Extras for a Book?

I finally picked up a copy of Atomic Habits by James Clear this week. Well, my own copy, a hard back no less. I’ve been reading through it via my Kindle and my local library, but the book is in such a high demand, I only get 14 days to read it…and I’ve never finished. Now, I don’t have a countdown clock ticking and I’ll be able to finish the book.

Naturally for any new-to-me author, I check the website. JamesClear.com is laid out nicely, effortlessly guiding you through his introduction, the offer for his habit course, and a sampling of blogs and newsletters. You can sign up for his mailing list and get Chapter 1 for free. There’s a separate email list for a 30-day guide to building better habits.

In the footer, there is a link where you can see all the places you can buy the book and all the different formats and languages. What struck me was Step 2 of this process: Claim Your Free Bonuses. They don’t leave you in the dark as to your bonus content. You get a guide to how you can apply your atomic habits to business and parenting, a cheat sheet, a companion reading guide, and a habit tracker.

The only thing you had to do is buy the book and prove you bought the book. You do that via your purchase receipt.

I snapped a photo of the receipt on top of the book (to be doubly sure) and sent the photo to a unique email address. Within minutes, I received a confirmation email with links to the bonus content.

It was seamless and I felt I got more than I paid for when I bought the book at Target.

That got me to thinking about how to apply this concept of bonus material to fiction. I suspect there are a good number of authors who offer bonus content to readers, but up until now, I’ve only experienced it via Kickstarter.

The “How” of getting that bonus content is straightforward. I’ve done a version of it myself where I offered any reader on my mailing list a free copy of a book in exchange for an objective review. Done and done.

But what kind of content would a reader want from an author? Bookmarks? Shrug. Those are not always effective and you can’t spend $X.XX dollars to mail a bookmark to someone. Let me rephrase: what kind of digital content would a reader want from an author?

Some things jump to mind: A PDF of a particular chapter, an early draft all marked up with changes and edits. That would be interesting to see. Maybe a handful of chapters. What about research? Maybe a PDF of some research material an author used to write the book, especially if it’s an historical book. What about some peek into the internal process, like an early outline or a Beat Sheet a la Save the Cat.

As a reader, these would be interesting to see.

As a writer, would I want to divulge that kind of information? I don’t think I’d have an issue with it. The book’s done and published after all. But fellow writers, would you be willing to do something like that?

Writer’s New Year: 2022

It was now nine years ago today that I made a renewed decision to write more stories. I had an idea that began with an image—a man, wearing a fedora, knocking on a door, and bullets ripping through the wood—and that idea became my first published novel, WADING INTO WAR.

Every May First, I commemorate that decision and take stock of my writing life. Some years are good ones. Others not so much. But on 1 May, I allow myself a chance to reset and forge ahead.

In past years, I laid out my plans for the new Writer’s Year. Again, in re-reading those past entries, I cringe at missed opportunities and goals not fulfilled. Now, I used to really beat myself up about missing those milestones but I don’t do that anymore. It’s not constructive and obscures a more positive outlook on my writing life.

I have big plans for Writer’s Year 2022, and this time, taking a cue from Kristine Kathryn Rusch, I am actually scheduling my books and stories on a calendar. That is, in effect, making a business plan for my writing. I have to tell you, the amount of relief that washed over me as I actually mapped out the rest of the year—and especially the summer months leading to Labor Day 2022–made me smile and got me excited for my next projects.

And those projects are not merely new stories to write. I have also planned on a publishing schedule as well. I’ll admit I’ve fallen behind on where I wanted to be in terms of publishing stories for the public to read. As such, my name has fallen by the wayside in the minds of future readers, including folks in my own newsletter group.

That’s on me. I have recently begun to realize, with a huge assist by Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art book, that I’ve been treating my fiction and publication more as a hobby than a business. I’ve had an amateur’s mindset. Which is weird because from Day One, back in 2015 when I published my first book, I created my own company.

