10

SECRETS TO
A BESTSELLER

IZZARD INK PUBLISHING COMPANY

PO Box 522251

Salt Lake City, Utah 84152

www.izzardink.com

© Copyright 2017 by Tim McConnehey

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, electronically or otherwise, or by use of a technology or retrieval system now known or to be invented, without the prior written permission of the author and publisher.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CONTROL NUMBER: 2016908934

Designed by Alissa Rose Theodor

Illustrations by Kevin Nordstrom

Cover Design by Andrea Ho

Cover Illustration Image Copyright David van der Veen / Offset.com

First Edition August 1, 2017

Contact the author at info@izzardink.com

Softback ISBN: 978-1-63072-902-8

Hardback ISBN: 978-1-63072-903-5

eBook ISBN: 978-1-63072-904-2

PRAISE FOR TIM MCCONNEHEY AND IZZARD INK PUBLISHING

I have worked with the world’s leading multinational companies for my books, in addition to managing my many speaking engagements. Izzard Ink’s consultation services were some of the best. I am especially grateful for the guidance with my website and social media marketing campaigns. Izzard Ink’s focus is on building authors and people. I would recommend Izzard Ink to any published or non-published author, regardless of where they are in the process.

—Dan Clark, New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Significance, National Speaker Association Hall of Fame

My husband, W. Cleon Skousen, wrote several books, including The Naked Communist and The Naked Capitalist. We were so happy when each of those became bestsellers. I was told that, at last count, those two books had sold more than two million copies combined. I’ve had Izzard Ink refresh five of Cleon’s books and all of them turned out crisp and new and attractive.

—Jewel P. Skousen, editor and spouse of USA Today and New York Times bestselling author W. Cleon Skousen

I am a self-publishing author/publisher and have had the best experience, bar none, with the Izzard Ink group. They are the best bunch of hardworking professionals that I have ever had the privilege of working with; I would recommend them to anyone looking to design a cover or create a beautiful interior; I would recommend them for all your creative publishing needs. Tim McConnehey has held my hand through the entire process and answered my questions at all hours of the day and night. I couldn’t be more pleased with the results.

—Diane Merrill Wigginton, author and owner of Jeweled Dagger Publishing

I owe my new friends at Izzard Ink a tremendous debt of gratitude. They walked me through self-publishing 101 and helped me turn my non-sellers into great sellers. One title was a bestseller on Amazon. Until I met Izzard, I didn’t know how little I knew about post-writing development to produce a polished, professional-looking book. They cared about making me a success. And where some prior efforts produced a couple of duds, they guided me to help so I could repair the flaws and try again. It was worth it. Highly recommend Izzard Ink. Sometimes you just need somebody who knows the way.

—Paul Skousen, bestselling author and former White House CIA analyst

Working with Tim was as effective as it was enjoyable. As a first-time author speaking on the phone with Tim for the first time, one of the first things he said to me was, “I just want to see your book be successful.” That simple statement was the clear motivation of every interaction we had from that very first conversation all the way to me holding a finished copy of my book in my hands. It is immediately clear when speaking with Tim that his knowledge of this business is only surpassed by his willingness to help. I couldn’t be more satisfied and grateful for his help to make my book a reality. I would recommend Izzard Ink to anyone and everyone without any hesitation. Tim and the Izzard Ink team offer professional advice and hands-on help that truly does range from A to Z.

—Robbie Tripp, public speaker and author of Create Rebellion

FOREWORD

My failures as a writer are all over the map—fiction, nonfiction, history, politics, religion, even an attempt at a world records book!

Each title was the result of passion and hard work. I wrote them because I enjoyed the journey, the research, the topic, and the writing. It was one of the few places in life where I felt that I was in total control. My world records book took sixteen years to complete. My first fiction book took six years. My first political book took four years. And a “bathroom reader” that I wrote out of frustration still took me two years to complete.

With no money to invest, I did everything myself using free or old software—cover design, interior layout, photo cropping and placement, writing, editing, ISBN purchase, and more. My mom, bless her heart, spent long hours fixing typos. A friend showed me some layout tricks. Another friend let me scan some photos with my laptop at his newspaper office. I pieced the books together as best I could, and after all of that labor, I submitted them to publishers and waited.

Silence.

No, it was worse than silence. With each rejection letter came the haunting, mocking laughter of successful writers who scorned my attempt to short-circuit the system that they somehow had mastered. Maybe they had better DNA, I don’t know.

I was discouraged. My hoped-for claim to that highly respected and vaulted title of Published Author had fallen short. Miserably short.

What was I doing wrong?

That’s when I turned to a print-on-demand service, ordered a couple of copies of one title, and walked them in the front door of a local publisher. “See?” I told them. “This is what it looks like, all finished.”

I was thrilled beyond measure when they took my first book and ran with it. They took my cover and tweaked it slightly, put their name on the copyright page as publisher, and sent me on 93 book signing tours over the course of a year to bookstores all over the state. Each trip was on my own dime—I paid for the gas and wear and tear on my car, and stood there, dressed in coat and tie, pacing around a table in assorted stores for three to four hours begging somebody to please come talk to me. After a few sales, they invested in some advertising. I was complimented!

At the end of about 12 months my book had sold 20,000 copies! They called it a bestseller and asked for my next title. But at a 10% royalty, I did the math. My book had made my publisher more than $100,000. And me? Subtracting all my expenses, taxes, gas, etc., I realized I could have worked six months of weekends at McDonald’s and made the same money as my royalty check. So what was that all about? Stroking my ego?

I was confused and even more discouraged.

And then I found Izzard. What a difference. After working with the people at Izzard, I took control of my own publishing destiny.

The result?

Two of my titles were downloading 1,000 copies a day for almost a week. Another title sold 4,000 copies two days before Christmas. One title is being considered for a movie. Another title is being translated into Mongolian (no joking, they have a politically active readership that loves American political writing!). Another title won an Amazon Hidden Gem of the Year award. Two other titles were accepted by a hard-to-access eBook referral company with a mailing list of 1.7 million. Another title was used as a fundraiser by a major political party, and this led to public speaking invitations at their national meetings. And I’ve had more than 700 online reviews averaging 4.6 out of 5 stars, including a few reviewers who called me incompetent, amateur, biased, and other insulting names—and I don’t even mind.

What made the difference?

That’s what this little book is all about.

Yes, I did have to pay my way to access top editors and designers whose day jobs are working for the top five publishers in America—but that was my choice, using Izzard’s access, connections, and recommendations. I was in complete control through the entire process. My investments have been paid back from proceeds from sales.

Did I have some duds? Oh yes. One book I thought would be a great seller in print has been a dead dog. But the audio version was a top-50 bestseller. My investments in layout and cover for the print version, and the cost of the narrator, were all paid back by the audio sales. Who would have guessed?

Another title I’ve worked hard to perfect is still sitting out there waiting to be discovered. Will it? I hope so. I’m working with Izzard right now on a new marketing strategy. They pointed out how my stagnated title is part of a series not yet complete, and that people generally don’t buy incomplete series. Makes good sense because I don’t buy incompletes, either! It was a great reality check, so I’ve lowered my expectations until I finish the whole series.

Another title I thought dead was a book my father wrote in 1958 and later updated in the ’60s, called The Naked Communist. Copies were dribbling out just a few a month. It needed some refreshing. I wrote up two new chapters and updated the statistics. Izzard gave it a new cover and more modern feel, and suddenly this 60-year-old book is on Fox News, The Washington Post and The New York Times, and selling like new again. It’s the power of self-publishing.

10 Secrets to a Bestseller: An Author’s Guide to Self-Publishing contains all those tips, recommendations, and access to contacts that Izzard Ink offered me for my own self-published books. I was fortunate to have discovered them, smart to have followed their tips, and grateful for the invitation to add my own experiences in publishing as a foreword to this little guide.

Please take to heart the messages in this book. They can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but with the right devotion and patience to your own passion and labors, they can help you spin your bales of literary straw into gold.

By Paul B. Skousen

INTRODUCTION

THERE’S NO SELF-PUBLISHING MAGIC

Technology is your friend – and your enemy. Publishing technologies, ecommerce, and the Internet have brought the capability of publishing your book much closer to you, the author. If you have a book, you can publish it – it’s as simple as that. Unlike the vanity presses of years past, simply publishing your own book requires only a minimal investment, and when you are done with the hard work of writing and the relatively simple work of converting and publishing, you have a book that you can show your friends. You can visit your book’s online page and feel proud and pleased to see that you are a published author. But this very same technology is available to the thousands of other authors with good ideas and the wherewithal to complete a book and publish it. Each time you visit your book’s page, and congratulate yourself on your status as an author, you die a little inside as you see how few of your books are actually selling.

Perhaps you have been fortunate enough to have sold a few. You eagerly look for reviews, and find disappointing comments: your book was hard to follow; your book was poorly edited, or it was in need of proofreading. Someone might point out that you use the phrase “in point of fact” on nearly every page. You find that the plot has died, or that despite your best efforts, your facts are in error. Maybe your characters leave people unmoved, or the premise of your nonfiction book was completely misinterpreted. And look – some stranger just called you “illiterate.”

You’re not stupid – you wrote a book. You know that no book is universally loved, but you expected a better reception than this. You are aware that books published by the “Big 5” publishers may cause controversy, but the books sell and the authors might be called wrong or deluded – but not illiterate. So where did you go wrong?

The big publishers have a process for publishing, distributing, and marketing books, and the odds are that your process did not follow their process. Publishers invest in their books, and in all likelihood, your investment was of time, not money, and that time was focused on the technical process of publishing a book: how to get it from your word processing file into an eBook or printable format. But there is more to being a successful author than knowing how to manage the technology.

Publishers add value to a book because they have a process that includes not only getting a book from manuscript to its final delivery platform, whether digital or print, but also quality control (development, fact-checking, and editing), packaging, marketing, and distribution. By adhering to a process, the major publishers give each book its best chance to succeed – and by understanding that process, you can give your book its very best chance of success as well.

The most important thing I hope you learn from this book is that successful self-publishing is not magic. You can follow the same process that the major publishers do, within the limits of your resources. Understanding the publishing process brings into focus the need to have a step-by-step road map to follow, and that is what I hope Izzard Ink can provide for you.

Together, we’ll address the following questions:

•   Can you turn your great idea into a book?

•   What are the steps you need to take, and in what order?

•   How do you complete your book?

•   What resources do you need: a cover designer? Editor? Fact checker?

•   How do you distribute your book, and how do you make sure people know it’s out there?

•   How much should you sell it for?

And finally, we’ll remind you – as you will remind yourself – DON’T GIVE UP! In my own life, I have had ample reason to remind myself of this simple principle: giving up ensures defeat.

No matter what life has handed you, no matter how overwhelmed or discouraged you feel, don’t give up on your dreams. Life will take you up and down, but staying positive is something you can always control.

Whenever I am feeling deeply discouraged, or need to remind myself of the power of thinking about things in a positive way, I remember a particular time when life threw a series of curveballs at me. It could have been enough to make me give up. Instead, it turned into an opportunity to become stronger as an individual and as a family.

It was December 2008. Life could not get any better. After two years of courting the woman of my dreams and finally marrying her, I had reached my own personal nirvana. We packed our bags and enjoyed a 10-day honeymoon in South Florida.

Two weeks after arriving home I received a call from my boss. My job was no longer. This would have been devastating in any case, but in addition, I had just lost about 50% of my savings due to the stock market crash, and as a new family we needed the income and build security.

A week later my Mom called and said we needed to meet as a family. The news was not good. My father had just been diagnosed with stage three brain cancer. The MRI revealed a tennis-ball-sized tumor in the front of his brain.

For the next two weeks I was paralyzed. I did not know how to move forward. All I knew was that I did not want to feel this way forever. My wife and I slapped a piece of paper on the fridge where we would only list positive things that happened to us.

Within three days our list was becoming quite respectable. We focused on some surprising things: for instance, that it was a great opportunity that I did not have a job right now, because I was able to be with my dad during his cancer treatments. It gave me a chance to consider some real options for my future. Finally, it gave me the confidence to handle future pitfalls and struggles by laying the foundation for how to tackle rejection: When things get tough, go back to basics. Our family grew closer together. I learned what it meant to be a true friend.

As my wife and I were reviewing our list of what eventually turned into 35 – yes, 35! – positive things that came out of the trifecta of losing my job, being hit hard in the stock market crash, and my father’s brain cancer, the truth of it all struck us: Success is mastering failure. If I wanted to be successful in life, then I needed to know how to over-come failure – and be good at it.

The same is true as a writer. Success is mastering failure. It is about how you deal with the rejection letters. Do you give up? When your first bad review hits do you immediately delist your book? There are many “failures” and setbacks in the publishing industry. Conquer failure!

You cannot have a bestselling novel if you failed to complete it.

STEP 1

DO YOUR
RESEARCH

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.

—MARK TWAIN

Books and Books and Books and Books

You have an idea for a book. Maybe it’s fiction, maybe it’s nonfiction, but in your heart you know it’s a good idea. Maybe you’ve even written a good part of it, or outlined it, or perhaps you’ve even finished a draft. Wherever you are in the process, you’ve probably started to think about what a big job you’ve taken on. You may be looking at books in the bookstores and wondering how they made that big step from their personal writing to a published book.

You’ve probably been told to “write what you know,” and to write from the heart, and as far as that goes, that’s very good advice. But it’s not enough to get you published, and it’s definitely not enough to make your book sell. Even if your book is superbly well written, you may not find a market for it. Why? Because publishing, like every other industry, has its trends. And publishers and agents are very aware of those trends, because what people are buying this year, or what they predict will sell next year, are the considerations that drive their business. Not all books are equally viable commercially, and not all are intended to fill the same niche. There are coffee-table books, self-help books, memoirs, technical books, and dozens of categories of fiction.

Depending on your book and the publishing climate at the time, there may be more of a demand for some kinds of books than for others. Knowing this, how can you leverage this knowledge to give your book the best possible chance for success? Our best recommendation: Do your research. Understand what sells and why, and most of all, know how your book fits into the publishing landscape.

Where Do You Fit?

A good place to start is by examining your own book, even before you start looking at what’s on the market. Understanding your own book is crucial in being able to sell your book to a publisher or to market it to customers.

You should be able, first and foremost, to say what genre your book belongs to. Is it fiction or nonfiction? There are dozens of sub-genres in either category. For fiction, there are mysteries, science fiction and fantasy, literary fiction, and much more. In nonfiction there are, if anything, even more categories: self-help, history, social sciences, nature, and just about any subject you can think of.

Can’t think of a category? You can go to a bookstore or library and browse the shelves for ideas, or you can go to Amazon.com and view the elaborate list of categories they provide for their customers’ browsing convenience. If you are really stuck, imagine categorizing your book for Amazon or another bookseller.

