How to Publish the Damn Book: How to Finish the Damn Book

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: What It Means to Be an Author

Accepting the Business Side of Writing

Becoming a Small Business Owner

The Role of Marketing

Knowing When You’re Ready to Publish

Pen Names and Their Role

You will need to do business under your legal name.

Your pen name is your brand.

You shouldn’t change your pen name without serious thought.

Should I have multiple pen names?

Chapter 2: How to Think Like a Businessperson

Making Business Decisions

Cost-Benefit Analysis

I’d get So how do we do a cost-benefit analysis?

Questions to Ask

Financial Considerations

Recognizing Market Trends

Writing to Market

Separating Art from Business

Chapter 3: Paths to Publication

Benefits and Drawbacks of the Paths

Doing the Math

Choosing the Correct Path for You

Can you absorb the overhead?

Are you able to put in the work?

Is this a career or a hobby?

Are you able and willing to learn the ins and outs of the business?

Can you handle rejection and criticism?

Busting Publishing Myths

Myth #1: If you write it, they will come.

Myth #2: Editors are the antagonists of the writing world.

Myth #3: Being traditionally published means you don’t have to market.

Myth #4: Traditional publishing is dead.

Myth #5: Everyone can, and should, self-publish.

Myth #6: All gatekeeping is bad.

Myth #7: You need to choose one type of publishing and do that forever.

Chapter 4: Traditional Publishing

Choosing Who to Submit Your Manuscript To

Do You Need an Agent?

Query Letters and How to Write Them

Query Basics

Why the Guidelines Matter

What Acquisitions Editors Look For

Writing a Synopsis

Talking About Yourself

Handling Rejection

Identifying Scams and Vanity Presses

Chapter 5: Publishing in a Nutshell

The Elements of Publishing

Editing

Design (Interior)

Blurb Writing

Typesetting

Distribution

Marketing

The Flow of Work

Book Polishing

Design and Layout

Publishing Preparation

Realistic Timelines

Required Elements

Chapter 6: Purchasing Guide

ISBNs

Membership to Author Organizations

Book Awards

The Costs of Doing Business

Paid Book Reviews

Chapter 7: Working with Professionals

Why Hiring Professionals Makes a Difference

Where to Find Professionals

Care and Feeding of Professionals

Book Professional Myth Busting

Professional editors aren’t going to steal your book

We are likely to be direct and honest about what we think

We don’t judge typos in your emails or messages

Not all professionals provide regular or frequent updates

5) We cannot read your mind

We are going to be very serious about avoiding scope creep

Some professionals absolutely will never talk to you on the phone

Asking us to sign an NDA immediately is usually a red flag

Addressing the Cost Problem

Chapter 8: Hiring an Editor

The Types of Editing

Book Coaching

Manuscript Assessment

Developmental Editing

Line Editing

Copy Editing

Proofreading

Why Editing is So Expensive

How to Vet Your Editor

Obtain a sample edit

Review their website

Check professional organization affiliations

Ask around and see if you can find clients of theirs in writing groups

Review their social media, blogs, and articles

Ask about their contract

Identifying Scammers

Chapter 9: Typesetting Crash Course

Typesetting Introduction and Software

Basic Principles and Lexicon

Font choice is an art form

Accessibility is not a buzzword

The small details really matter

Typesetting and formatting are not an afterthought

Font Choices

What You Need to Know

What Fonts to Choose and How to Choose Them

Heading Fonts

Body Fonts

Interior Design

Ebook vs. Print

Why Not Word?