But the amateur’s mindset kept being dominant. I’m not sure why, but if Pressfield were sitting across the table from me, he’d tell me it was Resistance. Veteran writer Dean Wesley Smith would concur and throw in fear. Smith would also toss in the variable of “fun.” He’d tell me I’m not having any fun with my writing.

Both of them are correct. I need to conquer Resistance and become more professional with my fiction and have fun along the way. After all, I’m the first reader of my stories and I’m supposed to have fun writing them for myself. That I get to share them with others is a bonus.

So that’s where my head is at on this Writer’s New Year’s Day 2022. Each day this year, I will strive to overcome Resistance and Fear in my writing. I will strive to have fun with the stories I tell. And I will strive to make them available on a more regular schedule.

The Value of a State-of-the-Business Examination

It all started with a question and it ended up with a complete evaluation of my writing and publishing life.

One of my longtime book club friends--we're going on our twelfth year together--has a side business and it is not going as well as he envisioned. He explained why and then turned his attention to me. "How's the publishing game?  It's been a few years now, are you encouraged by how it's proceeding?"

What began as a reply to his email turned into a 3,300-word (and counting) evaluation of my writing life, my publishing life, where I am now, and where I want to go. With the day job and the family stuff, I don't have a ton of free time on my hands so the exercise stretched out the entire week. Not coincidentally, 1 May is my Writer's New Year's Day, a commemoration of my decision back on 1 May 2013 to start writing with purpose.

What followed was a technique I've used for years: a written dialogue. This is one where I ask questions of myself and then I answer them. And, since I'm literally talking with myself, I get to be brutally honest. Who else is gonna read this, right? 

Am I encouraged? That is an interesting way to ask how it's going. I've been pondering it for a few days and I have a two-part response: No, not really, but, at the same time, I have not been giving it the attention it deserves if I want to see results.

The Analysis Begins

Thus, by answering with a qualified 'no,' I started analyzing the parts of the business I can control. It goes back to one of my favorite phrases about publishing: Control the Controllables. I can control my writing, how much time I devote to it, and what I write. This is absent all talk of sales. I truly cannot control that. Neither can you. No one can. But we can control what we write. For me, it boiled down to time and speed. I can write fast and I can start a writing session on-the-run (so I don't have to build up speed) so the words the flow out usually are not a problem. 

Time proved the key factor. Despite me working from home, I realized I began 'sleeping in' on weekdays. When I had a commute, I used to wake at 5am. I kept that routine at the start of the working-from-home phase, but over the past year, my wakeup time slid later and later. Throw in the morning Bible reading and the amount of time I have to write in the pre-day-job quiet of the house ended up being 30-45 minutes. Sure, those minutes and words add up, but they are not truly as productive as I used to be.

Thus, to rectify my writing time, to control the controllables, I started waking earlier. Consequently, I also went to bed earlier. Give and take, right? I’ll be continuing that next week and the week after.

What is the Roadmap?

That’s the simple part. The larger thing is publishing schedule. I examined my available manuscripts. Including my current WIP, I have a dozen books either completely finished or close enough for a thorough edit. Why are these books not already in the pipeline? To that question, I had no answer. Laziness? Chalk it up to ‘not enough time in the week’? Hogwash. If I’m an indie author, then I make the time to publish what I write. I haven’t been. But I will be. 

Thus, I made a publishing schedule for the next 2.5 years. I’m still fine tuning it and allowing for me to slip in newly written manuscripts—I’m pretty jazzed on the current WIP and its sequels—but I have a roadmap. It’s what traditional publishers do, right? Same should be for me. And you, if you’re an indie. The next book I’ll publish is my Harry Truman book this summer.

Fixing the Online Stuff

Armed with a new publishing schedule, I examined my online life, specifically the websites. I have my blogspot blog which dates back over fourteen years and I don’t want to ditch it. I have my author website that needs a refresh. And I have my new project that’ll I’ll tease here for a summer launch, probably around the time of the Truman book’s publication. I’ve already stopped updating one website and will disband it this month. No need mentioning it here. It’s for the dustbin. 