Once you have defined your book, try to put it in a sentence: “My book is fiction – a first-person fantasy novel.” Or, “I wrote a nonfiction self-help book for basic home repair.” And so on. The critical point is, you should know your book, and where in the bookstore it would sit.

Common Mistakes in Research

Know Your Market!

I was recently at a party where I was introduced to a new acquaintance. First he described himself as a college professor, now retired, but after some hints and returning to the topic several different ways, he confessed that he was, in fact, no longer a college professor, but a poet. He had published a book of poetry!

I congratulated him, of course – it’s not easy to get a publisher to accept a book of poetry – at which point he clarified that he had actually self-published his volume of poetry.

It turned out he had asked to be introduced to me at the party so he could ask my opinion on why his book of poetry wasn’t selling.

A little research might have told him that one of the reasons publishers hesitate to publish books of poetry is that they rarely sell well, and few become “success stories.” If our professor-poet was looking for a bestseller, he had chosen the wrong market!

A Little Market Research Never Hurt

Of course, you need to write what’s in your heart, but if you want to sell your book, a little research is a good idea. Maybe you’ve written a great Western story. But are Westerns selling this year? No? Can you change the setting of your plot, give it a twist, or make it relevant somehow? How about Space Cowboys – or Cowboy Zombies? Go to your bookstore and see what they are promoting, and check bestseller lists as well. If you are writing nonfiction, what else has been written on your subject? How is it selling? What makes your book different?

Sometimes, a good guide to what might sell in books is what is selling in the movies and on TV. For instance, when The Martian movie was popular, a dozen books on Mars, from science to science fiction and thrillers, appeared on bookstore shelves.

Another question you might consider is whether you can find someone who specializes in your kind of book, whether it’s an agent or a publisher. If you just wrote a fine book on programming in Python, you would want to look at technical publishers, whereas if you just wrote your memoirs, a general-purpose publisher would be more appropriate. Don’t send a racy mystery to a children’s publisher, or young adult fiction to a self-help specialist.

No matter how you publish – through a major publisher, self-publishing, or hybrid – you’ll need to invest time and probably money into seeing this project through to fruition. So before you commit to the enormous task of finishing your manuscript and publishing it, take the time to do a little market research, to make sure your book has a market.

STEP 2

COMPLETE
MANUSCRIPT
ROUGH DRAFT

The best advice on writing was given to me by my first editor, Michael Korda, of Simon and Schuster, while writing my first book. ‘Finish your first draft and then we’ll talk,’ he said. It took me a long time to realize how good the advice was. Even if you write it wrong, write and finish your first draft. Only then, when you have a flawed whole, do you know what you have to fix.

—DOMINICK DUNNE

This is probably the toughest step you’ll encounter on the long road to publishing your own book. It is not uncommon to take months to years to complete a manuscript. The simplest truth about writing, and the one that underlies everything you’ll ever complete, is that writing is work – hard work.

You want to write a book because you probably have a story in your head. It might be a certain type of story, like a mystery, or a self-help book. One way to help turn your idea into a book is to go online and read what people have written about how to write for a particular genre. You’d be surprised at how much there is online in these areas! While we’re not endorsing any particular site at this point, doing a web search on “how to write a mystery book” or “how to write a self-help book” will turn up a treasure trove of information.

In addition, there are some time-honored tips that could help you, although everyone has his or her own way of writing, and we’re not going to argue with success. But if you’re running into a block, or if your manuscript remains just another good idea, consider the following time-honored approaches to starting and finishing a manuscript.

Common Mistakes in Completing Your Manuscript Rough Draft

Don’t Get Hung Up on the Small Things!

Lovers of Jane Austen, and particularly Pride and Prejudice, practically squeal with delight when Lady Catherine, speaking of her own musical talent, says, “If only I had learned, I would have been a great proficient!”

Don’t be the Lady Catherine of writing. The best, most effective way to complete your manuscript is simply to do it – pick up your implement of choice, be it pen, pencil, or keyboard, and start getting your thoughts on paper, and don’t stop until you’re done!

Tips for Finishing Your Manuscript

• Pick a time to write and DO IT. Treat it like a job, primary if you’re lucky, or secondary if you still have to work another job for a living. Set aside space to work in, if you can, or at least establish a certain time as your job – which happens to be writing – where you can’t be disturbed. Even if you can only give it a few hours a week, if you’re regular about it, you’ll be surprised at how steadily your manuscript will grow. And of course, the more time you can devote to it the better.

• Keep writing, even if you hate what you’re writing and you’re pretty sure you’ll have to throw it out later. Just keep working. If you stop, you’ll lose momentum. Get your thoughts out of your head and into a file or on paper where you can actually work with it later, and make it right.

• Stop stressing over that one sentence. It will straighten itself out later. Whether it’s a whole day’s work or a single sentence, don’t let it stop you. You can rewrite as much as you want later, once you’ve actually finished the thing. In fact, most authors are famous rewriters, so don’t get stopped by something you’re bound to obsess over later anyway.

• Don’t obsess over things. It will keep you from finishing.

• Consider outlining. If you really can’t get started, it’s a way to get yourself going. Some writers do that naturally, but even if you don’t, consider it as a way to get yourself past a block or a plot problem, or just to get your book underway.

• Have a support system. Find at least one person who will read your work and be honest with you. It can be a friend or a hired editor, but it should be someone who is an experienced reader. Ask questions to see if your goals for your book are being met. If you know you have a story to tell, but you’re not happy with how you’re telling it, consider hiring an editor or writing coach to help you complete your book.

• Set deadlines for yourself. And when you miss them – because you will – set a new deadline. Don’t give up.

• “Murder your darlings.” This famous quote by Arthur Quiller-Couch is a good one to keep in mind. Quiller-Couch was suggesting that when you are especially pleased with something in your writing, most likely to others it sounds contrived or awkward. So if you are over-attached to something in your work, and can’t figure out why the writing doesn’t read right, most likely it’s that thing you love so much and are convinced sounds really, really cool. It probably doesn’t.

• On those days when nothing will come at all, do writing exercises. Some ideas would be to describe three people you know in detail, or an experience from your childhood that had special significance, or to vividly describe your current surroundings. Anything that keeps you writing is potentially valuable. Keep a journal for this “extra” writing.

• Keep reading other people’s books. Don’t think of it as something that could interfere with your creative process; think of it as a way to collect ideas to keep your book moving along, and sometimes, to distract yourself enough to be able to return to your own work with a refreshed eye.

• Some writing exercises to try:

•   Describe yourself as though you were a fictional character.

•   Describe the most wonderful town you can imagine, and then describe what happens when it’s invaded by hostile aliens.

•   Describe the room you’re sitting in, down to the smallest detail.

STEP 3

COPY
AND CONTENT
EDITING

Stop and Smell the Weeds.

When we went walking with our daughter, it was a very slow process. She would stop and smell everything – roses, dandelions, grass, oak trees. At first it was maddening, but it was something we learned to treasure. The lesson we eventually learned was we needed to stop and smell the weeds.

Don’t rush past the dandelions and go straight to the roses. To do so is to limit your world. We have to learn from the difficult times – the weeds in our life – if we are to approach the successes. We would be missing the foundation to handle success if we do not smell our fair share of weeds during the publishing process. Sometimes you need to bend over and find out if what you are smelling is a weed or a rose.

If you want a book that sells because people enjoy it, not because the government is paying for it to be in schools, then tell the best story you can. This includes editing it ruthlessly.

A Book Publisher Story

We sat down with one author to review his manuscript. For six solid hours we covered each page, one by one. On every single page, the author instructed us to bold, italicize and underline words or phrases, or even whole sentences.

About an hour into the process, the author stated, “We are doing this process because I know the content is boring and by changing the inflection of the words it will keep the reader’s interest.”

Izzard Ink Publishing does not recommend this method.

Because the quality of content was inadequate, the author released the book for free across all eBook platforms. Then we waited for the reviews. Over the next six months, they trickled in, and unsurprisingly, they were not favorable, even for a free book.

Later we found out that two very qualified editors from a well-known book publisher had read the manuscript, but the author had decided not to make any of their changes.

Book Publisher Conversation

Criticism Can Hurt

Your book really is a long conversation with a reader. The editor is there to make sure you don’t lose focus, and to keep the reader’s attention with quality content.

A good professional editor with a stellar track record will want you to be as successful as possible. After all – if you are successful, they are successful.

It is always difficult to get constructive criticism about a literary work that you have poured your heart and soul into. Sometimes it feels like a hard punch to the face. But remember that the editor is there to be more critical than your most critical reader, so that your book sounds its absolute best when it’s published.

So take a few days to really digest the feedback from the editor, then make the necessary changes to your manuscript. Don’t be afraid to open dialogue with your editor, either. It’s good to have an open mind to what he or she is saying, but if you think that the criticism is way off track, have that conversation. One of you – the author or the editor – will be enlightened by it.

Please do not just BOLD, italicize and/or underscore the parts of your manuscript that you consider boring. A better strategy is to make them not boring.

Think of your book as having a conversation with a friend.

•   What makes your friend want to listen to you?

•   What keeps the attention of your friend?

•   What makes your friend stick around until you are done talking or call you back if the story is not finished?

We can answer all these questions with the same response. It is content that keeps the conversation interesting. The content of the conversation will keep the interest of your friends and readers, and keep them coming back.

Have you ever had a friend who rehashes the same old story over and over again?

Our mom is getting up in age and we find it’s getting more difficult to have a good conversation with her. She repeats herself often. Then, just a few days later, we start with the same thing she just told us, as though she had just thought of it for the first time in years.

For us, the listeners, it is very frustrating. For her, telling the story is fun and exciting. When the same thing is said over and over again, the person at the other end of the conversation just wants to end it. In our case, we love our mother enough to listen time and time again – we love her in a way that (sorry, dear Author) your readers do not love you.

Consequently, if you do that as an author, that means your book is put down and never picked up again. Even worse, a reader finishes it only to give it a horrible review. If the story is good, tell it once, then move on.

Common Mistakes in Editing

Yes, You Do Need an Editor!

One of the most common things I hear from authors planning to self-publish is, “I’m good at the English language – I don’t need an editor.” Or else I hear, “My niece edited it for me.”

The truth is, even editors need editors.

And if you want to publish, you need a professional editor to ensure that your book sounds, well, professional. Good writing is within you, but the finishing touches are a matter of technique, like any other art or skill.

Everyone makes mistakes, whether small typos, copy-and-paste errors, or clarity of language. You, as an author, work so closely with your material that several problems can occur:

1. You are so close to your own content, you may not know when you are not being clear.

2. You read it so often that you have begun to take long passages for granted, making it easy to miss an error that has worked its way in.

3. Ideally, you’ve changed and edited your own manuscript first, and in doing so, may not have realized that you have introduced an error.

4. Some of the things you love best in your own writing are the very things that need to be removed or changed.

5. When you are so familiar with a book, you see what you expect to see, not what is there.

6. Your manuscript is your baby, and you lose your objectivity.

7. It never, ever hurts to have another pair of eyes look at your book. That would be in addition to your literate niece — not instead of. By all means, have her read it too!

Listen to the Editor

How to Find a Book Editor

1. Make sure you have good chemistry with your editor, and remember, he or she is not the enemy! The most gifted authors have editors. Even the most famous authors work with editors. Understanding the value of getting a different point of view helps your book become that much better. When you work as hard on the manuscript as you just did, it’s hard to take the big step back to see even simple errors, like typos and sentence fragments.

2. What type of editing are you looking for? If you are a newly self-published author, we highly recommend that you not only have a proofreader but also a content editor. Having your book edited for content will help uncover missing points or inaccuracies. If you are writing nonfiction or certain types of fiction, you might need to hire a fact-checker as well. Reviewers won’t hesitate to tell you if you’ve made factual errors!

3. Find an experienced editor. Making sure that your manuscript has quality content will be key for your overall success as an editor. How do you find an experienced editor? Izzard Ink can help.

There are many websites available to find freelance editors, but this may not be the best way to find the editor you need. A better approach is to find an experienced, proven editor who has edited books that you like. These editors are more expensive, but they can provide input that only years of experience in the publishing industry can offer.

4. What is the editor’s style? Before coming to us for help, one of our clients asked for help from an editor who has an extensive young adult novel background. Our client had a rather complex subject she was addressing and worked hard to simplify it and make it reader friendly.

She used AP (Associated Press) style and a personal writing style that was easy and fun to read. When the editor obtained the manuscript, he didn’t like that violation of the rules and changed it to a more formal style, creating friction between author and editor. Afterwards, she came to us and we helped her find a better match.

5. Does AP or Chicago style matter? There are some differences that become obvious, such as spelling out numbers or how to use abbreviations or dashes. But a not-so-obvious difference is in text flow.

• AP Style: Major newspapers and magazines use AP style. This is more forgiving and seeks brevity. This style encourages fewer words and shortcuts whenever possible.

• Chicago Style: Technical writers usually choose Chicago style. It is more formal in some aspects, follows rules that don’t yield, and removes ambiguity that an author might inject with jargon, slang and brevity.

How to find a book editor with the style that best fits your book? Ask Izzard, and we’ll give you our recommendation.

6. Investigate references. Get a list of references from the editor and talk to their clients to see what they have said. Is the editor patient and easy to work with? Find out if the editor really cares about making sure you have the best content, or if he or she is accepting your work more for reasons of income than improving the writing in your book.

7. The trial edit. Finding a good editor is much like dating. You are not even going to approach the subject of marriage before you’ve had the first date, right? Go on a date with your editor and get a trial edit of the first chapter.

Reputable editors understand the importance of a trial edit and it is worth the expense to make sure you and your editor are on the same page. Remember that you are in charge of your book and you do not have to make every change the editor suggests.

STEP 4

COMPLETE
MANUSCRIPT
FINAL DRAFT

The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.

—MARY HEATON VORSE

If you thought it was hard finishing your rough draft, wait until you start on your final version! This is when you want to make sure your book draws readers in and makes them want to stay with it until the end. If you are writing fiction, your characters need to come alive and action needs to be engaging. If you are writing nonfiction, you want to make sure your message is clear. Whatever you are writing, this is the time to make sure your book sounds the way you heard it in your head.

Making the Edits Work for You.

It’s often a bit of a shock when you start working with an editor, and your baby comes back marked up and, well, changed. Your first reaction is probably, “No way!” You spent time on this book. You know you’re a pretty darned good writer. What was the editor thinking?

Feeling like this is the most natural thing in the world. But before you throw out everything the editor did, here are three good tips. These strategies can help you ensure that you are making good decisions about your writing and not reacting defensively.

1. Have a friend or mentor review the changes. Ask for an honest opinion about which works better — your version or your editor’s. If your friend likes your version better, you may have picked the wrong editor.

2. One of the hardest things for any author is to take that step back and really “hear” the book as a stranger might hear it. Get a recording device and read portions out loud to yourself both before and after the edit. Better yet, get a friend to read both versions for the recording!

