You have one important decision to make. What are you going to call your press?
Waitaminute! say you. Whatthehelldoyoumeanmypress? I’mnotapublisher!”
Yes, you are. And put some periods between your words. You are now a publisher of one author: you.
Look, no, you don’t have to play the game. All you have to do to publish yourself on Amazon is to go to Amazon (and Barnes and Noble, and probably Kobo and others… Look, just go to Draft to digital and make an account there, but do Amazon separately for…. reasons. Trust me on this. Anyway…) and make a Kindle publisher account.
And then you can upload your book, manage it, etc, all that stuff.
BUT… look, I know if you’re a writer you’ve been aware of the existence of indie publishing forever, give or take some million of years. But the average reader out there? They have no clue, save that self-published books are bad. (Because for years, they were literally vanity publishing.)
Now, if you don’t have a press name, they’ll wonder. And some idiots will give you a bad review because, well, who are you to do this. in fact if you have a typo, they’ll pound on it. (And everyone has typos. No matter how copyedited your book is.)
If you have a press name, though? Well, the press publishes you. And most people have absolutely no clue how many publishers there are. And even I am at a loss to keep track of all the imprints of trad pub.
So, get a press name, look official. The correct term is Single-author press, btw.
Pick a name. either a a deeply significant name, or one you just happen to like.
How official your press needs to be depends on a lot of things, including the state you live in. Our press is Goldport Press, and it’s family-owned, to make things easier should something untoward and sudden happen to Dan and I. It would allow the kids to go on without a hiccup. It is very official, with corportate headquarters distinct from our place of residence and contracts for how they get to publish my books.
Does yours need to be that complex? Probably not. Unless you have kids who are interested in and likely to manage your work after you’re gone.
But you might want to protect and claim the name, and if you end up making decent money incorporation might make taxes easier to deal with. (You probably won’t make decent money from one book alone, but you know? It’s better to be prepared.) At a very minimum, your press should have its own bank account, so you can keep separate track of income and expenses.
Some states will require you to register your press as a small business, to have a registered business to have a bank account. And some will simply let you have a bank account. Check with your state.
And then go ahead and get your accounts established with at least Amazon and Draft to Digital.
Next week: COVERS
Mad Genius Club 
36 responses to “Now Your Book Is Polished”
Thanks for all the indie publishing advice. Looking forward to your article on covers.
At present I just put in my name as I reissue stories on Amazon, in the past I just made up a name with no actual legal or financial identity at all. I live in NY State and establishing even an LLC here is expensive due to the legally required printed notices in several “newspapers of record”. Creating an LLC here would cost hundreds of dollars, and I am currently making about candy bar money here, every so often I get a little royalty payment that might add up, to a candy bar every year. But I do no promotion and my blurbs and keywords are probably badly outdated.
A free convo with an AI chatbot can be surprisingly helpful on the blurb and keyword front, at least in the sense of getting you started. Usually common sense will tell you which bits to discard.
I did get an AI to read and analyze my old stories and generate 250 word reviews. I can probably repurpose some lines from those. The keyword analysis will have to wait a bit longer.
I also have another one just about ready to republish on Amazon, but it has been in that state for months. Figure maybe I should just finish off the other couple of old stories and release in quick succession. Also thinking maybe I can use ComfyUI to change the style of the covers from “DAZ 3d render” to something a bit more illustration or painting like. Pretty much dont even bother with DAZ anymore as it takes so long to setup, light, and render a scene that is any good.
I am a very minor dabbler when it comes to ComfyUI, but my impression is that a Daz image run through an image to image workflow should work well, if only because the source image is telling it how many fingers the character needs to have, etc. You will probably want to make sure whatever model you use in comfy allows for commercial use of output.
I have been teaching myself ComfyUI and experimenting on and off for almost 2 years now. I may not have been writing but hopefully this will be useful in making covers and promotional art.
That sounds like a smart move! Can you recommend any good tutorials?
Some of this may be a little out of date, but it explains the general principles pretty well.
If you don’t want to mess with maintaining python code dependencies for local generation, just install Stability Matrix, you can then install an instance of ComfyUI inside the manged environment. It is great at downloading models and LORAs from CivitAI and Hugging Face as well, uses a central local model library.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zko_s2LO9Wo
the creator of that series actually has a more updated series of videos,
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-pohOSaL8P-FhSw1Iwf0pBGzXdtv4DZC
Thank you!
If you have a general idea of what keywords you need, from past experience or the ai reviews of your stories, you could maybe try opening an incognito browser tab, going to amazon, and typing the start of the keyword string. The autocomplete suggestion(s) should tell you what the most searched for version(s) of that keyword phrase is/are. Slow and tedious, but also free.
Yes but what keywords to use for a pulp sci-fi/ thriller/romance mashup? Or a story about a prehistoric man encountering an alien in sort of man vs nature scenario? I tend to mash genres up a lot.