Another aspect of online life is engagement. While I’m decent at it, I’m not as engaged as I want to be. Expect to see a little bit more of myself online on Twitter and Facebook.

The biggest online challenge is to create an online store. It’’ll be a way to sell direct to readers that’ll be as seamless as other online stores, enable me to increase my outreach, and pocket a little extra cash. The tools for this are present, I just need to implement them.

So, after a week’s worth of reassessment and the creation of a new roadmap, I have a better handle on my writing and the business of writing. What began as an email response with a somewhat dour answer has turned into a happy exercise and a renewed sense of purpose. I’m now ready to reply to my friend, but I won’t be copying the entire 3,300-word piece. I’ll just tell him to read this post. 

Do you have any of these State of the Business type things in your writing business? 

Year 5 of an Indie Writer: Week 2 AKA You Know You've Integrated the Indie Writing Lessons When...

This proved an interesting week, evidence yet again that life is full of daily surprises.

When it comes to Christmas decorations, no matter when they go up, they always come down by New Year's Eve. The family has adopted my wife's idea that you don't start a new year cleaning up the mess from the old one.

Well, I didn't follow that advice in terms of my writing.

I've been reviewing my existing-yet-not-finished stories at the beginning of this year. The good thing is that all this reviewing is helping me see what each story needs and all the tweaks along the way. The irritating thing is that I didn't do this in December. Or finished them in 2019.

Be that as it may, I wanted to wrap up these outstanding stories before tackling a brand-new one here in January. But something else sidetracked my review.

The E-mail

I received an email from a relative on my wife's side. Turns out there are a couple of writers in the family working on various books and the relative was wondering if I'd have a chance to offer any advice on the publishing and writing business.

Happily I agreed. I'm always eager to help writers no matter if they are far ahead of me in the business or just starting out. I've made course corrections along the way based on advice from veteran writers.

Wins and Losses?

Here's the thing about the writing business: it's competitive, but not always against fellow writers. It's a competition for the eyes and attentions of readers. We don't rack up wins and losses against other writers. And if you have that mindset, well, there's a better way to look at the business.

Think of it as a learning experience.

Let's say you've written a thriller. You've done your research and you have a book with a good cover, decent blurb, and is available in all the channels. It goes on sale on New Year's Day. You advertise in whatever form you choose. Yet there's another (actually a lot more) thriller book that was released on the same day.

And that other book is the one that's most popular with readers.

You'll get frustrated. You might even get upset. But you can't control what happens when you release your book into the world. You can only control that which you have direct control: cover, blurbs, and the book itself.

If you think that other author "beat" you, do some research. Buy that other book. Read it. Figure out why it is resonating more with readers than yours. If you see something, feel free to learn from that other book and incorporate those learned lessons in your next book. Nothing wrong with that.

Just don't fixate on wins and losses. The only person who loses there is you. And your potential readers. Just continue to be yourself and readers who like your stuff will find you. It'll take longer, perhaps, but avid readers are the best.

Internalized Lessons Learned

Back to the e-mail. So my relative put me in contact with the other writers and we emailed back and forth. The writer (also a she) shared some details about where she is and a choice she's contemplating. It's whether or not to sign a contract for a publishing firm not based in New York. Not one of the Big Five.

Indie that I am, I started listing the reasons I went indie and continue to stay that way. I discussed all the things I've had to learn over the five or six years I've been doing this side hustle: how to make covers, where to find editors, how to make paperbacks, how to format ebooks, etc. My response back grew longer and longer.

And I didn't even have to reference anything. I realized I have internalized all the indie author/publisher lessons so thoroughly that I can just spout them off at will.

It was a nice feeling...and it really made me want to get started with my 2020 publication schedule. It also helped me realize I enjoy the challenges and the rewards of an indie writer life. Still would appreciate the opportunity to do fiction writing full time, but the life I've carved out for myself is pretty grand.