3. Stay in touch with your editor. If you have questions about an edit, ask. Editors do things for reasons, most of which they don’t write down for you because they don’t want their comments to be overwhelming. But don’t guess at your editor’s meaning – clarify anything that doesn’t seem right to you. Remember that you don’t have to accept all of your editor’s changes, but do understand what you are accepting or rejecting.

Sometimes, you’ll find yourself thinking that if the editor had only understood where you were coming from, then he wouldn’t have changed that passage you worked so hard on. Be leery of thinking this way! You won’t get a chance to explain things to your readers, so if you find yourself explaining a phrase or a passage to your editor so she’ll “get it,” that’s an indication that your readers won’t have the necessary information either.

Pay attention to repeat changes, as you might see if you use a word or phrase repeatedly. Being aware of your own writing means that the next time you can avoid some of these issues from the beginning.

Do a Second Pass — At Least!

Completing a final manuscript is an repetitious process. Ideally, each pass builds on previous improvements and gives you a cleaner result. If this isn’t happening, you might want to work more closely with a writing coach or developmental editor – we’ll talk about this a little further on.

Good process is a path to good product. The first time you hand your book over to an editor, it’s best to let him or her go through the book without too much interaction. Of course, do be wary of editors who don’t keep you up to date with the status of your manuscript, but your editor needs time to get to know the book, too. It’s when the first pass starts coming back to you that it’s appropriate to start really engaging with your editor. And don’t be afraid to do so! Have discussions. Ask opinions. Try out different things and ask for feedback.

Plan on going through a second pass with your editor. Most likely the changes will be deeper than moving a few commas – this first professional to read your manuscript in depth will see things you didn’t expect, and will probably flag sections for rewriting, or heavy changes.

You might want to mark passages that you struggled with and work closely with your editor on them. This can signal to your editor that a little more involvement is appropriate for these sections, and that preserving “voice” isn’t as important as smoothing this part into a finished product. If your editor can help out with these passages, you can rewrite it in your own voice later if you want to.

Common Mistakes in Completing Your Final Draft

Keep Up Your Momentum!

Getting through a manuscript is no small task, and one common path to the manuscript graveyard is when you, the author, get so hung up on getting a certain thing just right that you can’t get past it.

Your Editor is an Editor

Your editor is not a re-writer or back-up author. The burden of a well-written book is on you, the author. An editor can’t make bad writing good – in fact, a good editor will be very careful to allow your voice to come through, and not to act as a sort of substitute writer. So, before you hand your manuscript to an editor, make sure you’ve given it your best effort. When you get it back, go through the changes carefully.

If you are happy with the editor but you are still not pleased with the sound, or maybe even on the advice of an editor, you might want to hire a writing coach or developmental editor to work with you on your manuscript. These are writing specialists who will make more substantive suggestions and give guidance in areas editors stay away from, like voice and flow. Writing, after all, is largely a matter of technique, especially in the area of nonfiction. Developmental editors help nonfiction authors ensure their books remain on topic, and understandable to their intended audience. Fiction also has tried and true techniques, and a writing coach can help you use these to show your writing to its best advantage.

Finding a developmental editor or writing coach is much like finding an editor: Ask for references, look for experience, and work on a trial chapter before you commit to someone.

In the End, it’s Always Up to You.

However much help you hire, eventually it comes down to you sitting down and doing the hard work of finishing your manuscript.

• Consider asking friends to read the manuscript, if they are friends who can be trusted to give you honest feedback.

• Read your book out loud to yourself. Pretend you are reading it to someone else; it’s a great trick for hearing your book objectively.

• Be your own harshest critic. Pretend the manuscript was written by someone else. What would you say to someone if they presented you with it and asked you to critique it?

• Know when to stop. Books take work, often repetitive work. In this brief chapter we’ve stressed the importance of iterative work and rework, but it’s also important to know when to stop.

STEP 5

ASSEMBLE A
TEAM OF
QUALIFIED
PROFESSIONALS

Book printing services for self-publishers with Izzard Ink offer options and expertise while providing you, the author, the royalties and involvement that you only get with self-publishing. Our services are provided à la carte to allow you to call the shots.

From a custom cover to the complete package of copy and content editing, cover design and layout, to distribution and marketing, we have you covered.

Pitfalls Of “Doing It All”

I hunkered down in my seat knowing that for the next seven hours I could not move. As we departed Honolulu, I vaguely heard the flight attendant say something about paying attention to the safety video. It is hard to comprehend why every time an airplane safety demonstration is given, I tune out. This time, I started to recall the countless takeoffs and landings I have experienced. Somehow the next logical subject was comparing how flying used to be.

Fifteen years ago the seats used to be comfortable; now my knees are in the back of the person sitting in the row ahead of me. Most likely, the poor person in the seat in front of me took ibuprofen to counteract knees being placed in their kidneys.

The airline companies are doing everything possible to save a few dollars. This caused me to think: How would I start up my own airline to save the most amount of money?

Easy. I would do everything myself. I would enroll and take up pilot lessons. It takes at least four years to become a professional commercial pilot.¹ An additional 300 hours of training would be needed to qualify as a flight attendant.² Of course, I ought to think a little about airplane repair. I understand it’s important to maintain your aircraft. And to be a certified airplane mechanic, –it can take almost three more years to complete the training.³ Then I just need to invest the time and training it takes to learn how to book a ticket, answer customer service questions, repair runway potholes, plot air traffic control routes, and make sure luggage arrives. No problem. You’d fly on my airline, wouldn’t you?

Is it even possible to have a one-person airline? Could the same person be qualified and passionate about every different job? Even one-person shops rely on delivery services, accountants, and other specialized professionals to function.

An airline run by one person would have a hard time taking off, yet we expect self-published authors to do everything connected to book publishing. Why do we think that way?

Publishing is a complex process, involving a great deal of specialized knowledge. To expect a self-published author to do everything, from editing, design and layout, to marketing, distribution and even audiobook creation, simply isn’t realistic. Jobs start to get jettisoned – from quality control items like proofreading and editing, to fundamental requirements for success, like sales and distribution— because such topics are not familiar to most writers looking to become professional authors.

The best self-published authors realize they are good at writing, but that it takes a team to pull together a bestselling book. I cannot tell you how many designers, audiobook narrators and marketers say they would never write a book – but they can sure design, sell, and narrate bestselling novels.

Take a serious look at your strengths and weaknesses. Realize that it takes a lot of training and time to be a professional in multiple areas. Then hire the best people in publishing to fill those gaps to give your book the best chance of success.

Especially for Independent Book Publishers

Independent book publishers need to be aware of small issues that can lead to big problems.

Take the design aspect. There is nothing wrong with self-taught designers – provided they taught themselves well. And this is where all the problems lie.

That Friend or Family Member

One author reported to us that he hired a family friend who had been quite successful at designing brochures, covers and various publication artwork for the family. She seemed like an easy choice. And true to those who endorsed her, the samples on her web page were outstanding. Unfortunately, there were gaps in her self-training.

About six months into the project, a very tiny detail sparked some concern. It was nothing more complicated than an image of a small paper clip. At issue was a tiny copyright symbol immediately above the paperclip.

When confronted with the accusation of using copyrighted material, the designer countered with, “You can’t copyright a paperclip.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, the image had been copyrighted. It was created by a photographer hired to capture paperclips in just that setting and lighting and angle.

When the author looked more deeply into the source of the image, he found the exact image on the Internet in a stash of photos that were being offered for sale. All it took was a $15 license fee, and the designer could have compensated the copyright owner to use that particular image.

This caused us to look into the other covers. We discovered another cover that was comprised of four copyrighted images blended together. Another cover had only used the lower left part of an image where the copyright symbol was not located. Copyright infringements can get very expensive. It was time to start over with all of the covers.

Liabilities for Independent Book Publishers

Finding trustworthy, proven talent with the knowledge to back up their work is critical to independent book publishers. What if this hadn’t been discovered until a copyright infringement claim was served to the author? And what if the book had sold well? The legal fees and fines alone would be enough to send an author packing. If this were not discovered before the press run, every book would have had to be recalled.

This single lapse by the designer could have caused catastrophic harm to the release of the book and reputation of the author. Whether poor judgment was exercised to save the designer about $15 for the cost to license the photo used, or due to the author’s hiring of someone with a lack of knowledge, we were all placed at great risk.

When you decide to work with Izzard Ink Publishing, you are aligning yourself with proven professionals with major publishing experience. With Izzard, you will bypass many of the pitfalls of independent book publishers and self-publishing sites, and you will work with a team that has proven success. Izzard Ink can also publish your book if you purchase a design, editing and distribution package.

Business Options for Independent Book Publishers

Looking to create design-friendly business books, manuals or documents? Izzard Ink works with businesses to create attractive business materials.

Izzard Ink will also work with other publishers who are looking to create a special book that will gain attention. Work with our design and editing team to create that signature book that will add credibility to your publishing company.

Common Mistakes in Assembling a Team

Include More Than One Member!

Remember our college professor from Step One — the gentleman who was disappointed his poetry book didn’t become a bestseller? There were a few other decisions he made that worked against him:

“I can make up my own book,” he said, when I asked about the composition, or assembly. “I have an old copy of Quark. We all got a copy in the English department at my university, back when I was still teaching there.” I repressed a shudder; once a market leader in the field, Quark doesn’t even support its own desktop product anymore.

“How are you marketing it?” I asked. He asked for clarification. “How do you get it seen?”

“When I published it through Amazon, it goes up on their website,” he explained proudly to me. “If you look up the title you’ll find it.” And here he gave me a rather long, philosophical-sounding title, appropriately poetic, no doubt, but not a phrase I’d think to search.

I decided this wasn’t the person to ask if he was advertising on social media, so instead I asked about his reviews.

Literally the only person who had reviewed his book on Amazon was his wife.

“How about your old colleagues?” I asked. “I’ll bet some of them are published – you were in the literature department! Could you ask them for reviews? Then you could include excerpts in the blurb, too.” But it turned out he didn’t want to ask for this “favor,” even though I explained that reviews were mutually beneficial.

“Besides,” he said, “I didn’t really pay much attention to the blurb. I mean, how can you ‘blurb’ a book of poetry?”

And that is why there are professional marketers.

Especially for Authors: Self-Publishing and the Book Publishing Team

Providing authors with opportunities for self-publishing is one of Izzard’s most important business models. Self-publishing fits with the times and offers authors more control over their books than traditional publishing house models. From publishing ventures like Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Google Play and Apple’s iTunes Store to markets in which service providers like Uber and Airbnb thrive, what we see in today’s world is that the most attractive marketing potential builds on individual initiative. So why not make this principle work for you?

Self-publishing your book can be very rewarding. Many decide to start with an eBook. After countless hours of dedicated work, you see that your eBook sales are climbing. You have successfully gained a following as a self-published book author.

According to Forbes, eBooks account on average for 30% of total sales for a title. If you are a successful eBook author, review other options such as print books. It could be to your advantage to create a paperback and hardback version of your book using the Izzard Ink print-on-demand process.

Of course, the problem with most self-publishing sites and outlets is that you convert your book to an electronic format, maybe get an opportunity to post it online with a few thousand other books that got self-published in the last month or two, and you’re on your own. Izzard Ink recognizes that having a book succeed requires more than tossing it out there to let it sink or swim!

Izzard understands that harnessing your abilities as an author and working with a gifted team of experts greatly enhances your potential for publishing success. Much like winning a professional sporting championship or creating an award-winning musical, success never rides on the shoulders of one person. You have a great story, idea or content. That’s a start.

But it is only a start.

Success requires a skilled book team so you can self-publish your book while having access to the advantages of traditional publishing company support in areas like editing, design, marketing and distribution.

Self-Publishing Your Book a Step at a Time

All too often, successful self-published authors are faced with choices. They do not want to compromise their roots or their royalties. They have done all of the hard work. Now how can they make their printed book look like it came from a big publisher? Where are all of the literary agents that want to take a percentage of your earnings to sign you to a major publisher?

Build yourself as an author just like you would a business. If you are short on funds, start out small. The first step would be to reinvest some of your earnings into a new cover and interior design by one of Izzard Ink’s award-winning designers. This is your first chance to make an impression on potential readers, so make sure it is a good one.

Have a professional design the interior of your print edition. This is a great way to maximize your profits. They consider production cost and they work to keep the page count down while increasing readability.

Audiobooks are another avenue for self-publishing your book.

Self-Publishing a Book with Editing

Next, contemplate having an experienced content editor edit your book. Readers expect a clean book. This is a bit more of an investment, but as you become more and more successful self-publishing your book, you want to be sure you are putting out a good product.

Finding storyline problems in a literary work is much like watching the receiver for your favorite football team drop the game-winning touchdown pass.

Even worse is coming across grammatical errors. This is like the 13-year-old boy singing the signature song of a musical only to have his voice crack. The performance could have been flawless up until the pinnacle moment, but the audience will remember the embarrassment they felt for the performer instead of the countless other notes that were sung without a hitch.

Plot holes and grammatical errors in manuscripts can end up being the focal point of an otherwise stellar work. Working with an experienced editor is the solution.

Self-Publishing a Book with Design and Layout

What aspect of a musical gets people to pay top dollar to experience it live? Why pay so much more to sit in a theater to see a live show instead of paying a few dollars to down-load the track in the comfort of your own home?

The difference is in the depth of the experience, all the behind-the-scenes work that goes into a live production that makes it magical… the creative design.

The performers all look stunning. The set brings alive the content of the musical. The overall layout of the theater makes you feel part of the action.

Design a book that people will be proud to display and share with their friends.

At the very least, design a book whose design will not interfere with the pleasure of reading it.

Well-designed book covers catch the eyes of readers, and clean, simple interior layouts make the reading experience seamless. Poor interior design could leave readers struggling to read text obscured by the clever design, or worse, giving up and hiding your book on their shelf some-where behind the other books they know they should have read but probably haven’t.

A well-designed book doesn’t stop with the cover; a professional formatter will set up your book professionally, giving the pages the finished look you want, whether businesslike, elegant or modern, without letting the interior design make the book difficult to read.

A professional composition artist uses a few simple, compatible fonts and a clean interior design to make sure your book looks attractive but not over-designed. A professional composition artist knows the tried and true rules for readability: the relationship of the size of type to the width of the column, space between lines of type, and other details that make all the difference, when a reader looks at a book, between the trial-and-error effort of an amateur and the finely tuned product of a professional.

Self-Publishing a Book with Illustrations

Finding the right book illustrator is crucial to the success of your book. But how do you find the right illustrator for your project? There are many aspiring illustrators looking for their big break. Do you hire an aspiring artist or do you go with a trusted and experienced book illustrator with proven success? What are the advantages and disadvantages?

Do You Need a Book Illustrator?

As an author you first need to decide if going through the process of creating illustrations creates value for your reader. If you are writing a children’s book, it will be necessary to find a good book illustrator. If you are creating a novel, it might not be necessary to have illustrations. Let the feedback from your focus groups guide your decision.