Chapter 10: Distribution Decisions

Keywords and Why They Matter

Your Backmatter

To KU or Not to KU

Distribution Options

Summary

Key Takeaways

Chapter 11: Marketing Principles

When to Start Marketing

Viewing Yourself as a Public Figure

Creating Your Author Brand

Why You Need a Website

The Role of Social Media

Content Creation and Planning

The Value of Newsletters

The Introversion Crisis

Interacting with Fans

Chapter 12: Finding Your Target Audience

Identifying Your Target Audience

Creating Your Reader Avatar

Non-Fiction

Fiction

Connecting with your target audience

To Niche Down or Not

Why You Can’t Please Everyone

Chapter 13: Social Media for Authors

Finding Places to Be

Social Media Etiquette for Public Figures

Do not complain about poor sales

Don’t tear down others

Don’t reply to reviews unless it’s thanking them or using them as marketing material

Deeply consider posts about political and social issues

Check your ego

What Not to Share in Public

The Internet Remembers

Chapter 14: Advertising

The Difference Between Marketing and Advertising

Where the Funnel Breaks Down

Advertising Principles

Honesty

Brand Consistency

Originality

Simplicity

Money Doesn’t Fix Everything

Choosing Where to Advertise

Graphic Design Principles for Advertising

Accessibility

Color and Branding

Font Choice

Image Quality

Copy Writing Principles

The Purpose of Copy

Copy Writing Basics

Where to Use Copy

Chapter 15: Author Events

Types of Author Events

Book Club Invitation

Public Reading or Signing

Vending at an Event

Speaking at a Conference

Planning for Author Events

Is this event physical or virtual?

Do I need to bring my own books?

What kind of location is the event?

Do I need to travel to attend this event?

What am I doing at this event?

How to Be a Speaker

How to Fake It ‘Til You Make It

Physical Confidence

Vocal Confidence

Behavioral Confidence

Event Preparation Checklist

Final Thoughts

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Hello, friend! I am Ellis Prybylski (a.k.a. E. Prybylski) and have been in the publishing industry as a professional since 2008. I am of Celtic descent and a non-binary trans person, autistic, and have ADHD. I’m leading with those things because if any of those elements shock or dismay you, I am not likely someone you want to spend your time with.

I am the head of Insomnia Self-Publishing Services and the head administrator of the Neurodivergent Publishing Conference. At the time of writing this, I serve as the New England chapter head for the Editorial Freelancers Association and am working with Author Nation to develop their New England presence as well. I share these things not to tell you how important I am, but to give you an idea of where my experience and credentials lie when I talk about publishing.

Please feel free to contact me if you have questions this book doesn’t answer. Send me a message, and I’ll gladly help where I can or guide you to my coaching services if it’s a question we can’t answer quickly together.

In addition to the above things, I am an author, a tabletop role-playing game nerd, a musician, a historian and reenactor (Society for Creative Anachronism), a martial artist and fencer, and a gamer. Honestly, I’m never sure what to put into these things. My social media is mostly photos of my cats, bad jokes, and writing advice. I am nothing if not a collection of weird hobbies in a trench coat.

At the end of the day, I’m just a human being meandering my way through life just like you are. I have experience that I think could be useful to others, and after repeating the advice in this book so many times I feel like I could write it in my sleep, I decided to put this work together.

So what is this book for? It’s to act as a guide. Publishing is a big world, and there are so many moving parts that figuring out where the hell to start can feel like an impossible task. Particularly for neurodivergent folks like myself, though it can be true for anybody.

In the rest of these pages, you will find the distillation of my sixteen years (at time of writing) of industry experience. Throughout my career, I have worked for traditional publishers, owned a traditional publishing company myself, and worked extensively with indie authors. I don’t believe in smoke in mirrors, and there is no secret sauce. What’s in these pages are lessons you could learn on your own if you spent sixteen years studying the industry like I have.

I am not the only expert on this material, and I highly encourage you to read more than one book on the subject of writing and publishing. Take whatever of this works for you and leave what doesn’t. What works for one person may not work for another, but I have done my absolute best to put the most evergreen, useful advice I have into this work.

What this book represents is a way for you to develop your publishing strategy. Tactics will change. Specific outlets will come and go as social media changes. However, strategy is a broader, deeper thing based on longer-term principles and ideas. The landscape of publishing can and will change. I’ve witnessed incredible revolutions taking place in the sphere, and I am friends with people who’ve been in the biz for fifty years or more and have seen yet more changes than I have. Those changes, however, do not delete the principles I share in this book. If you understand nothing else, please take away the underpinnings of why I share this information. I do everything I can to give you as much insight into my reasons as possible, and that is going to provide you more mileage than the specific tactics that may come and go overnight as technology advances and as new platforms and methods grow, bloom, and die.

