Well it's done. Crusade For Vengeance has been uploaded to all of the
relevant sites and it is starting to become available for sale.
This is now the third time I've gone through this process, so I thought it
would be a good idea to type up my thoughts.
I publish using Word 2010 and six different sales channels:
Amazon
Smashwords
Kobo
Nook
Createspace
Huffier
To start, make sure you download and read Amazon's Building Your Book for
Kindle and Smashword's Style Guide. They are both free. Read them
thoroughly and they will save you a lot of heartache.
Once you've done that it's time to actually get on with it. Start with
Smashwords Nuclear method, it gives you an excellent base you can build all the
other formats from. Work your way through that and save the file. I
have a folder purely for each book's publication documents, you'll need a file for
each of the channels.
Take the Smashwords file, resave it for Amazon. Remove the Table of
Contents Smashwords told you how to set up and replace it with Amazon's
version. Save the file.
Kobo is easy, you can just use the Smashwords version (removing the
published by Smashwords at the front of course).
Nook finds it's own chapters so you need to change the file slightly.
Using either the Smashwords or Amazon, change the Page breaks between chapters
to Section breaks. This is on Word 2010 under Page Layout - Breaks - Next
Page. Make sure you get them all.
Createspace is a bit trickier. Download the template of the size you
want from their site. It's a little tricky to find, but it is
there. You could cut and past your entire manuscript into the template,
but that made my spine crawl. I went through the template and jotted down
all the important information from Page Setup. You need everything from
Margins, Paper and Layout.
Unlike the others you need to worry about font, size, indent and line
spacing. Have a look through your favourite novels and pick what works
for you. My biggest advice is to have line spacing set at Exactly a given
value. I use 12 pt. It spreads the lines about on the page a little
more without looking like your trying make the book bigger. This is where
the Smashwords Style Guide really comes in to it's own, it has already
covered how to do all of this, if like me your a complete novice to Word's more
advanced features.
When you have all of that, take the Nook version and input all the
changes. I use the Nook version as you want to use Section Breaks with
Createspace. This way you don't have page numbers and author/book name in
the header on the first page of a chapter. It looks neater and is how
most publishers do it, though it is down to personal preference really.
When finished, upload the file and use their digital viewer. Have a
good look through for anything that is not how you want it. One
particular thing to be on the look out for is a little square box at the end of
chapters. I have no idea how Word does this, you can't see it in Word
itself. To remove, use the Track Changes function to find it (again
Smashwords tells you about Track changes), highlight and copy to the Search
function, whatever it is will still be invisible. Go through and
delete. I had 43 in Crusade. Reload the file and it should pass
through their checks without a problem.
For Huffier they need epub, mobi and pdf files. I convert my Amazon
file using a free program called Calibre. A great little tool and easy to
use.
That's it. I managed Crusade in about five hours. If it's your
first attempt, give yourself three days to work through it. You'll be
rejected several times, but don't let it dishearten you, learn and move
on. Mostly, take your time. If like me you've spent 250-300 hours
writing and the same editing, it's worth taking the time to get the formatting
right. It's how people will actually see your work after all.
I'll do a separate note about covers tomorrow.
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