With Bassam and the Seven Secret Scrolls, a historical fiction novel by Paul B. Skousen, it became very apparent from the focus group feedback that they wanted to see a map of Bassam’s adventure. To narrow the focus, Paul worked with Izzard Ink’s team to find a book illustrator that specialized in cartography.

One of Paul’s requests was a few illustrations that would help the book appeal to more readers. Izzard Ink kept this in mind and found a handful of proven book illustrators with major publishing industry experience.

Experience

We have heard so many stories of authors hiring friends to create their illustrations. This method rarely works – readers are very keen to the obvious differences between professionalism and amateurs, and the wrong choice can kill a book. That is why finding a book illustrator with broad experience is key.

While Paul was reviewing all of the potential book illustrators, he was drawn to a particular artist who had more than 30 years’ experience drawing maps. Experienced artists are much better equipped to guide authors through the illustration process and steer new authors toward the best use of illustrations that don’t give away too much of a story, or toward the most efficient use of their illustration budgets.

The Process

Making sure the author and book illustrator are on the same page is critical. Under the guidance of Izzard Ink, Paul spent the time collecting the necessary information from Bassam and the Seven Secret Scrolls so the map could be drawn correctly. By making sure the book illustrator had all the research it cut down on the total cost.

The more you can tell your illustrator, the more the illustrations will look like the picture you had in your head!

Paul also decided that it would improve the readability of his book to have a few scenes depicted. The same process of making sure the artist had all the necessary background helped make for a flawless process. The artist also got approval from the author on a rough sketch to make sure they shared the same vision before producing final artwork.

Budget

Finding an experienced book illustrator can be expensive. Authors can expect to pay about $800 or more for a black and white illustration from a very experienced artist. This rate can vary depending on the scope of the project. Adding color will add to the expense, as it takes more time – an experienced illustrator can help an author work through the pros and cons of color for any particular book.

With Paul Skousen, Izzard Ink negotiated with the illustrator an arrangement that Paul would not have to pay a royalty to the illustrator for each book sold, and Paul would own the copyright. This is called work-for-hire. That arrangement did increase the initial price but made for a much smoother process.

Self-Publishing a Book with Image or Text Rights

Many books, especially nonfiction books, rely to some degree on artwork, whether charts and graphs, maps, specialized images, or photographs. In these days of easy Internet searches that turn up relevant and attractive images, new authors and publishers might not realize the maze of rules and copyright laws that govern what images can be used in your book. Images that use other images as sources need source information and, often, permission; photos found on the Internet are not free for the taking. Before including images in your book, it’s important to ensure you have the rights to use them – copyright suits can be very expensive!

Using text from another source may also require an effort to clear rights. Fair use allows an author to use a small portion of copyrighted material under certain circumstances, such as news reporting, criticism and analysis, accent quotes, and certain other situations, without the need for permission from or payment to the copyright holder. However, even in these circumstances, attributions may be required. Understand when fair use principles can apply, and be sure to obtain permissions for any significant use of copyrighted material!

Self-Publishing a Book with Marketing

No matter how excellent your book is, without some attention to marketing, it will get lost in the avalanche of self-published books unless you make some effort to get your book in front of people who are likely to buy it. Facebook has advertising that allows you to specifically target an audience you think will be interested in your book, and has tracking that can give you marketing insight.

Izzard can supply you with marketing experts who can maximize the exposure of your book to the right audience in a variety of advertising media – an important marketing tool that most self-publishers leave you to discover, research, and implement and test on your own.

Work on the promotion of your book once the foundation is laid. Place a few ads or try a few radio shows. If you undertake this process, you want your book available in as many formats as possible.

As you work through the process of building yourself as an author, stay in touch with your fans. Make sure the changes you are making are what they want to see and buy. Your goal when self-publishing your book is to create quality content and maximize what you take home.

All the steps do not have to be taken at once. At Izzard Ink we work not only to help you publish your book but also to build you as an author one step at a time.

Self-Publishing a Book for Multiple Platforms

The technical production of your book can be much more complicated than you are expecting – or much simpler. Recent websites provide easy conversions from Word documents and other source materials to eBook formats. The end product will often hold some surprises – unexpected line breaks, a failure to acknowledge chapters – but will be perfectly readable and, therefore, marketable. However, a professional can ensure a more professional-looking output.

Even trickier is bringing your book to print. Art, and color choices in general, may appear vastly different in print than they appeared on your computer screen. Sometimes a printed graphic will appear washed out, and sometimes it will appear dark and nearly indistinguishable in print. Experts can ensure your electronic images are optimized for electronic delivery and that your print images are optimized for print, ensuring the continuing professional appearance of your self-published book.

Another consideration is whether your book is intended to be read on a mobile device. For running text, this is not a problem, but where there is a high level of formatting and images or interactivities to consider, you want a knowledgeable team ensuring a positive user experience.

Self-Publishing a Book with Izzard Ink

Much like an award-winning musical, it takes more than just a catchy title and a few well-placed witty tunes to be successful. Izzard Ink can help you put your team together… the editing, designing, distribution, marketing and narration to have your next literary masterpiece not only published, but read.

With our experience working for you, it will be apparent very soon in the process that our team knows how to publish a book, your book, and get it into the hands of your readers.

1   http://www.pilottricks.com/i-want-to-be-a-commercial-professional-pilot/how-long-does-it-take-to-become-a-pilot/

2   http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/long-complete-flight-attendant-course-17808.html

3   https://www.faa.gov/mechanics/become/basic/

STEP 6

FIVE
PROFESSIONAL
REVIEWS

Nature fits all her children with something to do, he who would write and can’t write, can surely review.

— JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

To give your book the best chance of success, get five strong professional reviews. These reviews should be displayed on the back cover of your book. They should be listed on retailers’ websites. They should be sent with any publicity copies you distribute. To find reviews, search out organizations that match the genre of your book. Also, do not forget to look at your own professional and personal connections.

Publishing a Book with Professional Reviews

Publishing a book is like constructing a building. Have you ever observed a multi-story structure being built?

The construction equipment moves in and they start digging a hole in the ground. That’s about all you see for what seems like forever. You drive by every day and see… nothing.

Then one day you drive by and whoa! Where did that building come from? It seems like it went up overnight. Same with publishing a book.

Building your book’s foundation takes time and patience without much success to point at. But done well… bang! Your book’s sales take off.

Foundation for Publishing a Book

We all know the importance of building good foundations. So it is with publishing a book. Many authors overlook the publishing steps needed after the manuscript is written. Your manuscript is like the model of the building being built. To bring it to life where it becomes a book purchased and read by your audience, you will need to build a foundation.

Finding professional reviews is the foundational cornerstone for your book to find success and stability in the marketplace.

What Is a Professional Review?

These are the reviews that usually end up listed on the cover or inside flap of a book. For example, The Naked Communist, by W. Cleon Skousen, was mentioned on the Glenn Beck radio program. This is an ideal review because of the reach Glenn Beck has, like him or not. His many followers will purchase books based solely on his recommendation.

Of course, this is a perfect review scenario, but you must do your best to find qualified people to give you professional reviews. There are over 3.2 million eBooks available on Amazon. What are the chances that one person is going to find your book and purchase it without a review?

Furthermore, most consumers only read reviews, with very few ever taking the time to give a review of their own. Some books sell over one hundred copies before any reviews are left. These reviews will become a firm foundation for the overall process of publishing a book that gets sold and read by your audience. Give your book every advantage you can and seek out professional reviews.

Common Mistakes in Including Reviews

Moms and Other Family Members Do Not Count as Professional Reviews!

Here’s a top tip that can help you get professional-level quotes from reviews to use in your blurb: Enter the book for awards that offer feedback. IBPA, the International Book Publishing Association, does this and it has been very helpful for our authors. The IBPA Ben Franklin awards are a unique writers’ contest in that all entrants receive feedback! Check them out at http://ibpabenjaminfranklinawards.com!

How Do You Obtain Reviews?

Your first idea may be that you will have to go begging and pleading to get a professional to read and review your book. But in our consulting with authors, the biggest surprise to them is learning that reviews are not only written to help the author, but the reviewer as well.

With True Stories from the Files of the FBI, by W. Cleon Skousen, a few of the crimes take place in Chicago. What if there is a business related to Chicago crime who would give a review for the book? A search was done to find a business related to the subject of the book.

Chicago Crime Tours was sought out for a review. Arrangements were made for a personal visit to give Mark Singer of Chicago Crime Tours a copy of the book. After Mark read the book, he sent over an honest review of the book that is used in all the marketing materials.

Was giving a review a one-sided deal for Mark Singer and Chicago Crime Tours? Absolutely not. With every book that is sold, Chicago Crime Tours is listed on the back of the book, which markets their business as well.

The same was true for the various retailer sites like Amazon or Barnes & Noble. In the reviews section, the Chicago Crime Tours name is listed there as well. Along with giving more credibility to True Stories from the Files of the FBI, these reviews also give a lot of free advertising for Chicago Crime Tours. In addition, the information in the book could be used as additional information for their tours.

Always look for a win/win scenario. Put the interests of others ahead of your own. It will increase the odds of finding a great partner to promote your book. Understanding and using this approach can work within your personal and professional networks without leaving them feeling that you just want to use your connections for your own self-promotion. This is a great reciprocal agreement that many businesses and professionals can appreciate — an exchange of public relations.

STEP 7

THE ALL -
IMPORTANT
COVER

Judging books by their covers is seriously underrated, and any book nerd who claims never to have done it is probably lying.

—AMY SMITH

A Good Cover Makes You Want to Reach Out and Pick up the Book!

You have the content down for your book. But does the cover pass the seven-second test? Will a reader pick up your book?

Pick an experienced cover designer with proven experience. Do not just pick any graphic designer.

Design and layout really matter. If your book has illustrations, you may need the services of a professional book illustrator.

Book Cover Design

Book Cover Seven-Second Test

A book cover that passes the seven-second test will stand a better chance of being purchased and read. Seven seconds is the average time that potential book buyers will give you to win their attention. How can you make the most of those seven seconds?

There are three options or methods available when it comes to creating a book cover.

 1.The first is using a “DIY” (do it yourself) template creator where you upload your own image and title.

2.The second is hiring a graphic designer.

3.The third would be to have a professional designer with “Big 5” publisher experience to design the cover.

What are the Pros and Cons to Each Method?

What is the best method to make your book cover a success?

To answer those questions we took True Stories from the Files of the FBI and had the cover designed with these three methods.

1. DIY Book Cover

Free Cover Creator for True Stories from the Files of the FBI 

With the first book cover (above) we used CreateSpace’s free Cover Creator. We found a public domain photograph, and created the entire book cover in about an hour.

Pros:

•   The price. It cost nothing but our time to create this cover.

•   It was the quickest of the three methods.

Cons:

•   With only two colors, the cover does not stand out.

•   We were limited to only to the text boxes available, so there is not a section for “About the Author” or “Reviews.”

•   Limited to only a few font choices.

2. Graphic Designer Book Cover

Graphic Designer Version of True Stories from the Files of the FBI 

For the second example (above), we hired a mid-range general graphic designer. In our test group, this cover did remarkably better than the first cover. The cost for a middle-range book cover designer is on average $300 for only one concept.

Pros:

•   The price was reasonable.

•   The cover stood out better on the shelf.

•   The cover went better with the contents of the book.

Cons:

•   We were offered only one concept.

•   The book cover gave away the story.

•   Too much going on in the background.

•   Too many different fonts are used.

•   Copyright permissions are not fully vetted, creating a liability.

3. Professional Book Cover

Book Cover Professional Version of True Stories from the Files of the FBI 

The final example (above) was processed through one of Izzard Ink’s book cover designers who had years of experience with a major book publisher. The professional designers understand what it takes to create a winning book cover. This cover was the third concept that we paid for, and it did the best in our focus group. The cost was much higher at $2,000.

Pros:

•   The book cover designer did more research on the content, including reading parts of the book.

•   We had three concepts to choose from.

•   The book cover stands out from other books on the shelf, and sales reflected that.

Cons:

•   Price.

From Izzard Ink’s experience dealing with the three different types of covers – free, basic and professional – the old adage is true: You get what you pay for. It was more money, but in the end the three-concept option scored much better with our focus group. This translated into more sales.

Izzard Ink will work with you on your next book cover and help you connect with the right designer for the right price. Make the most of the hard work you already put in as an author. Those precious seven seconds are worth all the attention we can give them.

Common Mistakes in Cover Creation

Keep it Professional!

Your friend’s neighbor who is starting a career in design may be a fine choice someday — but today, stick to established professionals for your design, especially your cover. Why? Because a professional will know to execute universally accepted standards that give your book that professional look, especially when creating that all-important first impression that is your cover. A professional will know not to use too many fonts. A professional who specializes in your genre and who is not just a generic graphic designer can tune that cover to appeal specifically to your audience. A professional has learned how colors affect buying decisions, and how they interact with subject matter to attract or repel your reader.

Just as when you’re looking for an editor, you want to make sure you are hiring for competence and ability. Enter the cover into competitions such as at www.thebookdeisgner.com to make sure your designer has the skills. Just because a designer might have a winning past does not mean they are on top of current design.

Book Publishing Secret for Success

Publish for a great first and SECOND impression. We all know the book cover is what gives us our first impressions. In fact, sales can be hugely impacted by just a change in a cover.

But the second-most viewed part of a book is the back cover. Shoppers in a bookstore will pick up your book, flip it over, and then glance down the back cover in search of reasons to be interested in the book.

On average, they’ll spend no more than seven seconds to decide if they’ll open the book to thumb through the pages.

Back cover text is perhaps the most critical part of a book for drawing in readers, and too many self-published authors miss this golden opportunity when they publish.

Book Publishing Common Sense

Self-publishers should follow these simple guidelines for a gripping and riveting back-cover text:

• First, grab the reader’s attention with a thought-provoking statement, headline, fact, or question. People won’t buy your book because your photo looks outstanding, unless you’re an established spokesperson for the cause about which you’re writing. They’ll pick up your book only if their interest is piqued.

• Second, answer the obvious questions raised with your headline or statement. Craft a clever introduction of about 150 words. It’s okay to give away a freebie and tell the reader some tantalizing tidbits — and then promise that MORE is available inside the book. Assure the readers that great value is awaiting them inside these book covers. Do so with factual statements, not shallow promises.

• Third, establish your credentials. In the “About the Author” paragraph, typically on the back cover, give reasons why you are the world’s best resource for the subject matter being presented. Don’t distract with ancillary details.

As in our story above, an electrical engineer writing about communism and grammar doesn’t sell the reader on credibility unless the author was an electrical engineer under Premier Khrushchev at the height of the Cold War, and also taught grammar at Moscow University under the watchful care of Comrade Solzhenitsyn before he died.

