How easy is book publishing? 


 Beyond the exaltation and exuberance in bringing your imagination into emotion-evoking words to give readers the best reading experience, book publishing is a matter of money. Or, in the present market sense, a business.   


Image is taken from free Pexel.com

I thought I would have published my debut story, Under the Bakula Tree by September.  

November is passing. Even now, I am not able to set a publishing date for it.  No, I wasn't sick, toiling these months in preparation for my publishing.  In September, I had no clue of what was awaiting me.

I believe many of you have a story idea inside you, itching you to bring it out to publish. Then, this post is also for you to caution you against the pitfalls waiting for you in the process and to best be aware of them to avoid falling into the traps.  

And that beyond the exaltation and exuberance in bringing out your imagination into emotion-evoking words to give the best reading experience to readers, it is a matter of money. Or, in the present market terms, a business.   

Writing is one thing, and getting published is a totally different ball game.  There are many ways to get published. I am not making it sound gloom and doom--there is always a silver line in the open sky.  

There are different ways to publish your work--traditional, self-publishing, vanity publishing, online, e-publishing are some of them. 

I chose e-publishing--Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) for my own reasons.  Here you have to manage the product quality at every stage of its progress and meet all the publishing expenses--editing the manuscript, KDP formatting and cover page design, and you should budget for them.  

The whole exercise takes a business deal nature.  The vendor should provide the details of the product or the service they offer honestly and modestly so that you as the customer can make the right choices.

I am happy that I got a professional editor--the editing rate was fixed upfront.  She addressed all my editing queries timeously and got my manuscript ready.  

The Cover Page. 

I assumed the cover page designing for an e-book would be an easy matter. So far, I approached three cover page designers, got the covers designed, but none got through because of the unacceptable business practices I faced. I don't want to pinpoint anyone--my intention is to alert other writers about the pitfalls to caution them.  

The images on your cover page should be original, created by the designer, for which you pay them. Instead, if they lift it from somewhere copyrighted to someone, Amazon would pull down your entire book.  Imagine that happening to you--I reached the brink of it--if not for my timely inquiries and researchers, I would have fallen into that trap.

You have to study the details of the terms and conditions the vendor offers you and, if necessary, bargain and seal them before you give the go-ahead.  Halfway through, if they act contrary to the initial agreement giving you some flimsy reasons like they have skill shortage, you should do the right thing--call off the deal.

And if the person you hire is unwilling to offer you the rate upfront, sweet talk you into paying them what you decide, do not smile, get wind of you are heading to get cornered in the end.  Again do the right thing--call it off. 

I have gone through all three situations. I don't know whether the people who did all those feel bad about it, but they caused immense frustration in me.  It stole away from me all the natural enthusiasm I had in September when I hoped my book would soon get published.  

Now, I have hired the fourth designer and am waiting for the outcome.  

Do you as a published author got some experience like this, please share it here.