Article of the Week

So, all of what I've described occurred prior to Thursday's post by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. She has had a decades-long writing career, both in the traditional and indie world, and now preaches the good talk about the indie life. Every Thursday, she posts about the business of an indie writer.

This week is title "Fear and Publishing." It is very insightful and well worth the time to read.

Book of the Week

The first novel I'm reading in 2020 is now four years old. It's ORPHAN X by Gregg Hurwitz. This series, about Evan Smoak, a highly trained assassin, has been on my radar for a couple of years. I saw the fourth book at Barnes and Noble over the holidays (in paperback) with a fifth book coming out this year.

Why not start?

So I picked up the first book and have really enjoyed it. How much? Well, I'm reading an actual book (bought the paperback) and have carved out time specifically to read. I get most of my books via audio, but I aim to have 2020 be the year in which I read at least a book a month and listen to another book a month.

I'm only a hundred pages in, but I'm really digging this book. What's even more ironic is the timing: My NaNoWriMo 2019 book involves a character who is off the  grid like Smoak or Jack Reacher (also not read any of his books either). The sands of time and interests, every now and then, come together.

Year of an Indie Writer: Week 30

Prolific writer Dean Wesley Smith calls summer the Time of the Great Forgetting. It’s that part of the year in which all those New Year’s Resolutions authors made to write more content slowly fades away. Come Labor Day, they’ll wake up, realize they blew a 97-day time to progress on their work, and likely feel depressed. Smith has a cure for that here.

For me, it’s not so much a great forgetting as a dividing of focus. There’s a project I’m working on—the same one I mentioned last week, the one about a filmmaker’s work—that’ll go live the first full week of August. It’s grown more than a bit, but it’s a blast to do. Looking forward, the bulk of the work on this project will be done by mid August, and from then on, it’ll just be rolling out on a weekly basis.

And there might be a video component. Stay tuned.

But said filmmaker’s body of work has also inspired to write a novel that is completely different than anything I’ve ever written. I’m making slow but steady progress on it, with an aim for publication this fall. I’m not forgetting.  Are you?

One Name to Rule Them All

Back in 2015 when I started publishing my mystery novels, I used my full name. When I came around and started publishing Westerns, I kept full name. Over time, as I listened and learned how other writers conducted their businesses, I decided to segment my books with a separate pen name for the Westerns, S. D. Parker. The idea was Also-Boughts and the algorithms churning underneath the facades of all the various online bookstores. Made sense at the time.

But over time, my thinking has evolved. When I ask veteran writers the question about pen names, almost all of them suggest using a single name, no matter then genre. As long as the covers are genre-specific with genre-specific SEO and blurbs, it’ll ultimately be better to have a single name and put everything under it.

I was leaning that direction, but over the summer, I have decided to bring the Westerns under the Scott Dennis Parker name. It’s not a big deal, really. All it means is that I’ll have to de-list the S. D. Parker books, slightly change the covers and internal front matter, and then republish.

If someone finds my work via Westerns and they like mysteries, they’ll have an easy transition. The reverse is also true.

More importantly, however, is the idea that a business can change as trends and new ideas emerge. Nothing wrong with that.

Having everything under one name will make all grunt work of file management much more streamlined.  I’m even contemplating bringing all my stories under the Draft2Digital universe. I’ve got most of them there now and they truly make it a no-brainer. just this week, I’ve been sending them questions about the procedures for changing my author name. They get back to me with personalized answers within a day. Customer service goes a long way.

Anyone else use Draft2Digital? If not, I certainly recommend them.

Interview of the Week: Paul Levitz

Dan Greenfield, over at the wonderful 13th Dimension website, re-posted his 2015 interviews with Levitz in honor of the longtime editor/writer’s induction into the Eisner Hall of Fame at Comicon this year.

They talk about his tenure as the sole Batman editor starting in 1978. Great behind-the-scenes stuff.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Year of an Indie Writer: Week 26

As of Monday, half of 2019 is gone. How is your writing?