Keep this section to about 100 words, which is the limit of most book pursuers’ interest and patience. Keep in mind that hardback covers lend a little more space for description by utilizing the tucked-in flaps.

• Fourth, seek out professional reviews for short, pithy quotes. Let a third party declare to the world all of those glowing things you’d love to say about yourself and your book. This gives credibility to both author and book. Izzard Ink publishing managers can steer you to reviewers who can help in this area.

• Fifth, send out your back-cover text to friends, family, peer reviewers and experts on the subject matter of your book. Ask for feedback and incorporate it as best as you can. Two to three good quotes is a great help to new authors.

A book’s back cover can make or break a potential bestseller. Those who patiently work through the details of a well-crafted presentation on the back cover are those who see their books sell.

Before We Leave the Topic of Design…

Take care with the interior of a book as well. The cover may be the thing that first captures a reader’s eye, but a well-designed book is well put together inside and out.

Simplicity is your Best Friend

The most important goal of your interior design is that it not get in your reader’s way. We talked a little bit before—in Chapter 3, in relation to content editing — about not overusing bold, italics, and other forms of type enhancements. Keep these principles in mind as you format your book, or evaluate samples from a designer:

• Don’t use a different font for everything. In this computer-driven world of publishing, designers have access to a variety of fonts that they didn’t have before, even without having to go out and buy them individually or in libraries. That doesn’t mean they need to use them all, and certainly not in one book. At most, you might want one font for your headings and one for your body copy, and maybe — just maybe — something special for pullquotes or special feature material, but all other details should use these base fonts in some form. Switching fonts a lot is distracting and screams “Amateur!”

• Don’t use too many rules and design elements. Use rules and decorations sparingly, if at all. In this book, we use a rule above the page number area at the bottom, which is called a running foot. If we put another rule at the top of the page, the page would look closed-in, and the rules would be overwhelming. However, we did allow the Izzard logo a place at the end of each chapter.

• Be consistent in headings, content sequence and formatting. Your book has a structure. Your designer should use it to determine size and relative importance of headings. Even if you have a relatively simply structured fiction book, consider things like. Does each chapter start a new page? A new right-hand page? Will you capitalize the first line or part of the first line of a new chapter? If chapters have sections, how will they be shown?

Q&A with Alissa Theodor

Alissa Theodor is a senior designer for Penguin Random House in New York City, an experienced designer with almost ten years of experience in the industry. She has multiple #1 bestsellers to her credit, including Ben Carson’s One Nation, Guy Kawasaki’s The Art of Social Media, Craig Johnson’s Longmire series, and Jussi Adler-Olsen’s Keeper of Lost Causes and Alphabet House.

She has worked with celebrities such as Nick Offerman, Jennifer Hudson, Drew Barrymore, Sugar Ray Leonard and William Shatner.

She has a passion for design and wants her books to stand out to the readers by being easy on the eyes, so that they can enjoy the wonderful content of the book.

Izzard: Why don’t self-published authors really consider the interior design of their book and why should they?

AT: A lot of self-published authors want to take the “let’s just get it done” or “I can just print what I have from Microsoft Word” approach. It doesn’t always work out well. I believe that the right typeface and the right amount of leading (or space between sentences) really makes a HUGE difference. As a professional, I work in computer programs just for page layouts to design books, I have access to thousands of type faces. In fact, one of my favorite things to do is “font shop.” I’m a true believer that as authors you are trying to convey a message and as a designer I help to convey that message using the appropriate typeface and style to suit your book. If a novel is taking place in the 1920s, then I wouldn’t use a “modern” typeface, I would use more of an old-style typeface. The font being used is important.

Izzard: Would a bad design cause you not to purchase a book?

AT: If a typeface is too large or small on a page, it’s hard to read and when that happens, I just put the book down and move on to the next.

Izzard: What do you look for in a well-designed book?

AT: I look for an attractive title page, something that catches my eye, or something that draws my attention and makes me want to keep flipping the pages.

Izzard: How much time does it take to lay out a book?

AT: Depending on multiple factors, it can take about 30 to 40 hours to properly lay out a book.

What a Professional Layout can do for Your Book

Let’s take a look at a book that was originally published without a professional designer, and at that same book after a professional worked on the design. Here are “Before” and “After” samples from Paul Skousen’s book, How to Read the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. In the following pages, look at the side-by-side page samples, keeping in mind simplicity and readability.

What Professional Designers Know

• Professionals use the right tool for the right job. Microsoft Word is an ideal application for developing your manuscript, but professional publishers use page layout programs, not word processors, to ensure a professional file that conforms to technical requirements and design standards. These tools integrate principles of typesetting, page integrity, and font and image management, maintaining a level of quality sufficient for offset printing, laser or inkjet printing, as well as electronic delivery.

• A professional layout artist has the experience and training to know what does and does not work. In this case, Izzard employed an artist who had worked with multiple #1 bestsellers, and who had direct experience of the impact layout can have on sales.

• A good book design by a professional designer is intended to make a book easier to read, and not to showcase the creative talents of the designer.

• Professional designers are alert to common mistakes made by amateurs. A few of the mistakes we see most often:

• Leaving widows and orphans, which are single words left alone on a line, or single, last lines of paragraphs alone on a page. The problem is not only that they are not aesthetically pleasing, they interrupt the reader and often draw the eye away from the text flow. A professional will ensure that a paragraph split between pages will have at least a couple of lines on each page, and that single words are not left floating on the page, making your reader’s job much easier!

• Incorrect page numbering (folios). This can present in a number of ways, but at the very least, your professional designer knows that a right-hand page, or recto, is an odd-numbered page, and a left-hand page, or verso, is an even-numbered page. Why? Because when you open a book, the first page is always on the right! Another page-numbering mistake is adding page numbers to pages that shouldn’t have numbers – like title pages and dedications.

• Lack of familiarity with industry wisdom regarding readability. Centuries of typesetting books has produced some proven wisdom that professionals will be familiar with, but which are generally unknown to amateurs. Experience backed up by studies shows that the optimal line length is fifty to sixty characters, and absolutely no more than 75. Lines that are too wide are hard for the reader to focus on, and hard to move smoothly to the next line. Lines that are too narrow interfere with the reading rhythm and cause readers to skip quickly to the next line, missing part of the text. There is also an ideal relationship between type size and the space between lines. If it is too tight, the reader’s eyes mix words from neighboring lines together; if there is too much space, the reader mentally stops between lines.

• Finally, professional designers pay attention to the relationship between type sizes. For instance, is a top-level heading too large? Too small? Do the relative sizes of headings indicate the relationship between text sections? Are the heads in proportion to the text?

True Stories from of the FBI produced some good feedback that helped us improve the layout. A professional will also be aware of issues. Here is an example of a layout editor’s comments and layout suggestions to the author:

True Stories from the Files of the FBI — Feedback

Dress Your Book to Impress

A good friend, who is a CEO of a national corporation, gave me a call last week and told me the following story:

For the past four months, they had been looking for a new COO. Their company scoured the nation looking for qualified people to fill the position. The field of candidates was soon narrowed down to the top four people.

Arrangements were made to fly them into corporate headquarters. Before meeting the contenders in person, the executive team noted which candidates had the strongest background on paper and during the phone interviews, and ranked them accordingly.

Arriving to the in-person interview, three of the candidates were dressed very well. They certainly looked the part of the role they were trying to fill. They had freshly pressed shirts, blouses, pants, and skirts. Their shoes were polished and without scuffs. When the final and highest-ranked candidate walked in for the interview, the team was shocked to see the applicant wearing a t-shirt and slacks.

When the executives met afterwards to discuss all the candidates, the conversation centered on the final candidate and the disappointment they had about the person’s appearance. They discussed the three major problems with the initial front-runner:

• Credibility

As part of the interview process, all the candidates were walked through the office to meet various team members. The fourth candidate was not as well received as the other three candidates. Was it possible the other team members didn’t believe this individual to be a real contender? Perhaps they were a bit shocked to see someone so casually dressed and were momentarily distracted. Department after department showed a similar trend: Employees did not care to engage with their potential new supervisor. Why could this be? They consulted with a few managers and the feedback was given that this person did not appear to be credible because the candidate did not look the part.

• Attitude

One executive member brought up the point that if the candidates could not put their best foot forward when it came to dressing the part, what internal flaws would manifest after they were hired? The team agreed that this would be a real concern.

• Effort

If the time and expense was not taken to look the part this potential COO was trying to fill, what other corners would this person cut when making business decisions?

After the discussion was completed, the fourth candidate was no longer the front-runner and did not get the job. While this candidate had the best resume and background, it was not enough to compensate for a poor in-person impression.

The lesson this friend shared with me is true in many areas of life.

For example:

•   A person in the market to purchase a car would likely turn down a car that did not have a clean body or interior, or at least, would want to pay less for it.

•   Food packaging needs to reflect the quality of food within the package.

•   When a student turns in an essay, the papers should be neat and crisp, not wrinkled and torn.

Likewise, if you want your book taken seriously, it had better look the part. If the design and layout are not appealing, readers will immediately start to question your credibility, attitude, and effort as an author.

The overall impression of all your hard work can be advantageously or adversely affected by this initial impression. The layout and cover of a book is its in-person bookstore interview. Dress it up nicely to show the quality within.

Use a Checklist

After all the work, and after assembling a team of professionals, why would you do a book quality check?

For the readers:

•   You want to present your book in the best light possible – presentation, content, professionalism.

•   If there are errors, does it harm the way your book is received? Can it hurt reviews? (Spoiler alert: Yes it does, and yes it can.)

•   They have paid for your book.

For booksellers:

•   Bookstore owners and buyers can take one quick glance at a book and see if it has quality issues that would prevent readers from buying the book.

•   Mistakes can hurt your chances of being sold in a bookstore.

It’s easy to miss mistakes. You and your entire team have been looking at the book so long that if you’re not paying attention, you could miss a typo – even on the book cover! It’s been known to happen! When Izzard published The Real Story of Christmas, we had two people review the book before we sent it for a quality check. We were confident this was just a precaution, but in the end, we were glad we did! Here are just a few examples of things we missed – exactly the details that distinguish a quality, professional publication from less polished examples.

Two errors in the Table of Contents…

Poor typography, like this double hyphenation…

Poor alignment…

And orphan chapter breaks.

We check the following items during a quality check. The quality check came with 99% accuracy.

Checked for widows & orphans (words or lines left stranded without the rest of their sentence or paragraph)

Checked for repeated words

Checked for consecutive hyphens

Checked that Table of Contents and chapter headings match

Consistency and correct placement of running heads, feet, and/or folios

Removed extra spaces

Checked styles on headings and paragraphs, which will affect the appearance of the final publication

Checked spacing on paragraphs and headings

Accuracy of text to manuscript. (When somebody else touches a manuscript to design it, edit it, or to perform any other work, there is always a chance a mistake can be made. We checked the original manuscript and compared it to the final designed file to make sure nothing was missed or changed.)

If design specifications are available, we cross-check the final product to ensure design integrity. (What does that mean? It means that we check to make sure the interior design is executed correctly. Are the chapter headings all designed the same? Are footnotes all spaced correctly?)

STEP 8

GOING TO
RETAIL

Publishing a book is like stuffing a note into a bottle and hurling it into the sea. Some bottles drown, some come safe to land, where the notes are read and then possibly cherished, or else misinterpreted, or else understood all too well by those who hate the message. You never know who your readers might be.

—MARGARET ATWOOD

Book Publishing Company at Your Service

A book publishing company should work for you, not the other way around. Picking the correct publishing avenue for your book is a daunting task.

•   Do you wade through the rejection letters from traditional publishers?

•   Do you sacrifice lower royalties to be published?

•   Do you take a chance at self-publishing?

Picking the Right Book Publishing Company

Publishing houses offer options for authors. How do you know what publishing option is right for you? Picking the correct option can aid in your success as an author.

•   With over 22 million books for sale on Amazon, how will your book stand out?

•   Why do only 3 in 15,000 children’s books get chosen by big publishing houses for success?

•   How do you compete in the cookbook publishing market?

Self-publishing has been a popular option for more than 35% of today’s authors. Though the royalties can increase when working with independent book publishers, other aspects of book publishing can be overlooked. Some of the most common and most important elements skipped over are content, design and distribution.

•   How does an author go about obtaining a well-respected copy and content editor?

•   Where does an author turn to find a cover and interior designer who will design their book with a professionally published look and feel?

•   How does an author obtain distribution at up to 39,000 retailers around the world?

Izzard Ink Publishing has worked through all of these hurdles and can help you with one or all of them.

A Book Publishing Company Makeover

In 2014 Izzard Ink Publishing worked on The Naked Communist by W. Cleon Skousen. The goal of the project was to refresh the book and make the look and feel of the book current to revitalize sales.

Under the direction of the Izzard Ink book publishing company, professional reviews were added. The interior layout was updated, increasing readability. The cover design was changed to look like those produced by the major publishers. The distribution network increased.

In July 2014, The Naked Communist was mentioned on national TV. Because of the foundation that Izzard Ink laid, The Naked Communist was able to capitalize on the national TV exposure. Within hours, hundreds of books were sold. Forty percent of the total print books sold were outside of Amazon.com. The Naked Communist even reached the top 50 on Amazon’s and Barnes & Noble’s lists.

Your book is a part of who you are. Why trust your book with just anybody? Every author has different goals and needs. Will your book publishing company attend to them? Izzard Ink Publishing will spend the time to help you implement the foundation of success that your book marketing will be built on.

What Should You Look at While Picking a Publishing House?

Publishing Houses & Copyrights

Izzard Ink is a different type of publishing house. Since the author pays for all of the work, the copyright stays with the author. Paul B. Skousen, author of The Naked Socialist, understands how important it is to keep all of the copyrights to his books.

Nepko Publishing, a company based in Mongolia, contacted Izzard Ink Publishing about translating and publishing The Naked Socialist in Mongolian. It was really easy for Paul to decide to move forward, since he owned his work and he did not have to go to a big, bureaucratic publishing house to get permission and for them to negotiate the deal. He could simply decide for himself.

Paul did consult with Izzard Ink about how to move forward. Paul wanted to make sure his royalty and agreement was standard, and Izzard Ink Publishing could help with that, without infringing on his author’s rights.

Author’s Landing Page

One of the reasons Nepko Publishing was able to find and contact Paul was because of Izzard Ink’s author landing page. It made it very easy to find Paul. When an author purchases a design, editing and distribution package from Izzard Ink, an author page is created for them. The goal is to centralize information about the author and to promote their books. Here are some of the features of the landing page:

•   Information about the author

•   A place to promote your other books

•   Central contact for inquiries

•   Connection point for your fans

•   Home for your blog, or point to a blog housed elsewhere

•   Opportunity to connect with other authors

•   Book landing pages with links to retailers

•   An Izzard Ink Publishing business card listing you as an author*

Using Paul’s experience as an example, the international translation was not very lucrative to start with. They only wanted a first print run of 500 books. Many other publishing houses might have not worried about it. But that is why Izzard Ink is different. We work to build our author’s credibility as well as publish their books.

