The other day Sarah pointed out that much of what we’ve written in the past is in need of bringing up-to-date. I know I cover covers (heh!) a couple of times a year as I am constantly working on them for Raconteur Press these days and keeping up with the trends. However, there are other topics we should revisit. The list of ‘Navigating to Publication’ links is given below. What, dear readers, would you like to see us address and update that would make your publishing journeys easier?
This is a list of helpful posts written by members of the Mad Genius Club. It is intended to help authors and independent publishers (usually in one and the same person) navigate the process from writing through publication and beyond, into marketing. It is an organic list: a work in progress that will grow, being added to periodically as new posts are written, information is updated, and if you have questions, feel free to pose them. Although the information found by following the links below was correct when written, it may need to be adapted as technology changes, new software emerges, and publication venues change. Formatting requirements are not static, we want to note, and you should always check them directly at the distributor you are using (Amazon, Draft2Digital, Smashwords, et al) before you proceed with that step.
Writing Phase
- General Terminology
- Finding Ideas
- Opening with a Hook
- Writing Dialogue
- Developing Characters
- The Saggy Middle
- Research
- Alpha Readers
- Formatting to a template
Editing Phase
Pre-Publication
- Converting to Ebook
- Formatting for Print
- Designing an Ebook Cover
- Finding Art for a Cover
- Dorothy Grant’s Clinic on Covers
- Designing and Creating a Full-cover for Print
- Choosing a Genre
- Creating a Compelling Blurb
Other kinds of books:
- Children’s books The Cute Moose: Lessons Learned
- Coloring Books Inktail: Preparing Art for Print
Mad Genius Club 
24 responses to “Updating”
Thank you for doing this. I know it was probably a lot of work to compile, but it’s definitely going to be helpful. Especially since I’m trying to get back into writing / publishing / marketing after two years away from it. This old dog definitely needs to relearn the old tricks and acquire some new ones.
Most welcome! This list was compiled a few years back, and it’s time to update it. Follow us for a little while and we’ll have some meaty articles to chew over.
Haven’t looked at the articles themselves, yet, but a clearer explanation of “the editing funnel” might be in order. Structural edits, then copyedits (a.k.a. line edits), then proofreading. (And yes, I realize I’m setting myself up to be voluntold to write about it. sigh)
*giggle* then I should just pencil you in for a guest post, yes?
Don’t make me snarl.
Oh, yes. No use revising a scene before you determine whether it belongs in the story at all, and no use polishing its prose before you decide what incidents it must contain.
Considering I know of at least one instance where a structural editor at a tradpub paid for copy edits on a manuscript before he sent the author the editorial letter (which, amazingly, said the entire book needed to be rewritten) (and that wasn’t even the stupidest part of the whole affair), it would appear to be a thing which needs to be hammered home more than might be expected.
OK, this, right here, is a great step in the right direction! Having these all organized in one place, linked to the relevant articles, and put in some sort of order is great.Now, if there was only some way, say, I could put them into a single document and somehow get them onto my Kindle… hmm. Is there a way you could do that? 😉
In theory, yes. Problem would be that this is a moving target. If we put out a book, it’s out of date very soon afterwards.
Although yes, I have been thinking about doing a book covering the core of what you need to do to self-publish, as some things don’t change.
Hmmm.
Consider doing a book about the bits that don’t change, but provide links to MGC or elsewhere where you can have “the latest” on certain topicsEx: picking keywords. There is certain advice that you can give on how to research and use keywords; not just for Amazon, but in general. Examining other books in your genre, see what terms the successful ones are using in their blurbs/advertising, etc.You can end that with “Of course, specifics about how to advertise on Amazon change all the time. If you are ready to dive into the subject and are looking for current links, we update the following web page over at SITE the whenever there’s a major change: PERMALINK”
I am hoping to self-publish “soon.” So much of that process is relevant to me.
I haven’t seen any articles anywhere on the current Amazon keywords/categories. Assuming they’re done messing with it for the summer. I think this is something lots of people would be interested in.
Ebook formatting. I can make functional epub files, but not pretty ones. Maybe something on current standards and genre trends for fonts, initial caps, separators, images, etc. if there are any.
Similarly, updated tips and tricks for print formatting. For instance, someone at the “State of Self Publishing” panel at LibertyCon said that if you change the number of pages in a print book, you need a new ISBN. So you might want to include some blank pages at the end, just in case. If so, that’s a really useful tip you hope you never need.
How to find a CPA and a lawyer who know the oddities of writing…although I suspect the answer is “ask in some of the writer discords you’re in.”
An update on book promotion sites might be useful for others. I’m not planning to do any at first, but there aren’t many recent articles on these sites and author experiences with them. What would the sites in that “Trajectory and Velocity” link look like today?
Excellent, thank you! This gives me a good list to start posting on.
Yes, that page-count guidance (for print editions) is correct. Think of the physical book as a, um, physical product. Every physical manufactured product (not just books) these days bears a universal product code (UPC), of which the ISBN is the one for the book industry. If you change the number of pages, you have changed the physical product, and it needs a new ISBN (its UPC) to unambiguously identify it.
This is different from minor modifications to the text (typo-corrections, for example), which are allowed under the original ISBN (as long as the page count doesn’t change) if they are not significant alterations to the original. (The point being whether the reader would feel that the book is “the same” or not, before/after.) Marketing/promotional material within the book (blurb, etc.) can be changed at will (as long as the page count doesn’t change).
It doesn’t matter at all where the additional pages go, or if all the page numbers change — it’s the absolute count of pages that matters. (The physical book object, not its metaphysical text).
So, yes, you want to leave a couple of blank pages at the back in your first edition/printing, or any other convenient strategic location (padding around the TOC or an Index, etc.) It will cost you a little more in print cost, but may save you the headache of a new ISBN and retiring the old one.
Be aware that you can’t just insert several blank pages. Amazon will remove them if you have more than 2 or 3 in a row (IIRC). Adding them judiciously will help. As will being cautious with future revisions. I’ve edited novels years later and not seen much page count change at all (or none). So unless you’re working with a non-fiction book, and even then I think I’d release it as a whole new edition rather than just insert sections into the first edition.
And fair warning: if you have to get a new ISBN, Kindle may not handle the previous ISBNs very well. I have several books that I purchased from Baen and Amazon that stopped loading in the last three months or so, and they had to be re-purchased. I haven’t confirmed new ISBNs for all of them, but at least for some.
Yes, a new edition would have to be purchased again. This is another reason not to significantly change the content of a book. Find another way to do it. Release an omnibus, release an edition with a new forewords, something. There is no need to extensively change an already-published fiction work.
You need something on the updated categories and what they mean.
Absolutely! I’m going to ask you for a guest post on that.
Yes, ma’am, I thought you might 🙂 Happy to help.
I’d just like to comment on the art in the post. Very mid-late 1970s sci-fantasy-ish with a touch of psychedelic. Yes I noticed the file names indicate album covers. Reminds me of some of the stuff like poster art from back then when I was a kid.
There’s an art challenge with daily prompts on a Discord that Cedar and some of us others belong to; in practice it ends up being mostly an AI art challenge because that’s the fastest way to get images. The theme this month is album covers, and I believe this is an expansion (to 2:3 aspect ratio) of one of Cedar’s submissions there.
It’s an auto-crop of one of them, yes. I was having too much fun with the art style 😀
Updates on marketing and advertising would be very helpful to us – the articles I saw here had 2015 dates, and I know things have vastly changed since then! Though with how things change so quickly on that front, I can get why it would be a constant hassle to try to stay on top of things.
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