The author of the dystopian series Convulsive shares his self-publishing journey
The explosion of print has democratised fiction enormously. Instead of hearing only from those with the right financial and social means, we live in a century where underrepresented voices are increasingly heard. But this crucial shift means that it is hard to get your voice heard above the cacophony, and major publishing houses can seem impenetrable.
The UK sees approximately 184,000 new books published every year, a daunting figure for an aspirational novelist with a story they’re desperate to get out there bristling at their fingertips.
It is, of course, possible, as Fiona Mozley demonstrated earlier this year with her debut novel Elmet (which she wrote in increments, on her phone, on a train). Her appearance in the Man Booker Prize shortlist looked everything like the budding writer’s dream. But in numerous interviews, she has stressed the sheer amount of work that is put into a novel, and that the published result is only the visible tip of the iceberg.
Marcus Martin, award-winning author and writer of the dystopian thriller series Convulsive, decided to self-publish his works and shares his highs and lows of the process as well as sharing his tips on how to self-publish.
How did you self-publish?
Amazon KDP.
What was the process like?
The first time around, I found it quite cumbersome – there was a steep learning curve. It’s not a case of one click and you’re away. I frequently encounter well-intentioned friends who say ‘yeah, you can just self-publish these days’. The word ‘just’ belies an ignorance as to the hours involved in getting to that stage!
On the one hand, we’re incredibly lucky to live in an age when it’s possible to publish both eBooks and on-demand-print editions with potentially no cost outlay to the author (other than their labour). EBooks and on-demand printing are barely a decade old. It’s a great opportunity for authors to create an end product without gatekeepers.
The actual self-publication via Amazon’s online KDP facility is fairly straightforward. They’ve produced a detailed step-by-step guide for every stage, which is invaluable, but it still takes some brainpower to do it all properly the first time.
My first tip is: if you’re planning on competing with conventionally-published books, don’t regard self-publishing as a free exercise. Producing a professional-standard book comes with costs attached. Sad but true! The professional polishing is what publishing houses bring to bear, and replacing those services is one of the challenges of self-publishing.
The actual submission process online is the end of a long journey. After writing, getting feedback from your most critical friends and family, then editing and re-writing your book, there are several stages remaining: line editing, graphic design, website/social media plan, typesetting, and then going through the final hoops of uploading your files.
Each step takes time, and from the outside can feel overwhelming (especially when you’re thinking you’ve already written the bugger and just want to get it out there!). If you’re smart with your time, you can get one ball rolling while chipping away at the next step.
Line editing usually takes around a month or more for your editor to make the changes, for you to review them, and for them to do a final proofread. These services would historically have been paid for out of a writer’s advance, but self-published authors have to foot the bill themselves. For a 90,000 word novel you’re easily looking at over £1,000 for this sort of service.
The fact that all professional authors depend on such services suggests they’re worthwhile, but it’s still a fairly huge outlay for an aspiring indie writer! This is where you have to decide how much you’re willing to invest in your own writing – do you just want to get it out there, or do you want to compete with conventionally-published books, in terms of final quality?
Line-editing isn’t a panacea for bad plots or hammy characters, but a good editor can sharpen your writing by bringing a healthy level of detachment to the work, and a level of professional perspective that your friends and family are unlikely to have brought (unless they work in publishing!). If you want to produce professional work, be prepared to invest in it – so start saving now.
The next cost you’ll encounter is graphic designers. You know that phrase, ‘don’t judge a book by its cover?’ Yeah… A good cover is vital. If the cover looks amateurish, or like you whipped it up yourself in MS Paint, people will assume your writing is equally crappy. Happily, cover design is a fraction of the cost of line-editing.
A professional designer may charge around £100-£200 for a book cover, but you might be able to persuade a friend or graphic design student with photoshop to do it for £50. I saved on costs by only using royalty-free images (here’s a great list of free image sites), and by paying a friend. He did a great job, and was also able to produce essential thumbnail artwork (stacked piles of your book etc – see my examples here), which you’ll need for press releases, social media, and websites.
Having a clear idea of what you’re envisaging will save on design and editing time. By ear-marking all your source images first, you can create a crude mockup for your designer to turn into something beautiful. If your design is done by a friend offering you mates rates, remember to credit them on the inside cover with a link to their website.
Before your designer can start, you’ll need to have decided what size your print book will be. Amazon has loads of templates on their KDP site, which show the bleed areas, spine text, barcode space etc. Don’t let your designer start without giving them the precise measurements first, and which areas to leave blank. Also ensure they export the file in CMYK format.
The blurb: I hate writing blurbs. You’ve just spent a couple of years working on an intricate full-length novel and have to reduce it to maybe eighty words, none of which are spoilers – that’s tricky! Fortunately, help is at hand: study the blurbs of the best-selling books in your genre. This will give you an idea of how to pitch your book to the world.
So, designer summary: they’ll need a template, blurb, images, clear instructions (a rough mockup), and a deadline. Agreeing realistic deadlines for first drafts and subsequent revisions is important.
While you’re waiting for your cover art, you can get on with typesetting your book. Read up on what fonts are conventional for your genre, and go with something easy to read. Then check your publishing facility’s guidelines (again, Amazon tells you what you need to do). It took me around a day just to come up with the fonts I wanted to use for body text and chapter headings, what spacing, indent, etc to use. But I now use that in all my books, and don’t have to think about it, so it’s worth the faff.