Decide on the Most Appropriate Delivery Formats

All-Purpose Digital

You will probably want to narrow down your delivery channels to something manageable, but it is good to know that there is an industry standard for creating digital books on a variety of platforms, called ePUB3. This specification requires the creator of a digital publication to provide certain files, while producers of digital platforms, such as Apple iBooks, create software to read those files and put them together in a digital book format, often including multimedia such as videos and interactivities. Typically, ePUB3 books contain styling information that allows the files to resize for computer, tablet, and phone screens.

If your book contains multimedia, and your market is tech-friendly, this is a format you would want to consider, but for most authors a book remains a book, a collection of words and sometimes images, and focusing on one or more of the following formats will be a better investment of time and money.

Amazon Author Central

You can create a book for Amazon and make it available on the Amazon website, but that’s a little like throwing your book on a remainders pile for passers-by with a lot of time on their hands to sort through them. There are better ways to showcase your book than by putting it on a pile with hundreds of others.

Think about the last time you walked into a store. Remember how nicely the products were faced on the shelf? Remember how clear and concise the product descriptions were? Didn’t all the products look clean and well placed? What if you had the power as an author to control how your book looked to consumers?

Would you take advantage of the opportunity?

With Amazon Author Central you can control how your product looks on Amazon, whether you are a self-published author or published by a major publisher. This is a free service that no author should overlook.

Now, how do you navigate the Amazon Author Central site? How do you know what is important?

Creating an Author Page

The author page is the heart and soul of Amazon Author Central. Make sure to fill out the author bio section as it will show up on the Amazon main page when readers want to know more about the author.

The blog section is a great place to share your blog with Amazon readers. If you are doing a book signing or any other type of event such as speaking, let the Amazon crowd know by using the event section.

The author age URL should be customized so you can rank higher in search engine results.

Add as many photos as you think are relevant. Readers love to know more about each author.

If you have a video introduction this is the place to put it. We also have seen authors place video endorsements for their books here as well.

Last of all, fill out your Twitter information and share it with your fans.

Books

The book section is where authors add all of their titles, create and edit descriptions, add reviews, or change the author’s biography. This is how you make sure your books look the best they can.

We have noticed that submitted text and images don’t always appear the same once posted online. We recommend that you go back a few days after posting to make sure your book and descriptive materials look the way you intended them to look.

Be sure to fill out all the requested information for each medium in which your book is available, such as eBook or paperback.

Sales Information

Our authors love tracking their sales, and the sales information page is the place to get all of your sales information courtesy of Nielsen BookScan. We also find the data to be accurate.

The other helpful tool on this page is sales by geography. Authors have used this to find out in what states their books are doing well. This is particularly useful when marketing a book. Authors use the data to figure out where their books are doing well and what regions might have opportunities for them to explore.

Customer Reviews

At Izzard Ink we love this section. It lets an author see all sales data in one location for all books an author has published. This helps an author make marketing adjustments to improve sales.

Amazon Author Central is a powerful tool for the novice and veteran author, and Izzard Ink staff are happy to walk you through the process as you work toward becoming a more successful author.

Audible Best Selling Audiobook

How did Bassam and the Seven Secret Scrolls move up the list of audiobook bestsellers from 90,000 all the way to #18 and hold a top 40 position for almost a solid week?

It was an amazing accomplishment for both Paul B. Skousen and Izzard Ink Publishing to be listed as an Audible bestseller next to the likes of the Game of Thrones and many other bestsellers. How did this happen? Was it a massive marketing budget, skill or luck that somehow made it possible for Bassam to sell thousands of downloads in just one week?

The answer is surprising: Audiobooks. We will spend a little bit of extra time on this much-overlooked medium – a medium ideal for our busy world, our world of long commutes to work and waiting in line for food, driver’s licenses, and ticket sales.

Audiobook Foundation

Setting up a solid foundation for your audiobook is critical for building success. One of the first hurdles to cross is deciding if the author should read the book or if a professional should do it. The research shows that for the most part readers preferred a professional narrator. Many listeners who left comments on Audible.com said they wanted a performance and not just a narrator, something that their neighbor or spouse could do for far less money.

While advising author Paul B. Skousen on how best to promote his Bassam book, we shared our facts with him and helped him develop a strategy to enter the audiobook market. By the end of our search for the right narrator, we hired the winner of the Best Voice of 2010, a gifted and talented professional named Mark Deakins. Mark turned the book into a captivating performance.

Audiobook Reviews

Upon completion of the narration, Paul Skousen went to work utilizing the free 25 codes that Audible makes available so he could send invitations to interested audiobook listeners. These 25 wrote reviews to help give other listeners an idea of what the book is about.

Audiobook Success

At the end of July 2015, Izzard Ink received an email from Audible saying that Bassam and the Seven Secret Scrolls was selected as an Audible Hidden Gem. This is an annual sale that Audible offers for titles that have a great deal of potential but not very much exposure, yet.

Both Paul Skousen and Izzard Ink were amazed this honor and recognition happened. We are not sure exactly how the book stood out in the sea of over 180,000, but making a high-quality professional performance made all the difference. We have been amazed at the success and marketing power of audiobooks and Audible to promote a book by an author new to the whole process. Paul Skousen said he had never really considered doing an audiobook; it was one of his “when I get to it” projects. And thanks to Izzard Ink Publishing, he said, now he has a bestseller.

Audiobook Marketing Secrets

Are you taking advantage of everything your audiobook has to offer? Five months ago we set out to see if we could get more out of our audiobook productions for little or no additional money spent on marketing. How could this be done and would there be any beneficial results?

True Stories from the Files of the FBI is a nonfiction book that focuses on six infamous FBI cases: the story of “Killer” Kinnie Wagner, the Charles Lindbergh Kidnapping, the Kansas City Massacre, the Barker Karpis Gang, John Dillinger, and “Baby Face” Nelson. Our decision to select this book to test our theory was because it had a strong initial foundation, good audiobook recording, good cover design, and searchable content with keywords.

The author hired one of the best narrators, Corey M. Snow, to narrate the book. The goal of this project was to leverage his voice talent so readers could get a taste for the audiobook through the online sample. In addition, we also had one of the best cover designers design the cover to catch our readers’ and listeners’ attention.

Online Exposure

With these two powerful tools already available, we asked ourselves how we could increase the reach of the book. The answer came simply: We needed to get exposure. We decided to create a series of three- to five- minute videos that would be posted on YouTube.

Using Apple’s iMovie, the book cover and sample narrations from each of the major sections were imported. A few more pictures were added to each video to make them more appealing.

More research was then done to add facts and captions to the pictures. In the end, the time investment was minimal. The videos were then posted to YouTube with keywords used in the title. We then crossed our fingers and waited. Would our investment pay off? The following five months shocked us.

For the first three months, it was difficult for the videos to gain traction. They were far down in the search results and not viewed very often. Then came months four and five. The views started to rise. What was responsible for the rise in exposure?

Successful Audiobook Performance

The Path to a Successful Audiobook Performance

It was the July 4th weekend in 2014 when Izzard Ink set out to make a successful audiobook. We needed to find a professional narrator. But how could this be done?

A four-page sample from True Stories from the Files of the FBI was posted on a very popular audiobook site. There were two options. One was to split the royalty with a narrator, and the second was to pay a flat fee up front per finished hour (pfh) of narration. Splitting the royalty with a narrator is the cheaper option but the best narrators like to be paid up front for their work.

We varied the pay range from $100pfh to $400pfh to attract more experienced narrators. Within 20 minutes of posting the book’s sample we had our first three narrators submit excellent auditions. Within three days we had almost 100 narrators submit audio samples and had to cut the audition time short. Many of the sample auditions were from amateurs. How do you decipher amateurs from the professionals?

We had a team listen to every single sample and reply back to every narrator. By engaging with each narrator we were able to get more information, such as their experience level and the rate they required. We were amazed at what some of the people wrote back.

One narrator asked for $350pfh and said he could have it done within three days, as he would need to go back to his day job. The professional narrators wrote back with their experience and a more realistic time frame. The audiobook would need to be edited, listened to for quality, and then mastered for Audible, Amazon, and iTunes.

So What Makes for a Great Narrator?

Look at Mark Deakins as a prime example of a great narrator:

First, Mark’s background is very impressive as he has read many books for Random House and has studied theater.

Second, Mark knows audiobooks are about the performance and not just a narration. With Bassam and the Seven Secret Scrolls, Mark submitted his audition with authentic accents. He was able to work well with female and male character voices.

Third, Mark spent hours reading over the book and preparing for the performance. The best narrators will spend time studying the manuscript and prepping the outline of the performance.

Fourth, listeners can tell if the narrator is passionate about a book or not. With Prophecy and Modern Times, narrated by Mark Deakins, we received multiple letters from fans thanking Mark for his performance. They stated that his passion is something they would have never felt if they’d read the book.

Fifth, make sure the audiobook is edited and listened to by somebody else for quality. Izzard Ink does suggest that authors listen to the entire book before it is available for sale.

These are a few helpful steps in making sure you have a successful audiobook performance and not just another poorly performing narration.

Should I Plan to Take My Book to Print?

Going to print in a traditional way can be a big investment. Offset printing is based on a careful calculation of market demand and cost to print, and without a lot of experience in the theory and in your specific market, Izzard Ink recommends a different path to print, utilizing the versatility of newer technologies. Using print-on-demand (POD) services, you can print only as many as you need at the time, without having to project the future of your market. This allows you to offer your book in print, without committing to a print run until you have orders!

If you find yourself fielding a lot of requests for print books, Izzard Ink recommends you start thinking about offset print runs if you are approaching a couple of thousand orders, and to start your print run at no less than 2,400. Printing involves print-friendly formatting, high-end illustrations, if you have any, plate-making, storage, binding, physical distribution, and more, so there is a lot to consider. The more books you print, the less the cost per copy, so savvy publishers always make sure their market justifies the cost of going to print.

Common Mistakes in Going to Retail

Remember to Give Your Book a Final Quality Check!

By the time you’ve reached this point, you’re probably ready to hand it over to the printer or the online publisher and not even look at it again! You’ve examined it for factual material, grammar, typos, layout, and design. You’ve read it so many times you practically know it by heart. But this is not the time to cut corners on quality! No matter how hard it is to pick it up just one more time — please do. Read it again. Have somebody else do a final read of your book before you go to press. Many times, authors will see mistakes after they have reviewed it many times. Get a final fresh perspective.

Gather Additional Reviews

Now you need to build reviews on the major websites such as Amazon, iBooks, Goodreads and others. One way to build reviews is find a few local books clubs and offer free copies of your book for reviews. Another possibility is to contact local colleges and solicit reviews from subject matter experts who will be happy to have their names on a book jacket or Amazon description. Your local paper may be very happy to feature a local author as well. Seek out people whose field is related to the subject matter of your book so that their review will benefit them as much as it benefits you.

Additional fee.

STEP 9

MARKETING,
DISTRIBUTION
AND PUBLIC
RELATIONS

Marketing is first and foremost about connecting.

—WENDY PAINE MILLER

Distribution is key. You need to have your book ready for purchase in as many stores as possible. Most booksellers will not sell a book unless they can order the title from a major distributor. Today this means more than a brick and mortar store.

Distributors like Amazon, Apple, and Google are becoming big players. You need to know how to publish a book for these marketing opportunities as well as for your niche.

How Does Book Distribution Work?

A few years back, I looked into the food consulting business. I wanted to know what it would take to get my homemade pizza sauce onto store shelves. I met up with a man who had over 30 years of experience in the grocery industry. He explained the process very clearly.

He said that for a fee, he could get the pizza sauce ready to go into a distribution center. One of the most important steps that needed to be taken was to get a UPC code for the back. Without that barcode, stores could not place an order for the product. The UPC is much like an ISBN number for books.

Now that the pizza sauces would be available at the distribution center, I don’t have to do as much work, right? Wrong! The food consultant explained that I would still need to create demand for the pizza sauce. The product does nothing but collect dust unless stores order the product. If demand is not created to move the pizza sauce from the distribution center to the stores, sales cannot happen.

The same is true for books. Having your book set up with a distribution network only makes your book available for bookstores to order and place on their shelf. But if there is not demand for your book, will the bookstores order it?

Many self-publishing authors are under the impression that once they are in a distribution network, the distributor will advertise and sell their book for them, and no more work is necessary. The distribution network only makes the book available. The author still needs to create demand for the book.

Authors really need to take into account how they are going to promote and market their book. Do they have a website set up and optimized for the author? Are Internet ads being placed concerning their book? What about working with a team of public relations experts to help with social media, radio, and TV promotions?

Common Mistakes in Marketing and Distribution

It's All About Availability

Have your book available in as many stores and venues as possible. Do not make your book exclusive with just one retailer. Amazon may be the biggest name in eBooks, but it is not the only name. You can distribute physical and electronic copies through your own website as well, and you may find websites dedicated to your industry that also have a bookstore — or, if fiction, websites relevant to your sci-fi or fantasy area that also have a merchandise section. Self-publishing outlets frequently have their own ecommerce channels. Professional tip: Be aware that many retailers such as Costco will not order from CreateSpace.

Leave little to chance: Create a marketing plan and stick to it. Creating demand with readers is the best way to take advantage of a vast distribution network. On the flip side, a great marketing plan without distribution leads to frustrated fans who are not able to buy your book. Both marketing and distribution go hand in hand.

General eBook Royalty Secrets

The general eBook royalty secret to consider when determining the online retail price is the 0.99 cent price point. But first, some background…

A few months back I was consulting with a client on how to increase the sales of her book. It did not take long to figure out why the book was not selling. The retail price was $43.00. How can a self-published author or even a published author expect to be a bestseller with such a high retail price?

Let’s break down the book to see why the author placed such a high price on the book: The book’s dimensions were 8.5”x11” and had 213 pages of full-color illustrations. When punching in the specs of the book using CreateSpace as the printer, the break-even point with all distribution channels is $39.58. After building in a small profit, the author felt that $43.00 was a logical price point to ensure a profit. Makes sense, right?

Now let’s look at book pricing from a consumer standpoint. Consumers do not care how much it cost to print your book or how much profit you want to make. If a book is not priced competitively, chances are it will have difficulty selling.

Having an understanding of how much your book will cost to print and distribute is a good idea when you are in the planning stages of your book. Consider points like illustrations (black and white vs. color), page count, paperback vs. hard cover, paper type and weight, etc. All these contribute to the overall cost to produce a book. Find a balance between what you want and what your consumer will pay for.

Fiction and Nonfiction Pricing

Is pricing different for fiction and nonfiction books? Yes. Nonfiction books usually have more research involved, and consumers are willing to pay more for that added value. Generally, nonfiction books retail for around $24.95 for a 325 page book.