Mine? Well, it is not where I expected it to be on New Year's Day. I had envisioned a couple of new books under my belt, ready to be edited, revised, and published. Then again, I also expected 1 July to be the day my fourth Calvin Carter novel would be published.

Ain't gonna happen.

When the Publisher Rejects Your Book

Countless writers have received rejection letters from agents or editors or publishers. Heck, back in 2006 and 2007, I got mine, too.

Which makes the indie publishing concept so enticing. There are no gatekeepers between a writer and a reader. The only thing stopping a writer from publishing a book is...well, nothing. As long as the writer can learn how to upload files to Amazon, Kobo, or whatever.

Which makes the fact my publisher rejected the fourth Carter novel so interesting, *I'm* the publisher.

As I wrote last week, I realized the fourth Carter book, Brides of Death, as written, wasn't up to par of the other three. Brides follows the pattern of all six Carter novels: Carter is assigned a case, he investigates, he gets into and out of scraps, and he completes the assignment.

But the chapter detailing the assignment and what actually happens don't match. An easy fix would be to revise the assignment chapter, but then I'd have to re-title the book. The other alternative is to keep the title (which matches the assignment) and insert extra scenes into the book to show Carter and his partner investigating the actual assignment. That would make for a more in-depth book, which is a good thing, but there was no way to get it done by 1 July (actually 27 June because Amazon needs some lead time).

So I'm temporarily delaying the book. I don't want to put crap out, and if I had published the book as is, it would have been that. I'm the first reader and if I found an issue with the book, then other readers would have as well. Let's avoid that.

Granted, astute future readers can read the book and this blog and draw their own conclusions, but I have no power over that. Control the controllables. Make the book better and move forward.

What is Forward?

My wife is a small business owner as well (she makes jewelry under BetojDesigns.com), so I asked her opinion. She agreed with me not to publish at this time. I jokingly said, "It's not like there are dozens of readers who would be upset at my decision."

That jibe hit home harder than I expected. Yes, my sales are not awesome, but that doesn't always bother me. I am unfocused when it comes to marketing, and I need to rectify that.

Which is what I plan on doing for the rest of the summer. I've got three books in the series out now. Why not promote them? See if there's even an audience for the type of book I'm writing. Sure, they were a blast to write, but what if I'm the only reader? After a bit, is there a reason to keep writing them if my reason for writing is to share stories I tell to the general reading public and the general reading public doesn't respond?

It's a quandary. Well, no, it's not. It's an opportunity. I plan on spreading the word about the Calvin Carter, Railroad Detective series far and wide. Why not build the audience with the three books currently available, build anticipation to books four, five, and six?

Speaking of audience, I read a fanTAStic blog post this week.

We Are in the Entertainment Business

You know this, right? Books are entertainment, just like TV and movies and music. But, before Thursday, me, like many of us writers, thought the book/ebook was the goal. We indies are our own publishers, and publishers produce books. Sure, we knew that our characters could be licensed, but that was only after we had a book, right?

Well, not exactly.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith attended the Licensing Expo in Las Vegas. Dean has a series of videos up where he discusses what he learned from the expo. Kristine started on Thursday with the first part of her Business Musings: Rethinking The Writing Business. It will blow your mind wide open.

If you are a writer who thinks larger than a book or books, you owe it to yourself to read her column every Thursday. Jump on board now and learn with her. It's like going to school, but it's stuff you want to learn.

Filling the Tank

Finished listening to THE SCAM by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg. It's a good thing I enjoyed the book and was already going to listen to others because this one ended on a cliffhanger.

Watched Toy Story 4. Enjoyed it quite a bit.

Watched The Old Man and the Gun. Liked it pretty well. Good to see Redford go out on a good film.

Still loving Masterchef. Could watch Gordon Ramsey demonstrate cooking things all day.

Enjoying CBS's Blood and Treasure even more after this week's episode.