Uploading: once you’ve set up your KDP account, you’ll then need to save and upload your book and artwork in different formats. The requirements are different for the print and eBook versions. Sometimes a bug will crop up whereby a single letter in italics slips outside of the print bleed margin (this happened to me – infuriating, when you’ve taken care to set the right margins!), so allow a few hours extra. Same goes for creating HTML-enabled word docs for Amazon to convert to eBook files. But they have guides on how to do this, at least.
Once you’ve uploaded all your files, it’ll take a couple of days for the paperback to be available. Order a print copy, and have a thumb through – are you happy with the artwork colouring? The typesetting? Now’s the time to make changes, before you shout about it.
While your order’s being printed, set up a Facebook author page (see mine as an example – Facebook.com/marcusmartinauthor). Prepare your thumbnail artwork and maybe a video to upload. Once you’re happy with your book, get photos/videos of you with it, talking about it, on your page and invite everyone you know to like it!
How long did it take?
The preparatory stages took several weeks. Once all the typsetting/design etc is finalised, allow a further couple of days of experimenting, tweaking, and bug-fixing for your first publications. Then the second time around you could probably get it done in under half an hour, if you’ve got all your ducks in a row, because you’ve got your own templates and style sorted, and know how it works!
Why did you self-publish? What led to the decision?
I think writing is much like the music industry these days – it’s so competitive, and there’s such an oversupply of budding talent, that most authors need to prove their viability to publishers first, before they’ll be considered for a deal.
Publishers’ margins are under huge pressure from online rivals, meaning they take as little risk as possible. As a newcomer, one way you can reassure a publisher that you’re worth the gamble is by building a readership yourself. It’s about seeing your book as a product that has to sell, if you want your writing to pay the bills.
That doesn’t mean you have to betray your artistic integrity – it just means you have to find your readers, and convince them to give your book a shot. Keep doing that, and hopefully you’ll convince a major publisher to do the same.
What have been the pros and cons?
Pros: my books have transitioned from that nebulous, aspirational concept to irrefutable, tangible novels. Frankly, people take your writing aspirations more seriously when you see a project as complex as a book through to completion. Don’t underestimate how important print copies are, too. Ebooks are great for people trying out new readers at low cost, but a physical paperback is something you can show people – I’ve been astonished at the difference that makes.
Cons: your profit margin is tiny. Expect to make around £1 for each book sold. Out of that, you’ve got to try and recoup your line-editing and design costs, not to mention your own time. To put that in context, you’d need to sell around 14,000 books a year to earn minimum wage as a self-published author.
That’s around 40 new readers each day. How are you going to reach those people? This is where marketing costs will creep in. You’re trying to get noticed in a crowded place, at the same time as proving yourself – that’s gonna take time, so buckle in for the long haul, and maybe don’t expect to eat for the next decade or so…
What were your various options?
I went with Amazon because of the ease and the size of their consumer base, plus the fact that there was no stock outlay required on my part.
What has it been like since they were published?
There have been peaks and troughs in sales, which directly correlate with my marketing efforts – from book launches (more expenditure, but essential for publicity), to KDP free giveaways (requires enrolment in KDP select, but only applies to your eBook sales). The main thing to note is that if you don’t constantly promote them in new ways to reach new readers, your sales will flat line. Again, you’re replacing a publishing house, it’s not easy! But having your work in print and seeing it online as a good motivator to persevere.
What inspired you to start writing?
I actually started messing around writing sitcom spec scripts while doing my music undergrad, then got into writing scripted student comedy radio as a postgrad, then stage plays, then books. Hard to pinpoint what inspired me to start – I think just a love of the fiction I was consuming, and a desire to engage creatively with the world around me.
What advice would you give to people who want to self-publish but don’t know where to start?
Don’t think you have to write War and Peace first time round! Start small, and develop your ideas. Ask for feedback at every turn – you’ll learn whose feedback to trust, whose to disregard, and through that you’ll learn more about your own writing style. A try different things – find your niche. I write short stories in between each volume of my sci-fi series Convulsive, to keep my writing fresh, and to try out new ideas. But these appeal to very different audiences – so if you do the same, don’t expect readers to cross over!
What do you wish you had known at the start of the process which you know now?
I think I’d have sought more detailed advice at the planning stage, rather than writing a first draft and radically changing it. Much easier to iron out plot issues at the planning stage! But the upshot is that you keep learning and refining your own processes – so hopefully now, future drafts will be more efficient.
Oh, and don’t expect the press to care – by all means write press releases and share them, but you’re one of a bazillion newbies on the scene. Focus on building a social media following first – this is where your credibility will stem from.
Any major knock backs?
The main issue I encountered was timescales with designers – we initially didn’t communicate clearly enough over turnaround times, and six weeks slid by with no progress. I had to go with someone else in the end, because the original designer (a friend) didn’t have the free time to progress the project. Really that was my fault because I was running the project, so it was on me to make my deadlines clearer. It was all resolved amicably, and off the back of it, I was able to handle my second designer with more foresight!
Marcus Martin is an award-winning author and playwright. His dystopian thriller series Convulsive is available now in paperback and eBook on Amazon, where you can read the first chapters for free. Find out more at www.marcusmartin.co.uk