For the most part, fiction books are priced at about $16.95 for a 325 page book. Keep in mind that some fiction titles can have a higher retail price. Historical fiction books are included in this small category as they generally have the “value added” of great historical research entwined with an equally great story.

General eBook Royalty Secret

Generally, eBooks are priced considerably lower. Due to price controls for self-publishers, the top of the line is $9.99. Try out a few prices and see how the pricing helps or hurts your sales. First-time self-published authors who have not had any professional help with their book should consider putting the eBook on sale for $2.99.

Many people choose to sell their book for a $.99 price point, not fully realizing that they will get only a 35% royalty instead of the roughly 70% royalty they would get for the $2.99 price. This little secret can increase your share by 100%! Always consider your available royalty when considering the price of your book.

Don’t think like an author. Think like an entrepreneur. You need cash flow in your pocket to support yourself as you begin writing your next big hit.

Research

Lastly, research your genre to get a better idea of where to price your book. Professional assistance will help you command a higher price point to compete with the big boys. People will pay a small premium for a book that exudes quality because, although subtle, this sends a message to the reader that this book will be worth their time.

If you chose to go it all alone, we recommend you do the research to give you an idea of your competition to better set your price point. Also, remember to build in a small cushion to allow for a 55% wholesaler discount to give an incentive for bookstores to sell your book.

Marketing and PR

Find a public relations firm to help promote you as an author along with your book. See if you can do a few local radio segments to talk about your book. Consider print advertising to your target market. Use pay-per-click Internet ads using an online marketing specialist who knows how to publish a book because they’ve done it themselves. And remember that you or your team need to write a great book blurb. The blurb will show up on your book’s online page, and/or on the book cover. But getting a good blurb is a bit of an art in itself.

About the Book Blurb

A book’s description on retailer product pages has an important effect on two of your most important keys for success: readers’ purchasing decisions and the book’s discoverability. Not only does the blurb inform potential readers about the book’s content and entice them to buy, but it also helps retailers and search engines like Google know how to index the book. When potential readers search for something by topic or keyword online, you want to make sure your book will appear in the search results, and the description can help.⁴

“Your book description on retailer sites like Amazon is one of the most important eBook marketing elements at your disposal. Your cover and title will catch potential readers’ attention, but your description is what will make the sale. The strongest part of your description should be the first 150 words.”⁵

When first crafting a book description, it’s important to think about your audience. While the description should primarily capture elements of your book’s plot or content, it’s also necessary to target your description for search engines by incorporating keywords that your audience may use. Create a list of five to seven important keywords you want to target. The keywords you choose depend on the genre, but some types of keywords might include:

•   Plot themes (time travel, murder mystery, coming of age)

•   Tone (dystopian, steampunk, romantic comedy)

•   Setting (Tudor England, French Revolution)

•   Character type (shape shifter, strong female protagonist, single mom)

You can test your keywords by going to a search site like Google and typing in the first few letters. If your keyword or phrase comes up after only a few letters have been typed, then you have a search term that is in common use. The more common they are, the higher they will be on the list. The more common they are, the more likely it is that your intended audience will use the same keywords.

Once you’ve created a list of keywords, try to include them on the book’s retailer product pages in the following locations:

• Description headline. When adding a description for the book, you can style it as a header. Search engines give headers more weight when determining what a web page is all about, so be sure to include your top keyword term in this space.

• Description. Don’t simply stuff your description with keywords. Instead, weave these terms into the book’s pitch, or include blurbs and endorsements you’ve received that include these terms. It’s important to realize that search engines take into account how keywords are used, and might down-grade your page if you “pack” your page with them.

• Keyword fields. Some retailers also let you enter your keywords in a keyword field. For example, Amazon allows you to enter seven keywords at the “Target Your Book to Customers” step in the Search Keywords text field, and Google Play allows you to add multiple “subjects” (keywords) on the “Settings” tab.

After identifying your target audience, consider other ways you can entice readers with your description. For example, testimonials from publications like well-known newspapers (The New York Times) or magazines (Publishers Weekly) will always boost sales. Here are some other findings via BookBub:

• Include testimonials. BookBub tests showed that book descriptions with testimonials got an average of 22.6% higher click-through rates than those without.

• Choose quotes from authors instead of publications. While quotes from both authors and publications increased engagement, descriptions that included a quote from an author got an average 30.4% higher click-through rate than those that only quoted from a publication. Whenever possible, the authors quoted should be big names in the specific genre of the book, because your results will depend on how recognizable the author or publication is in your particular genre. But BookBub data shows that all else being equal, showcasing a quote from an author is a better bet.

• Include high numbers of reviews. When a book had at least 150 five-star reviews on Amazon or Goodreads, including that number in the copy increased clicks by an average of 14.1%.

• Choose the highest number of reviews. If a book had more reviews on Goodreads than Amazon, for example, including the Goodreads reviews resulted in an average 5.1% higher click-through rate than including the Amazon reviews.

• Include author awards. If the author has won an award in the past for any book, including this fact increased clicks an average of 6.7%, especially if the award signified the genre of the book (for example, the Shamus Award for mysteries).

When writing the description, make sure you include the most important information at the top, and don’t waste the space you have with large font. Most eBook retailers show a limited amount of your description before cutting it off with a “Read more” button. The unexpanded space above “Read more” for Kindle books fits about 600 characters if you don’t have any paragraph breaks, and around 400 characters if you start with two short paragraphs.

Common Mistakes in Copywriting your Blurb

Stay on Topic!

A retired electrical engineer recently had an interest in communism and decided to write a book on it. She also wrote a book on grammar. On the back cover of those books were long 500-word paragraphs praising her career and expertise as an electrical engineer.

Does anyone besides the author’s family want to read a book on communism or grammar written by an engineer? Why should they?

Self-Publishing Books & Hévin’s Chocolate

Self-publishing books should never be attempted without Jean-Paul Hévin. He is one of the greatest chocolatiers the world has ever seen. We tried just about everything his store delicately prepares.

The best dark chocolate on the earth comes from his store. Hévin’s Fleur de Sel Milk-Chocolate Lollipops are one of our most sought-after indulgences and a great companion to every celebration or milestone.

Part of the allure of Hévin’s chocolate is its extreme scarcity. It’s a marketing model that works very well for him. The question for publishers who love Hévin’s chocolate is this: Would this same distribution method work with books?

Unlike the photos of Hévin’s beautiful confectionary creations, photos of books fail to trigger the same level of instant interest. For that reason, self-publishers need to look beyond just one avenue of appeal and consider as many as are available. That can take some creative thinking.

Self-Publishing Books & Marketing

Authors self-publishing books sometimes step into traps that prevent them from expanding. For example, in their enthusiasm to get some attention from an established distributor or publisher, they often sign away their rights by granting exclusive authority to a third party over all the control of marketing or distribution. Authors lock themselves out of other networks by granting third parties sole power over expansion.

There are many options available when self-publishing books before turning to third parties. The goal is to make your book as easy to buy as possible, to make it available everywhere. Established distribution networks, search engine optimization for website sales, advertising locally and internationally, online video interviews or enactments and postings, are all fertile possibilities, and the list goes on.

The lion’s share of an author’s success is found in expanded distribution. With Izzard Ink’s print distribution network your book is available at more than 39,000 bookstores all over the globe. Our eBook distribution network reaches more than 50 countries on select platforms.

International Distribution

True Stories from the Files of the FBI had surprising results in Australia. It was never intended to gain traction in that part of the world. With those results an advertising campaign was launched.

The Naked Communist has proven month after month that the citizens in Brazil love this book. That has opened the door to a possible translation opportunity. Izzard Ink Publishing worked with an author to get his title translated and published in China, and this included satisfying the demands of the censors in the Communist Party of China.

A distribution network of a single outlet or two does not give an author an advantage. A large distribution network is key to opening avenues one might have never pursued. The advantage of self-publishing books today is that all the components for marketing and distribution are now at your fingertips. Izzard Ink can help you get there.

Book Promotion

Book promotion begins with the understanding that you need to find your USP (unique selling point). With books being easier to publish and more self-published authors jumping into the mix, how will your book stand out?

Where do you start?

Author & Book Promotion Go Hand-in-Hand

Many of the big publishers give authors a small budget to promote their book and expect them to pay the rest. The rationale is that the authors are not only advertising the book but also themselves. Who knows when a national radio appearance will lead to a paid speaking engagement?

If you are a published or self-published author, Izzard Ink Publishing can help your book promotion. Here are some things to consider.

Promote Yourself as an Author

Create a website where readers can go to find more information about you. Include on your site a place for all of your books to be easily accessed. You might consider an ecommerce bookstore.

Think about how to brand yourself as an author.

•   Do you want a logo?

•   What about stationery such as a business card that sets you apart from other authors?

•   Have you thought about creating social media pages with custom cover art?

Izzard Ink can work with you to create a custom logo and different stationary and social media designs.

Spend some of your book promotion efforts on your Amazon Author Central page. Make sure you provide as much information as you can. This is a great way to promote yourself as an author. Think about adding videos about you or your books. Keep your fans aware of the different events you plan to attend. Use social media to communicate with your readers!

Book Promotion Ideas

Once your foundation is set up, here are some book promotion ideas:

•   Attend trade shows and conferences to network with others.

•   Be willing to help other authors out.

•   Look for ways to get your book reviewed.

•   With Apple and Audible you have access to give away free codes if people agree to review your book. This is one of the best marketing tools you can have. We have authors post these offers on their social media and fans love it. When readers go to look online for your book, you ideally want more than 30 honest reviews.

•   As you attend trade shows and book signings you can work with Izzard Ink to create custom bookmarks, posters, and even a press kit for your book.

•   Many authors just run Facebook ads. Over the past two years we have seen their effectiveness erode. Have you thought about running an ad with different search engines?

•   What about a print ad in a publication that is aligned with your book?

•   Another option is to place an ad in the Ingram Distribution catalog that goes out to all of their bookstores.

•   Create a YouTube channel and post three to five minute videos about the author as well as the book. We have even created videos using audiobook clips to help promote books.

Develop your marketing plan at least a few months in advance. Izzard Ink is here to help you along the way to promote your book and you as an author.

Google & YouTube

We did a Google search for one of the videos from True Stories from the Files of the FBI, “Lester M. Gillis”. The video was listed fifth on Google’s first page. A search for “‘Killer’ Kinnie Wagner” was then conducted and again, the YouTube video landed in the fifth spot on Google. What was even more astonishing was when conducting a Google Images search, the video thumbnails showed up. The videos also showed up in the first pages of Bing and Yahoo.

Why Did This Work?

Creating video samples for True Stories from the Files of the FBI worked particularly well because it is a nonfiction book. We were able to also target various famous criminals in the book for people to take advantage of in searching for those names.

In the end, only time was spent to create the videos and it was well worth it to get a top narrator and book cover designer. All of these videos led to an increase in sales and exposure that normally would have cost hundreds of dollars.

4   “4 Critical Edits to Make to Your Book’s Description Copy.” BookBub Partners Blog. December 05, 2016. Accessed January 26, 2017. https://insights.bookbub.com/critical-edits-to-make-to-your-books-description-copy/.

5   “How to Improve Your Description Copy to Sell More eBooks.” BookBub Partners Blog. December 05, 2016. Accessed January 26, 2017. https://insights.bookbub.com/how-to-improve-your-description-copy-to-sell-more-ebooks/.

STEP 10

DO’S
AND DON’TS
OF PUBLISHING

•   Do research your market.

•   Do complete a rough draft or, for nonfiction, a detailed outline.

•   Do set deadlines for yourself.

•   Do keep writing, even if you feel as though you have writer’s block.

•   Do keep reading.

•   Do find a good editor you can work with.

•   Do stay in contact with your editor.

•   Don’t be your own editor.

•   Don’t overuse italics, bold, and other typographic flourishes.

•   Do have your book professionally formatted.

•   Do have friends read your book and give you feedback.

•   Do listen to your friends’ feedback.

•   Do read your book out loud. Record it and listen if possible.

•   Do revise.

•   Do invest in your own book.

•   Don’t ignore marketing and distribution.

•   Do ensure you have rights to use any material created by anyone else.

•   Do assemble an experienced book team.

•   Do hire a professional formatter.

•   Do hire a professional designer, at least for the cover.

•   Don’t let the interior design get overcomplicated.

•   Do dress your book for success.

•   Do get professional reviews... and more reviews... and more.

•   Do consider how your book will appear on different platforms.

•   Do publish to as many platforms as possible – various eBooks, including Kindle, audio books and print.

•   Do promote yourself on social media, at trade shows, and in local bookstores.

•   Don’t send your book out to be anonymous and lost among the thousands of other books that have been self-published!

BONUS

THREE SECRETS TO
BOOK PUBLISHING

3. Don’t Talk About it – Write it!

2. Be Able to Summarize your Book in 25 Words or Less. (Note: Yes, we know 25 words won’t do it justice, but remember, you only get about a minute of an agent’s or publisher’s time unless you can catch their attention quickly.)

1. The #1 Secret to Self-Publishing is…
Don’t Give Up! This is the most important step. We have seen books take a few years before they have caught fire. Do not give up. You never know when your big break will come. It is up to you to always be prepared for it.

Success is Mastering Failure

In 2004 I was lucky enough – or so I thought – to be selected to be on The Late Show with David Letterman for a segment called Audience Show and Tell. We all have our goofy talents, and I was ready to show mine off: I have a remarkable (and somewhat useless) ability to walk backward with my feet pointing forward. There was once a time when I hoped to become wildly famous by exploiting this talent, but sadly, my dreams were cruelly punctured on national TV.

I auditioned for the segment and when I was selected, I spent the entire day of the show taping and preparing. After all, this was my first (possibly my only) TV appearance, and I wanted to put my best foot forward. Literally. And, to make it all the more exciting, it was sweeps week, so everyone would be watching! In my dreams people would be astonished, impressed, and would be waiting outside the stage door to mob me for my autograph.

But of course what happened ended up being the most embarrassing experience of my life.

When people go on TV, somehow they make it look simple. They stand there, they answer questions, they engage with the host, smile prettily, and sit down, their fifteen minutes of fame over with no mishaps. But when you are there, the lights, the people, the microphones, and the host, all combine into a mass of confusion. Any sense of focus, any determination to shine like a star, all evaporate under the bright TV lights.

Letterman asked, as he always did, what I was going to show or tell, and I explained my unusual talent. “I can walk backwards with my peet fointing — I mean my feet pointing forward.”

Okay, that doesn’t sound so bad, but try recording it, and having David Letterman latch onto that bit of misspeaking and run with it! (“Keep smiling,” I told myself. “This will be over in a minute.” And so I did keep that smile on my face!)

