For my first novel, Murphy’s Troubles, I self-published on Create Space, which is wholly owned by Amazon.  One advantage is that Amazon automatically lists the book.  I wanted complete control of the entire process and Create Space allows that or there are services that can be purchased through Create Space.  Authors are also assigned a personal publication assistant to give advice and answer questions about the process.   The assistant can be called anytime and you are guaranteed a response within 24 hours.  I got to know my publication assistant very well.  My learning method is to ask a lot of questions and my assistant was always helpful and understood the stupidity of my questions.  I devoted four months to doing nothing but working with Create Space to publish that first novel.

It was a learning experience but I didn’t want to repeat it.  I read several writers’ magazines and learned about a new model for independent authors called assisted publishing.  In this model an independent company offers an array of publication services for fee.  One stop shopping for the author.  I contacted one firm in Minnesota and received a quote of $10,000 to publish my second novel.  It took me several days to recover from sticker shock.  The company representative demanded a response the same day I received the quote, I refused to respond.  Several days later I responded that I would need to raise $8000 from crowd funding to accept their offer – never heard from them again.

I decided that using Create Space independently was the path for me.  I contacted the copyeditor I worked with on Murphy’s Troubles to have her copyedit Out of Darkness.  I shared my experience with the Minnesota company and she told me she had started her own publishing company.   I asked her to prepare a quote for me.  She gave me a detailed quote and I was pleasantly surprised at the difference in price.  In addition to publishing the trade paperback she will release both Murphy’s Troubles and Out of Darkness as e-books.  It helped that she offered a 25% discount because we had worked together previously.  I didn’t need to do any crowd funding to work with her.

I agreed immediately and Out of Darkness will be published by CK Books publishing in June.  To learn more about my publisher go to:  ckbookspublishing.com.      

At my request my publisher, CK Books Publishing, is using Create Space to create my second novel, Out of Darkness.  I self-published my first novel, Murphy’s Troubles, with Create Space in 2013 and was astonished at the quality of the book.  I also like how easy it is to order my own copies of the book and find the pricing from Create Space fair; I am able to retain 65%.

After the editing is completed and the cover meets Create Space specifications the next step is to order a proof copy of the book.  There are two choices, either order a hard copy or download a pdf file.  Create Space recommends ordering a hard copy proof for the first proofreading.  This week I ordered a hard copy proof of Out of Darkness.

Receiving a proof copy of my novel is exhilarating.  This is the stage where all the hard work comes to fruition.  The day I received my proof of Murphy’s Troubles I ripped open the box and there it was smothered in bubble wrap.  I took it out of the box with great care.  I fanned the pages and admired both the paper color and the font.  A book, I’ve written a book, I thought.  It took me three days before I could calm myself sufficiently to begin the hard work of proofing the copy.

The most important reason to proofread from a hard copy is that it is easier to actually “see” those little things that must be changed to have a high quality publication.  It’s just not the same as reading a pdf file on your laptop or tablet.

The process for Out of Darkness is different.  I’ve hired a professional proofreader and will relinquish the task.  I was embarrassed that even after three separate proofs with Murphy’s Troubles, re-reading last year to prepare for a book discussion group I found 46 errors.  It wasn’t perfect.  For a small fee I corrected those errors and re-published the book.  I gave away my remaining copies of the error latent version, explaining to readers that they would find errors.  It is worth every penny to have a professional proofreader correct Out of Darkness.

        

I don’t understand book covers.  I know it’s important.  If and when books are displayed either at a bookstore or online I know a cover can either attract or repel potential readers.  For me, working on the book cover with a graphic artist/designer begins after the manuscript has been cleaned and scrubbed and ready for the first proof.  My timing might me a problem because the book cover becomes a snag in the publishing process.

My publisher found a book cover designer/artist to draw a cover for Out of Darkness.  The artist was given a copy of the manuscript to read in order to develop a cover concept.  After two months I was sent a very rough hand drawn sketch of two IRA fights crouched behind a wall aiming rifles into the distant nowhere.  Not to be too critical, but, my four year old grandson could have drawn the sketches I was given.  More important to be was that the sketches didn’t reflect the story at all.  The sketches gave the appearance of the standard “IRA guys fighting in the street”.  It was painfully clear the artist never glanced at the manuscript.

In order to set the direction straight I clarified that I wanted the book cover to include an image of a peace wall in Belfast because they are central to the story.  I then searched the web for free images of the peace walls and sent several examples to my publisher to share with the cover artist.  The cover artist was offended and wasn’t interested in working with images, they wanted to only work on creative drawing so they quit.

No problem.  The publisher agreed to find a graphic designer who could work with images.  The publisher found a person and shared the wall images I had previously sent as examples.  The graphic designer then searched the web and found other images and sent them to me for consideration.  I didn’t like any of the images and some of them had been altered to give a different perspective of the image.  Several weeks go by and I received a second set of images to consider, again it was a bust.  Finally, my publisher said maybe the graphic artist shouldn’t select the book cover image, just use them for the graphics.

I again searched the web and found 20 images I thought would make a good book cover and asked the graphic designer to choose several from among them and design the fonts to use.  I thought it would be easy.  It wasn’t.  Graphic designers just can’t leave things alone; they have to play with the images.  What I received back was a set of images looking at a peace wall as if you were lying on your back next to it and looking toward the sky.  Really?

Next it took over a week to select a font, font size, and number of lines for the title.  With a three word title you wouldn’t think there are that many options but a graphic designer has a different viewpoint.

Yesterday I sent final instructions to my publisher or edits to the most recent book cover.  We are very close to the final.  The book cover looks great and it is unique which I hope will draw readers like a magnet.