an author with Amazon.
See the challenges I encountered and how I succeeded to publish on Kindle and in print. It took me three extended stays in a nice hotel in Phuket to find the right and motivating environment.

There are three very different roads to publishing: the traditional publishing companies, the vanity press and self-publishing (such as through Amazon, the giant in that field).
Read all details in these posts, as a guide to publish YOUR book. And learn the jargon of this business. Consider it your ABC of self-publishing.

Why self-publishing

See: https://www.damulu.com/2019/01/03/why-self-publishing/
Topics covered:
– Why I write;
– Why choose self-publishing;
– The 3 challenges when publishing your book;
– Some good books and websites to learn the details.

How to self-publish

See: https://www.damulu.com/2019/01/03/how-to-self-publish/
Topics covered:
– Why to become an “indie” and how;
– The three choices explained: traditional publishing houses; the vanity press; do it yourself (read: go the indie road).

The giant of self-publishing

See: https://www.damulu.com/2019/01/03/the-giant-of-self-publishing/
Topics covered:
– Why Amazon?
– The first step to publish on Amazon: you need to register as an author.
– The challenges I met to register as an author, being in China.
– Can you publish a book in Chinese on Amazon? Supported languages.
– Why not use Amazon China?
– Uploading my Kindle e-book on Amazon: challenges I met.
– My books are on Amazon!
– Does Amazon ship to China?

Using Scrivener

See: https://www.damulu.com/2019/01/06/using-scrivener/
Topics covered:
– What is Scrivener software?
– How to learn it, the way I did.
– Why a print version is the first step.
– Amazon Kindle: you need a Table of Content.
– How to get your book in print?

How I wrote my books

See: https://www.damulu.com/2019/01/06/how-i-wrote-my-books/
Topics covered:
– Everybody and every book is different
– My first book “Toxic Capitalism”: using MS Word and deliver the file to a “vanity press”.
– Running away from my normal environment.

Using external help when going indie

See: https://www.damulu.com/2019/01/09/using-external-help-when-going-indie/
Topics covered:
– Using external help when going indie is mandatory for two tasks: the cover design and professional editing.
– Why you need to finish first the format of the print version.
– How I did the cover page in two outsourcing steps.
– For my second book I did exceptionally not use an external editor: why?
– How much did my book cost to get it published in e-book and print?

More considerations on writing and Amazon

See: https://www.damulu.com/2019/01/10/more-considerations-on-writing-and-amazon/
Topics covered:
– Are you focused in your genre? Building a following.
– Amazon and shipping.
– Amazon world-wide shops are not connected.
– BISAC codes: what they are and why it did not help me with Amazon.
– Publishing in Chinese.

How to Write a Book in The Bookworm

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Rotaract talk

This time I gave a talk on how to write a book in The Bookworm, on 11 March 2019.
We were far over twenty people, mostly Rotaractors but also one more Rotarian and others who were interested in the topic.
This time I had nearly one hour to cover the topic and to answer many questions. A longer version than the talk in Rotary.

The Bookworm

The well-known book shop, meeting spot and restaurant in Sanlitun is the center of literary and other events in Beijing. We were lucky to basically have the whole room for us.
Rotaract meetings are now mostly held there on Monday evenings, 8 pm.
See: http://beijingbookworm.com/

Using Scrivener

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

What is Scrivener software?

Says Wikipedia:

“Scrivener is a word-processing program and outliner designed for authors. Scrivener provides a management system for documents, notes and metadata. This allows the user to organize notes, concepts, research and whole documents for easy access and reference.”

What it does not mention and is its main advantage: it allows you to produce an e-book, book print version, a PDF of your book and more.

Read more about it: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview

Learning then using

I still use version 2 for MAC; a newer version 3 is out but I can’t use it on my old MacAir.
It took some time to get familiar using Scrivener as it is a rather unusual software. I had to view several times the many video lessons before I managed to use it correctly.
Once I started using it for the jokes and worked on my notes for the book no. 3 I fully understood the advantages of Scrivener. Simply said, Scrivener is a must.

Back in Beijing it still took me some time to complete the final output. And then I did ran into a brick wall when I tried to deliver the print and e-book versions.

I needed to finish first the output for the print version because the cover design company needed to know how many pages the book had. It was frustrating. Nothing went right. I was close to give up but then tweaked and tweaked the settings till one day it worked. For the print I could not really finish the task as it turned out correctly setting the margins and the positions of header and footer were not possible within Scrivener. I solved it by exporting from Scrivener to MS Word, something that worked well. The Table of Content is a bit tricky to format correctly but one needs to keep in mind it is NOT a Word ToC but a list of links where one must “update links”. Inside MS Word I was able to fine-tune the choice of font type and size as well as the headers and footers. Also to fine tune all pages so they would look nice – e.g. no title of a joke at the bottom of the page, shifting it to the top of the next page. Last step converting into PDF – the format requested by Amazon for the print.

CreateSpace is now history and Amazon directly handles the print too, making it much more easy.