I was mortified when they showed the complete segment and did not edit out my blunder. I imagined this would define the “public me” forever. And the smile, I was told later, was very endearing. But a very important lesson was learned a few years later. I was asked to speak in front of 3,500 people. I was pretty nervous, but what calmed my fears was the fact that I had messed up before, in front of 5.5 million people, and somehow the world did not end, my business did not end, and I was doing better than ever. What is 3,500 compared to 5.5 million, after all?

Even if you have terrible stage fright or have undergone a discouraging experience, authors should not be afraid to put themselves out there. It gives them an opportunity to learn and grow. No matter how intimidating a radio or TV interview might be, authors should take advantage of every opportunity to get their names out there, even if they have failed before.

As it turned out, I was used in the national promotional ad that ran that night, and beat out Bill Cosby on the CBS website for three months. So it all turned out well.

Here are Some Authors Who Were Initially Turned Down by Publishers.

Sometimes the rejections were harsh – so harsh I can’t bring myself to publish them here!

•   Agatha Christie spent five years being rejected before signing her first publishing deal.

•   Meg Cabot had three years of rejection letters for The Princess Diaries stashed under her bed when her manuscript was finally accepted.

•   By comparison, Judy Blume can only lay claim to two years’ worth of solid rejections.

•   You can see some of Jack London’s 600 rejections, which are still in the keeping of his estate in San Francisco.

•   Louis L’Amour lays claim to having received 200 rejections before he received his first tentative acceptance.

•   Alex Haley’s Roots was also rejected 200 times.

•   Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance received 121 rejections before a publisher accepted it.

•   Kathryn Stockett got 60 rejections before selling The Help.

•   Margaret Mitchell got 38 rejections before one of them publishing Gone with the Wind.

•   Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, winner of the 1963 Newbery Medal, received 26 rejections.

•   Frank Herbert’s Dune received 23 rejections before being accepted.

•   Richard Hornberger received 21 rejections — until he changed his name to Richard Hooker and successfully sold M*A*S*H.

•   Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki was rejected 20 times.

•   The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank was rejected at least 16 times.

•   J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was rejected 12 times.

•   L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables only received five rejections before it was accepted by L.C. Page & Company, a now defunct publisher. Anne has sold 50 million copies. Likewise, the five rejections for Yann Martel’s Life of Pi hardly deserve to make this list!

•   Fourteen agents rejected Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight.

•   Sixteen agents and twelve publishers rejected John Grisham’s A Time to Kill.

And if that isn’t enough to keep you from giving up, the following were all initially rejected by publishers as well:

•   Alice Walker

•   Dr. Seuss

•   John Steinbeck

•   William Faulkner

•   Kurt Vonnegut

•   J.R.R. Tolkien

•   John Updike

•   James Baldwin

•   C.S. Lewis

•   Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

•   Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

•   War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

•   Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

•   Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

•   The Good Earth by Pearl Buck

So – if you’re thinking of giving up… DON’T!

If You Want It, You Can Do It!

My dad and I restored an old 1966 Plymouth Barracuda while I was in high school. We decided one day to take it for a ride with my one-year-old son. I asked my mom if my dad would be up for it because it usually takes him three to four hours to get ready to go anywhere. But this time, within 30 minutes, my dad was outside, walker and all. He got in the passenger seat and my son rode right below the steering wheel between my legs. Even though the little guy could not see over the steering wheel, he wanted to drive and my dad and I could see that he loved that car. He was even honking the horn. Illegal and dangerous, I know, but my little boy drove us around the block. I will forever cherish that moment because I know we will not have many more opportunities like this, ever. One of my favorite pictures is me with my dad and the shell of the car while we were restoring it. Now we have a great picture/video with three generations that hopefully my son will cherish forever.

My lesson to you? Don’t wait — write that book NOW!

FINALLY

ABOUT IZZARD INK

Izzard Ink is different from most publishers, as we are a hybrid publisher. Our goal is to help you, the author, present your best work. We have worked with New York Times bestselling authors and helped authors sell over 300,000 books. Our books have been featured on Fox News, The New York Times and The Washington Post. Why not use our expertise to guide you through the publishing maze?

Izzard Ink can help out with as much or as little of the publishing process as you need. We offer personalized service tailored to your needs so you get exactly what you want. If you want help just editing or designing your book, Izzard Ink can do that. What about marketing or illustrations? We can assist with that as well. What if you have a book but just need help printing or creating an eBook? We can help you through any or all the publishing process.

Through our research we have found that authors are more successful when they own 100% of their books and copyright. We provide you, the author, the contacts and tools you need to create that book or series you’ve dreamed of. We specialize in connecting authors with top publishing talents that have years of professional experience with the leading publishers in the industry. When you sign up with us, you select your team based on your goals and budget— you are 100% in charge.

We don’t just help authors; we have also been a resource for other publishing companies as a one-stop shop for their industry and business consulting needs.

For more information and samples of our work visit our website: www.izzardink.com.

GLOSSARY

advance.

A sum of money offered by a publisher to an author to publish his or her work. Technically the “advance” is an advance on royalties, and royalties may not be collected until the amount of the advance has been equaled.

agent.

A person who takes on the work of selling your book to a publisher in exchange for a percentage of your profits.

audiobook.

A recording of a book or text being read, usually on tape, CD or in a standalone file. Many eBooks are marketed with companion audiobooks.

boldface.

A heavyweight font. Like this.

binding.

The method of holding together the separate sheets that comprise a book. Binding methods include perfect bound, saddle stitched, ring bound, screw bound, etc.

book blurb.

Short promotional piece, often placed on the book flap, book cover, and/or on the landing page of a book when sold on a website.

book cover.

The protective covering of a book. For hardcover bindings, this is often a separate, sturdy paper that wraps around the physical book. Paperback books are bound with their covers. A print cover design includes the front cover, back cover and spine, as well as inside flaps for a hardcover. eBooks use covers for display purposes. A well-designed cover is part of a good marketing plan.

book spine.

The bound edge of a physical book. The spine generally shows the author, title, and publisher or imprint, and is the part of the book you see when it is sitting on a bookshelf.

cartography.

Map-making.

click-through rate.

A number in online marketing that represents the ratio of people who see your ad to the number who click on it.

coffee-table book.

A book intended for casual reading or browsing, also used for decoration. Coffee-table books are usually lavishly illustrated and in a large format. They can be expensive, and are often marketed as gifts.

composition.

Formatting for print or electronic production.

content.

Information or creative material. A book is made up of content; for instance, text and illustrations.

content editor.

Editor responsible for planning, creating, developing, and editing the substantive content of a book.

copy edit.

Review and correction of content to improve readability and accuracy. A copy editor will correct grammatical errors, inconsistencies, redundancies, and other flaws that interfere with smooth narration.

copyright.

Exclusive legal right to use content. Copyright is automatically given to the creator of content to print, publish, perform, film or record the work, and to authorize or license others to similarly use the work. A copyrighted work may not be used without authorization. Copyrights can be registered with a legal authority (for instance, the Library of Congress in the U.S.) to ensure the verifiability of a copyright in case of dispute or infringement.

copyright infringement.

The use of copyrighted materials without authorization.

copywriting.

The writing of marketing copy such as a book blurb.

deadline.

Due date.

development (of manuscript).

Improvement of a manuscript’s readability, accuracy, and coherence, and to ensure the goals of the work are realized.

developmental editor.

A person who can help you improve your manuscript by developing it. (See development.)

design (of book).

The visual appearance of a book, created by a designer. A design incorporates the cover and interior.

distribution.

The movement of a publication from its source to the final customer.

draft.

A manuscript in a stage of completion. A first draft is the first version of a manuscript. A final draft is the draft intended for editing, formatting, or publication. (See pass.)

electronic delivery (of a book).

Distribution of a book through electronic channels. Books can be delivered in proprietary formats such as Kindle, or non-proprietary formats such as text files. Other formats include PDFs, HTML pages and ePub files.

endnotes.

Notes placed at the end of a book or chapter.

fact checker.

A kind of editor whose job is to ensure factual accuracy.

fiction.

Creative, narrative writing, usually to tell a story.

folio.

Page number.

font.

A set of printable or displayable characters, known as glyphs, in a particular design, size, and weight. Examples of fonts are Ariel Bold 8 pt., Helvetica Thin 12 pt., Century Schoolbook Italic 11 pt., Times Roman 14 pt., etc. (See typeface.)

footnotes.

Notes placed at the bottom of a page.

format.

1. The format of a file refers to the type of computer file, such as a text file, a PDF, an image file – or, more specifically, a JPEG image file, a PNG image file, etc.

2. The application of styles to achieve a visual appearance or design; to apply a hierarchy to one’s content.

genre.

A category or classification of a work, such as historical fiction, mystery, fantasy, women’s literature, etc.

head.

See heading.

head or heading.

The title of a section or subsection of a book or publication.

illustration.

A picture, drawing, or other visual aid used to clarify or decorate a book.

image.

Any visual aid in a book, including photos, drawings, maps, graphs, charts, etc.

image research.

The process of finding and investigating rights for the use of images.

interior.

The contents of a book, excluding the cover.

inkjet printing.

Computer printing method that propels droplets of ink onto paper or other substrate.

italic.

Slanted type usually used for emphasis, book titles, etc. Like this.

journal.

A daily or regular record of one’s personal or professional activity.

keyword.

A significant word that represents content that is used in an information retrieval system to identify relevant documents and/or publications. A good keyword for this book might be “self-publishing.” This is a term you might enter into a search engine to find this book.

layout.

Visual arrangement of a publication.

layout program.

A computer program designed to apply layout and design to a document or publication.

laser printing.

Computer printing method that uses laser technology to create an electrostatic charge to apply toner to paper or other substrate.

manuscript.

Author’s unpublished text. (See draft.)

marketing.

Promotion and selling of a book. It is not enough to distribute a book; if you want it to sell, you must market it, too.

memoir.

Historical account or personal biography; a genre of nonfiction.

narration.

1. The text of a story, book, or account.

2. The reading of a book or text out loud.

nonfiction.

Prose writing that conveys facts, information, and/or accounts of real people and events.

offset printing.

A method of high-volume printing that transfers an image (usually of pages) from a printer’s plate to paper or other substrate. The term is now often used to describe the digital transfer of an image to a substrate. Typically, offset printing is done in runs of 2,400 or more.

pass.

The process of working through a manuscript for editing, composition, and other work. Each time the manuscript goes through an editing or composition cycle is considered a pass. A first pass might consist of the original draft from the author going for a copy edit, a technical edit, a fact check, and finally a review and correction by the author, which starts the second pass.

periodical.

A newspaper, magazine, or other publication issued at intervals: daily, weekly, monthly, semi-annually, etc.

platform.

A method of delivery. Print, audiobook, World Wide Web, Kindle book, and PDF are all examples of book delivery platforms.

plot.

Main, sequential events of a story.

print-on-demand.

A method of printing, usually using laser or inkjet printing, to print one copy as needed. Compare with offset printing, where thousands of copies are printed at once on spec.

promotion (of a book).

Price, product, promotion, and place are the four P’s of marketing. Promotion, specifically, is the process of raising the customer’s awareness of your product for the purpose of generating and encouraging sales.

proofread.

A review of a publication for typographic errors: misspellings, widows and orphans, proper hyphenation, page numbering, adherence to conventions, etc.

publish (a book).

To prepare and issue a work of fiction or nonfiction for the consumption of the public.

publisher.

A person or company who publishes, or makes works of fiction or nonfiction available to the public.

pull quote.

A short quotation from text that is “pulled” from the narrative and displayed in larger type, often used as a graphic feature for emphasis.

recto.

A right-hand page of a book; odd-numbered page. (See verso.)

review.

A critical essay or report, often valuable to mine for positive quotes to use in the book blurb, on a testimonials page, etc.

royalty.

Money paid to an author or patent holder for the use of his or her work. In book publishing, it is usually calculated per each copy of a book sold.

rule.

A printed line, often both decorative and functional; for instance, as a way to set off footnotes or running heads.

running foot.

Repeated copy at the bottom of a document or book page. Often includes the page number.

running head.

Repeated copy at the top of a document or book page. Often includes the book and/or chapter title.

science fiction.

A genre of speculative fiction based on imaginary or future technological developments or scientific principles.

self-help book.

A genre of nonfiction intended to improve the reader or to help the reader address a particular problem.

self-publishing.

A branch of publishing in which the author controls the publication of his or her own book. This often requires an investment of effort and money on the part of the author, but the rewards in terms of royalties and ownership of the content are significant.

setting.

The time and place of a story.

social media.

Forms of electronic communication such as websites that enable users to communicate and share content, and to network with friends, family, and people who share an interest or vocation. Examples are Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.

speculative fiction.

A genre of fiction that includes fantasy, dystopian novels, and science fiction.

technical book.

A genre of nonfiction that conveys technical information.

text rights.

Use of text, like images, requires authorization and possibly payment for use.

title page.

An early page in a book, before the start of content, that gives important publishing information, including title, author, and publisher.

tone.

The “sound” of a story.

typeface.

A family of fonts. (See font.)

typography.

The art and trade of arranging type for print or electronic delivery.

underscore.

In print, an underline. Like this.

verso.

A left-hand page of a book; even-numbered page. (See recto.)

voice.

The “sound” of an author: his or her tone, style, and individuality.

widows and orphans.

Printing terms for a line at the beginning or end of a paragraph that is left alone at the beginning or end of a page; also, the term for a word or part of a word left on a line by itself. The terms have become interchangeable, and sources differ on which situation is a widow and which an orphan.

word processor.

A computer program for writing or storing and manipulating text. Some word processors, such as Microsoft Word, can mimic some layout capabilities, while others are strictly for editorial work.

writing coach.

A person who can work with you to improve your writing.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

As a multifaceted publishing visionary, Tim McConnehey specializes in the publishing of eBooks through his company, Izzard Ink Publishing.

And when he says multifaceted, he means it! Tim directs eight teams covering every facet of publishing: finance, distribution, marketing, website development, art, public relations, cover and interior design, audiobook production, editing, and copyright.

A solid leader, McConnehey has an outstanding record of growing market share, by continuously energizing and positively influencing team members to deliver solutions that not only improve productivity but deliver bottom-line results.

Through his background in corporate training, business management, and business development, Tim acquired extensive experience in client service. And as someone who is never satisfied with doing things the way they have always been done, he came up with the idea of creating Izzard Ink Publishing after reading an article about eBooks in The Wall Street Journal.

Izzard Ink Publishing has now grown from that initial idea to a business that has sold over 300,000 books and has a client list that has sold over 45 million books – all accomplished by delivering exceptional personalized client service and working with the best people in publishing.

Through McConnehey’s promotion and marketing of their books, Izzard’s authors have been featured on Fox News, C-Span’s Book TV, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications throughout the country.

McConnehey has a Bachelor of Arts in International Business, from Westminster College in Salt Lake City, and lives in Salt Lake City, Utah with his wife Wendy and their four children. When he does get the chance to get away, he loves to restore old cars and motorcycles.