Chapter 1: What It Means to Be an Author

Choosing to be an author versus a writer is one of those decisions you should spend some time sitting with. It’s a choice that will affect your life for a long time and comes with a lot of other elements that you may or may not have considered. This chapter is going to discuss the elements of being an author and what comes along with it in an attempt to help you decide if this is really for you.

I want to be very clear about the fact that if this isn’t for you, there is no shame in that. You are allowed to write for fun and share it for free on various platforms to connect with others. Publishing professionally is a completely different animal than writing for fun, and we need to acknowledge that elephant in the room. In fact, publishing professionally is not for everyone. You can be just as valid and wonderful a writer without ever publishing for money, and I don’t want anyone to think they either need to do this or quit writing.

We live in a culture that doesn’t appreciate people doing art for art’s sake, and that reality drives a lot of people to turn hobbies they’re passionate about into businesses they end up hating. I don’t want that for you. If you are choosing to be an author, I want you to do it with your eyes open and full awareness of what that will mean for you.

All that said, being an author is rewarding, exciting, and wonderful. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. My intent here is not to in any way make you feel like you’re going to fail at it. In fact, this whole book is dedicated to trying to help you succeed in every way I know how.

Accepting the Business Side of Writing

One of the first things to address in this whole book is the fact that, when we choose to publish—from the minute we start taking that seriously and regarding it as more than a pipe dream—we have to consider the realities of writing as a business.

This means that, while we are of course artists in our own right, we have to become more than that pretty quickly. For those who are not prepared for this, the need to view their work as a business proposition is often an unpleasant surprise.

If you’ve bought this book, I presume you already know that writing a book is more than drafting something and then slapping it up on Amazon with a cover you made in Microsoft Paint. And if you didn’t know that before, you definitely do now! The business of book publishing is complex and specific and requires industry knowledge in order to be successful.

In many ways, it’s very similar to operating any small business: You have to make decisions about your finances, your work, your ROI, your costs, and come to a conclusion about the best possible choice for you. As such, please recognize that my advice here isn’t one size fits all. While I can provide principles, information, and ideas, you may have needs not addressed in this book. Some of my recommendations may also not fit your unique situation.

Should you be in a situation where none of my advice feels right, you can absolutely hire a large variety of professionals to coach you through making the decisions you need to make. There are also a huge number of writing organizations out there with people whose brains you can pick. Of course, some are more trustworthy and knowledgeable than others, so caveat emptor.

When I talk about accepting the business side of writing, however, what I mean is knowing that you have to step outside the bounds of writing for fun. When writing becomes a business, it comes with challenges and pressures that differ from choices about your manuscript. While writing, you are focused on the art, but when you start considering publication, you must look at your work and writing with new eyes: as a product on a shelf.

We’re going to go through this step by step together and talk over what that entails. For now, however, take a moment and sit with that reality. From here on out, we are talking about your book as we would any product on a store shelf. That means it’s not your brainchild so much as it is something you are trying to sell to others.

This mentality is going to help you in the long run with making assessments for your business. If you don’t have some of that degree of separation from your work when making these decisions, you will fall into traps. I am not, of course, suggesting that you stop caring about your work, your characters, your world, or your artistic integrity. Far from it. However, we need to care about them differently and view them through the lens of: How do I make this product worth the money people are going to invest in it?

Whether you are publishing traditionally or on your own, you are asking people to invest in the product and in you. Whether it’s investing the money to produce the book (which is not a small amount of money) or whether it’s the cost of purchasing the book or even the costs of doing business, these are all financial decisions and must be made with a business eye.

Becoming a Small Business Owner

I went to business school for several years before transitioning my degree over into history, so this concept fit me better than it fits many authors who see writing as a hobby they might make money at. However, much as we need to accept that publishing books means we need to see our writing through business eyes, it also means we need to see ourselves through business eyes.

As soon as you publish a book, you are no longer just a private citizen. You can, and should, keep elements of your life private, but publishing a book means that you, or a persona you create for a pen name, become a public figure. You become a business owner. And the product you’re selling is, ultimately, yourself.