Finally getting there

Once the problems with the print version were solved, the output of the Kindle files was much easier. Basically the challenge is to get the settings right in the compile dialogue, combined with the right settings for each document in the chapters (the settings are pretty much linked). In my case, see the screenshot:

the compiling dialogue

There are some add-ons to Scrivener that allow you to test the Kindle version in the Kindle app on the Mac desktop. The only tricky thing was to delete the old versions in the Kindle app: one needs to go into the (hidden) folder of Kindle in the MAC and there manually delete the old files. I was also able to put the test Kindle file in my iPhone to see how it behaved.

You must have a table of content

Amazon requires your book to have a table of content, and – it must be at the beginning of the book, not at the end.
So I was forced to artificially create a table of content for the mountain of jokes. Obviously the result is rather artificial and not always logical… Well I had no choice but to be creative, inventing chapters and making sure the length of the chapters was not too unevenly spread. It took some time… and finalizing it was easy with Scrivener.

How I wrote my books

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Everybody and every book is different

How I wrote my books is a personal experience; everybody is different. Here is my approach.

See also: http://www.damulu.com/2017/04/18/writing-requires-never-giving-up/

My first book “Toxic Capitalism” was written using MS Word. The file was sent to AuthorHouse who did the rest, except for the design of the cover page that we (read: my daughter) did ourselves. As that book involved tons of data, sitting in my computer or in piled-up cutouts from newspapers and magazines, there was little choice other than working at my home office. It was a crazy and frantic experience. Nobody can believe the book was finished in less than six months, all while I was still involved in doing business, and having Christmas, New Year and Spring Festival making a mess of my time schedule.

I guess I emptied quite a number of whisky bottles working until very late at night in a frantic way.

late nights…

Difficult to believe when one reads the book that has far over 500 endnotes with the references to the tons of data. Somehow the whole process on how to process and organize the data had been spinning in my head for some time. Processing the pile of paper clippings and data in my digital database was labor-intensive but also systematic. OK, I swear I will never do anything alike again. I hope.

Running away from Beijing

For the second book, the jokes one, I figured out I would never get anywhere staying in Beijing where I have a rather hectic life full of diversions. Basically I had 3 issues to deal with: learning Scrivener – entering all my written notes for book no. 3 into a Word document – cleaning up and organizing the collection of jokes.

the notes

So, I ran away to Phuket, Patong Beach (Thailand). It was a good decision. During the day I did not leave my room, just a quick snack for lunch while working. By the end of the day, a dip in the swimming pool or then gym. And a dinner outside and drinks in the famous bar street, to relax. Often it rained heavily during the day, even better to keep me working in my room.

I stayed in a nice hotel to have a quiet and comfortable environment.
In 2017 I was there twice for two weeks each time. In March this year, three weeks, all mostly in Baanlaimai Hotel.

It allowed me to basically reach my three goals. More about that in next post.

Why self-publishing

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Why I write

Before answering the question “Why self-publishing?” I should explain why I write.
I felt an urge to write since I was a teenager. I wrote a short story when I was in middle school (Sint-Barbaracollege, Ghent). It was about a young man who invented some kind of beam (I called it then a laser I think) that helped him control the mind of other people. I forgot the details but it could be still somewhere in my archeological museum. Another short story was about an strangely-dressed lady I had seen on the tram when going to school. I shared it all with a Jesuit father of the school but received little or no encouragement, most probably because it looked pretty lame.

Later on I penned down a lot of personal thoughts, some kind of diary, all in scattered notebooks, mostly somber rambling. I have been trying to assemble the scattered notes into one computer file to prove to myself it was all repetitive garbage and how little has changed and how much has changed. Yes, because that is in essence the story of our life.

I have now published two books. I never think it will make me rich. I simply feel the urge to write, to get it off my chest. I never write with the idea to please the readership. I simply write what I feel and think. Don’t ask me why. It’s just the way I feel and do.

Why self-publishing

I can simply refer to the excellent books by David Gaughran:

His website: https://davidgaughran.com/Z
Main individual titles are, see https://davidgaughran.com/books-for-authors/:
Let’s Get Visible
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/149031041X/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3
Let’s Get Digital
https://www.amazon.com/Lets-Get-Digital-Self-Publish-Publishing/dp/1983680354/

I have bought several of the editions, and I have read them multiple times, considering it as my bible on the matter. I greatly recommend them to anyone who wants to understand self-publishing.

Another great set, not sure it is still available:
The Indie Author Power Pack: How To Write, Publish & Market Your Book
by Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant, David Gaughran, Joanna Penn
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23505393-the-indie-author-power-pack

One important lesson: if you think writing a book is difficult, well, that is just step one and the most easy one. Step two is getting published – for most an impossible dream. Then comes step three, the most difficult one: selling the book. An even more impossible challenge.

More about “Why Self-publishing”

There are quite a number of other books explaining the why and how. This one by James Altucher (ULTIMATE GUIDE TO SELF PUBLISHING) is freely available on his site: https://jamesaltucher.com/publish/