Started listening o the audio of Good Omens. It's my current book for the SF book club.

All of this is to say I'm filling my tank with good content that I can bring to bear on the story I'm starting on Monday. But I'm also rethinking said story. I had one in mind...and then another just roared into place. So I'm likely going to go with the flow. It'll be something rather different for me, and that both excites and scares me.

Just the right place to start a new story.

Writer's New Year's Day 2018

 

A half decade.

That’s how long it’s been since I resolved to write and complete a story, a choice I’ve since named Writer’s New Year. We all make resolutions on 1 January every year. Often, I made writing resolutions on that date, but they faltered so I rarely counted them. But on 1 May 2013, I told myself that the scene I saw in my head—of a man, wearing a fedora, knocking on a door, being answered with bullets—was part of a story and I resolved to finish that story no matter what. I did, and it’s now called WADING INTO WAR: A BENJAMIN WADE MYSTERY.

The decision, back in 2013, was inspired by a quote whose origins I have forgotten: “A year from now, you may have wished you had started today.” By 2015, I had accomplished something else: I had formed my own company and published WADING INTO WAR. Since then, every 1 May, I take stock of things since the last Writer’s New Year. This is the 2018 edition.

The biggest change this year is that I have a plan, specifically a business plan. You see, Writer’s New Year is only focused on the writing part of things. In 2017, I learned I could produce a good quantity of words over multiple genres. As exciting as that was—and still is—I also have to focus on the business side of things. I may be a writer, but I am also a small business owner with products to sell. And one of the fundamental aspects of any company is to have a business plan. On various spreadsheets and yellow legal pads, I have composed various pie-in-the-sky ideas about publishing schedules. All were unsustainable. I needed something relatively concrete and ordered. And sustainable.

I think I have that now. You see, all during 2016 and 2017 and into 2018, I didn’t stop writing. Sure, I may have not published much, but I’ve got a backlog, a warehouse if you will. What the warehouse is allowing me to do is this: have a rather permanent schedule of publishing books and stories while learning more about the business of selling. I am fairly competent in knowing how to craft stories. I’m now needing to hone my marketing and business skills.

A few NFL head coaches plan their game strategies with a set number of opening plays. It’s to learn what the other team is doing and how well his own team performs on the field. That’s what I’m doing as I start Year Six of writing (and Year Four of publishing). I have a schedule. I have a plan. The beauty of independent publishing is that I can adjust the plan if necessary, but I’m more inclined to run the series of opening plays and see how things turn out. What are those plays? Well, read on.

Publish Fast or Publish Slow

Lots of authors write and publish fast. It’s not unheard of to have 10-15 books published in a single year for some of these folks. I know the old pulp fiction writers like Lester Dent (Doc Savage) and Walter Gibson (The Shadow) among others produced a book a month, but writing was all they did and if they failed, they wouldn’t feed their families. I’m in a different situation. I have a day job. I do not have eight or more hours a day to write. I have one, usually at 4:30am. Moreover, publishing fast yields different results for different people and genres. I write westerns and mysteries and, to date, both have seen little benefit to publishing fast.  Martha Carr tried it in 2016 and 2017 and Kristi Belcamino tried it recently, too. Both talked with Stephen Campbell of The Author Biz podcast about their experiences. I had already determined a monthly, rapid release schedule was unsustainable for me and their two case studies gave me evidence.

So I’m publishing at a roughly 12-week schedule. The only exception will be the launch of my Calvin Carter: Railroad Detective series later this year. It’s a plan, a hypothesis on my part. I will experiment and see what happens. But if enough folks like the stories I tell, I’m guessing they would be willing to wait.

Going Wide

I mentioned this is my most recent DoSomeDamage column, but my stories will be available just about everywhere (Google Play is still out of play). So if you want to read on your Kobo, your Nook, your iPhone, or almost anything else, no barrier will exist for you.