I’m not suggesting you necessarily go out and file paperwork to become an LLC, though it’s a good option if you intend to self-publish because it provides certain legal protections. The mental exercise of considering yourself as a businessperson is more about capturing that mindset more than it is the brass tacks of business ownership. That said, you really should keep track of the things you purchase for your author work because they count as business expenses on your taxes. I’m not an accountant, so I’m not going to give you specific financial advice on that score, but it’s something to keep in mind.

Viewing all the decisions you’re going to need to make for your book as business and financial decisions—from choosing whether to self-publish or traditional or hybrid—will help some with the overwhelm, too. If you are feeling like this is all too much and too frightening and want to hide in a hole somewhere, that’s okay. The good thing is business decisions can be broken down into pros and cons; they are finite, and they are specific.

It’s not an ephemeral business, business, business, numbers (is this working?) situation. There’s a concrete, logical flow you can use to make these assessments, and feeling like you’ve got a handle on it will come from two sources: experience and knowledge. If you don’t have experience yet—which I suspect you don’t, if you’re reading this book—you will gain knowledge. When you understand the decision you need to make, and you know the impact it will have on you and on your goals, it becomes far easier to make the decision.

The Role of Marketing

I’m going to bust this myth again later in the book, but let me state here right in the beginning: Whether you publish traditionally or on your own, you will be responsible for your marketing. Traditional publishers will support your marketing efforts, amplify your voice, and put money toward advertising, but they are not going to do all your marketing. That old chestnut has been floating around at least since I started in the publishing world sixteen years ago. It’s probably been around longer than that, if I’m honest, and it’s never been true. I’ve had conversations with bestselling authors who started publishing before I was born. They had to buy books, load them into a wagon, and sell them door-to-door to bookstores.

There will be a lot on marketing in the scope of this guide, but for the purposes of beginning the conversation about it, let’s think about what marketing is and isn’t.

Marketing is, in essence, any action you take that helps other people know you’ve written a book. That’s it. Anything you do to let people know you’ve written a book or are an author is marketing. It’s a broad category of activities all together under a single umbrella. While the concept of it usually terrifies creatives, it’s a lot less horrible than we think if we break it down into bite-sized pieces.

In book publishing, the role of marketing is to sell your books. Nobody on the planet is going to sell your books in a vacuum. Even if you hire a publicist or are lucky enough to have one assigned to you, you are going to need to take actions to engage with fans, raise visibility, and tell people about your work. A publicist might book events, create social media content, and find ways to get eyes on you, but you’re not going to be out of the spotlight. You are still going to have to do the work, too. A publicist just takes certain elements of that work off your plate.

Knowing When You’re Ready to Publish

The first question you need to ask yourself in this whole process is this: Is my book ready? Knowing the answer to that will give you valuable insight into where you are in the scope of things and what steps you need to take at the current time to achieve your goal of publishing your book.

Answering this question is pretty simple, and it can be found in the format of the first book of this series. Did you take the steps outlined in that book?

Have you:

Finished writing the book?

Self-edited the book to the best of your ability?

Sent the book to beta readers and revised based on their feedback?

If the answer to all those questions is yes, then you’re ready to prepare for the process of publishing it. If the answer to any of those questions is no, then I suggest pumping the brakes and finishing whatever elements you haven’t yet. Your book doesn’t need to be perfect before starting the publication process—particularly since you’ll likely be working with a professional editor at some point—but it needs to be as good as you can get it.

This might get me some flak from people who despise prescriptive advice, and I’ve been called a gatekeeper before because I have strong opinions on this matter. However, I’m going to tell you this anyway because I believe it is extremely important information for you to have: Your first completed manuscript of your life is unlikely to be publishable when you finish it.

This isn’t to say your first story is not something you should keep, but in no other industry do people think your first produced work is something worth selling. For visual artists, nobody thinks the first stick figure they put together should go up for sale on Etsy. For musicians, the first song they ever wrote probably isn’t going up on Spotify. The same is true for authors. If you have never finished a manuscript