Well, how did the ai describe then?
Er “them”
Here is one review I had it generate: “
An Electrifying
Slice of Vintage Space Opera
In Jeopardy off
Jupiter IV, Spencer E. Hart delivers a thrilling, high-octane
throwback to the Golden Age of pulp science fiction. Set against the
vast, unforgiving backdrop of the Jovian system, the story follows
Lieutenant Osiris Jackson, a resolute officer of the Jovian Guard, as
a routine patrol abruptly escalates into an international crisis.
When a distressed civilian vessel disabled near Callisto hides both a
sabotage plot and high-stakes political intrigue, Jackson is thrust
into a perilous series of spacewalk rescues, zero-gravity brawls, and
lethal standoffs.
Hart’s narrative
shines brightest in its technical staging and kinetic action.
Spacewalks and vacuum combat are rendered with meticulous physical
detail—utilizing magnetic boots, thruster-guns, and suit-tether
mechanics to create genuine, white-knuckle tension. Rather than
slowing the narrative down, these realistic physical constraints
amplify the stakes, resulting in sequence after sequence of tight,
pulse-pounding drama. Complemented by a crisp, mid-century prose
style and a subtle thread of understated romance, the story moves at
an unflagging, cinematic pace.
This tale is a
absolute delight for enthusiasts of classic speculative fiction,
retro-futurism, and hardboiled interplanetary adventure. Readers who
cherish the timeless charm of mid-century space opera—replete with
bold heroes, hidden royal identities, and tense void-bound
battles—will find Jeopardy off Jupiter IV to be an utterly
captivating ride.
“
Heck I should go post those on my blog if anybody is still reading it after 2 years since last post.
Possible keywords to test based on this: space opera, pulp science fiction, political intrigue, retrofuturism, secret identity, hidden king (or queen or prince etc)
Well, then FIX THEM.
I went with Jaglion Press because I tend to write unclassifiable genre mashups, and a jaglion is the offspring of a jaguar and a lion. The initial logo i made in Daz studio was pretty bad, but the one Midjourney made for me, 2-3 years and a million versions ago, has served me pretty well. I went with the press name as my social media handle because I was expecting the pen names to be more fluid than they actually ended up being.
Wizard’s Wood Press. A sole proprietorship.
Texas makes it very, very easy to set up a sole-proprietor or small business LLC. The state is trying to encourage things like this, and their website is helpful. (I almost wonder if, like probate law, someone had a terrible experience with a small business registration in another state and said, “OK, here’s what we are NOT going to do.”)
What a coincidink. Sarah, you know my situation at the moment, but I have another problem concerning self-pub. I went to Ingram’s website to sign up, but they want to have a picture of my ID. What?! I already gave them the info for paying. Do they ask everyone for their ID? Why would they need it? Will they not allow you to use IS if you don’t? They haven’t answered me yet. I see no reason for them to have a copy of my ID. Is there some legal reason? I’ve heard you need to use both Amazon and Ingram to have the best chance to get your book into the hands of readers. Last thing I want is to have someone get my real name, address, and credit card number from the system. Does anyone know?
I’ve never gone to Ingram.
Has anyone else tried the Ingram route? It makes no sense to me why they would need a picture of my ID to create an account and upload books.
Becaause they want to use your ID
also to make sure it’s not Chinese scammers who use AI to upload 100 books a day. Which is really hard to combat by other means.
Well, if the two of you think it’s standard… I guess I’ll think about it. I don’t want to skip a possible distribution channel. I wonder if they promise the information is completely safe?
I’ve never set up an account with Ingram. You can print your book through Amazon, so….
I was gonna go ahead, but I keep getting told my state requires a business license to self publish anywhere. I can’t send in a story to a magazine or contest that pays $5, or even take tips on a free substack without being liable for citation. This state is very unfriendly to independent writers. I guess I’ll either have to save money for a license, or see if I can interest a small press in publishing my stuff. Either that or just press “delete.”
I don’t think that’s true, but talk to a lawyer in your state.
However in years of knowing professional writers and attending conferences, I NEVER heard of that, and I’d have
I found a free “ask a lawyer” website and asked the questions. There’s supposed to be a lawyer practicing in my state who would answer the question. At some time, who knows when, so….
I got asked for my DL and said to myself ‘big nope’.
Ingram finally answered me and gave the same info that Sarah and snelson gave above. Trying to keep bots out. We’ll see what I decide after I hear on the business license front.
I’m slowly learning what I need to know on the business end. I added my imprint, “Dragon in the Rain Press” https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mbEqdX4bSObsMBJbfZ–sjmI5IqnsVnv/view?usp=sharing for my paperbacks. Still haven’t done Ingram yet, but I do have ISBN numbers.
Hey, eventually I may even be a professional at this thing! 🙂
PS I liked CTT Oil Exploration and Cattle and Billy Bob Thornton’s explanation for the name. IYKYK.