Video Channel

Yes, I’ve made a YouTube channel. My goal is to have videos for every story I publish, talking about the writing process. In addition, I’ll likely have other videos about podcasts I like, movies I’ve seen, books I’ve read, and almost anything else. It’ll be a place to talk about this I love.

Social Media

I’ve consolidated my Facebook, Twitter, web page, and newsletter into one site each. I used to have two each, one for my mystery name (Scott Dennis Parker) and another for my westerns (S. D. Parker). Now, Scott D. Parker: Storyteller is it.

I think that about covers it for Writer’s New Year’s Day 2018. I’m really excited about all the things I’ve got planned. And, a year from now, we’ll see how it all fared.

Online Identity or What URLs to Use

I’ve been planning out the new 2018 changes for my writing business and a question came to mind: when it comes to our online presence, are readers more likely to remember an author’s name or an author’s publishing house?
I think the answer is self-explanatory but let me tell you why I’m asking.

Currently, I maintain three websites: a blogspot one (my first and the one I’ve turned into my western pen name site); my mystery one (scottdennisparker.com), and one for my publishing company (quadrantfictionstudmio.com). It doesn’t take a whole lot of time to maintain, but I’m considering streamlining everything down to one, perhaps two sites. Ditto for my mailing lists (I have two). Longterm strategy is to convert at least one of my sites into an online store.

The majority of authors have websites keyed to their names: James Patterson, J. F. Penn, Dean Wesley Smith, Russell Blake, Mark Dawson, etc. A few, however, use a publishing house to serve at the main online presence. Kevin J. Anderson comes to mind (wordfire.com), the fellas at Sterling and Stone, and a few more. If you google “Kevin J. Anderson,” the first link is wordfire, complete with a tagline indicating it’s the office home of Anderson. When you consider ebook links are all hidden anyway, the actual URL doesn’t matter. Plus, readers are, by and large, computer savvy, so they’d be able to find a website.

But it’s our job as author to make it easier.

So, what do y’all do? Have a URL with your name or promote your publishing company? Or both?

Proofing Hardcopies is Essential

When you are an independent author, it means you have control over all aspects of the writing. It also means you are an independent publisher and, When it comes to hardcopies, you have to match what the traditional publishers do all the time.

For my four mystery novels, I created new Second Edition ebook covers. Those came out back in May. All four now have a unified look and feel and, moving forward, future books in this growing series featuring three characters will all sport similar covers.

But I hadn’t updated the paperbacks. I removed them from CreateSpace back in May with the intention of focusing on ebooks. But now, in the fall, I’m revising the paperbacks. I updated the covers with Adobe Illustrator and revamped the interior layouts with InDesign. Those files looked very good on the screen in those two programs and they even looked good on CreateSpace’s online viewer. Nevertheless, I ordered hardcopy proofs. I still get a charge when I open a box from the mail and see my books inside.

Despite how good they looked initially, I dove into their pages. I wanted to verify all the minute details were perfect before I approved them for the public.

Boy am I glad I did.

Little things that my eyes and brain easily missed when looking at a computer screen were easily spotted on the printed page. No, it wasn’t with the novels themselves; it was with all the extra material I included within the two covers. For example, in the back of each book, I include some excerpts of other novels. Well, the fonts for the titles of those stories were slightly different across all four books. Easy to miss when you examine each individual file but glaringly obvious when you have all four hardcopies on a table in front of you each turned to the same respective page. Ditto for the “About the Author” sections. One cover’s image was off by a couple of millimeters. Again: it was something I only would have noticed with a hardcopy.

The end result—after some tweaking to the files and re-uploading them—will be better, more cohesive books that will equal those from traditional publishers.

Now, I suspect some of y’all reading this will have the same obvious conclusion: of course this is what you’re supposed to do. I know it and have done it time and time again. But when it comes to a series of books that have a unified look-and-feel, I advise all authors out there to place all the books in front of you, laid out on a table. It will only be then that discrepancies show themselves, discrepancies you might have missed upon reviewing each book separately.

Have y’all ever had an issue like this?