*Disclaimer: This post may contain grammatical errors. If you cringe at the misuse of erratic commas, oddly placed dashes, or inappropriate apostrophes–I’m sorry. My editor has two kids. Deal with it.

Self-publishing.

I’m no expert on this subject. In fact, I hit that publish button not too long ago, so I’m still a newbie. But while I was formatting, editing (well…getting it ready for others to edit it), formatting, designing, writing, and a lot more formatting, I kept jotting down notes when I came across things I was supposed to do.

In the process of publishing, I had to jump around to dozens of different websites to find all the information I needed. Hopefully I’m putting most of the stuff here so you don’t have to go searching.

This list is very simple, for the just-starting-out self-publishers out there. These are things I had no idea I had to do until I was approaching crunch time. Some you HAVE to follow, some you CAN follow, and some you don’t have to follow.

1. Formatting. AKA–timekiller/headache giver.

Did you know you can’t just send your word doc off for publication? I didn’t know that, so when I found out that I had to have certain margin sizes, single spacing, an active table of contents, and cover pages, I panicked. (See rule #7)

I then googled “tips on self-publishing” “mistakes self-publishers make” “formatting for published novels” and a lot more. Here’s what I found:

* Book size. Most physical books are 6×9. Go to File>Page Setup>Paper Size>Manage Custom Sizes>And type in 6in by 9in.

* Margins: whatever publisher you print through will have specific dimensions for the amount of pages you book is. Go find their requirements on their website. After setting the margins, click on Mirror Margins so it’s lined up for a book. There are a lot of YouTube videos on how to get your book ebook and paperback ready. Take advantage of YouTube.

**Warning: YouTube has the tendency to suck you into watching irrelevant videos of animals doing funny things, people slipping on ice, or hilarious Friends clips. Try to refrain from clicking on any link that doesn’t involve formatting. YouTube magically steals hours from your life. If you seek out a YouTube video for help, proceed with caution.

* First line indents should only be around .20in. You can fix this in your Paragraph settings under Format.

* The first paragraph of every chapter isn’t indented. If you want, you can capitalize the first word, or the first half of your first sentence–totally your preference.

* Use a page break at the end of every chapter.

* This one is optional. I’ve heard you should do it, and others say it doesn’t matter. If you want your paragraphs to line up on the left AND right side, justify your text. It looks pretty in physical books to justify. Doesn’t matter in ebooks though.

* Fonts. Kindle accepts only a few fonts, and I don’t know what those few are, so pick a classic font knowing Kindle will most likely change it to what they want.

* Font size. I looked everywhere and people were all saying different things. I did mine at 12pt, and it looks great.

* Your cover page, copyright page, dedication, etc, don’t have page numbers. Page 1 starts on Chapter 1.

* There shouldn’t be any blank pages in your MS unless you want all your chapters to start on the ride side. If you do that,  you’ll have a few blank pages, but make sure you don’t put page numbers on those blank pages. And good luck on trying to figure that out.   

2. Line spacing.

Everyone has their own opinion on this, but the majority say 1-1.15 line spacing for novels. I did mine at 1.15, because that teeny tiny extra space between sentences was noticeable to me, and I thought it was easier to read. That may be because I’m in denial and really do need glasses, but whatever you think is best for your book.

3. Table of Contents

Nowadays, your physical copy doesn’t need a table of contents. Most of the books I’ve bought in the last few years don’t have them anymore. So, that’s one less thing you need to worry about (Yay!). An ebook TOC needs to be active, and it took me an embarrassing amount of time to figure this out. Go to YouTube (again, watching Charlie bite his brother’s finger for the fiftieth time will not help you publish your book. Stop it! Go back to formatting!) and type in: how to create an active table of contents in word for Mac (or PC if that’s what you’re using). Reading about it made me want to pull my hair out. Watching how to do it was a lot easier.

4. Take a break.

Sometimes I would be working on the book for too long, staring at the screen for hours, and I’d all of a sudden notice that my computer screen was moving, contorting into little vortexes of words. I’m not kidding. You stare at a screen too long and your eyes play tricks on you. Before you get to this point, take a break. For a few days. Get your eyes all rested up before you look at your manuscript again. Getting your book ready doesn’t happen in a night, or even a week. It takes time, so use that time to do the best you can.

5. Edit.

Now this area is not my area. If you read my books, you’ll notice I tend to shy away from using passed/past because for the life of me I can’t figure out which one to use. I will reconstruct an entire sentence to avoid using certain words because I don’t know how to use them. Commas are tricky little things that I’ll never understand. And it doesn’t matter how many times YOU go over your own manuscript, there are always slip ups. Like I used ‘stairs’ when it should’ve been ‘stares’. If I wouldn’t have had another person edit it, that would’ve been super embarrassing for readers to see.

Search out a company who’ll edit your book. Sometimes that can be expensive though, and if you don’t want to pay, find someone you trust that knows what they’re doing. Not someone that reads a lot or got an A in English. Find someone who edits daily. Find someone who can read through your manuscript and be able to cross out unwanted commas, or add periods if you forgot some. (Not that I’ve done that or anything)

Editing is one of the most important things you MUST do before publishing. If you’re going to spend money, spend it here. No matter how good your story is, readers will stop reading if there are glaring errors in your book. The odds are already against you with self-publishing. Don’t let poor editing be another block you need to jump over.

6. Book Cover

“Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.”

Yeah right.

When this term is referring to not judging people–absolutely. When it’s about a book–no way. Everyone judges a book by it’s cover. It needs to look professional, creative, artistic, and relevant to your story. You can’t have a cat on the cover of a book devoted to horses. Make sure your cover is hinting at your story. If you’re trying to publish without spending hundreds of dollars, ask around your group of friends. Chances are someone will know a designer, and they’ll maybe work with you.

Like editing, this is important. Your cover is the first thing they see. If it doesn’t intrigue them, they’ll most likely pass on it without even reading your blurb. So make sure to wrap them up with your cover. (see what I did there? No? Is it more awkward now that I pointed it out?)

7. No amount of peanut m&m’s will make the anxiousness go away.

Peanut m&m’s are my vice. You may have another, though I don’t know why you’d choose anything other than peanut m&m’s.

It’s really scary to publish a book. The people, conversations and places you made up in your head are now going to be public. Your neighbors are going to know that you think about fictional characters as they journey through their life that hopefully has a lot of conflict and obstacles. Your DAD is going to know that you think about teenagers kissing. (Sorry, Dad. I never once kissed a boy when I was a teenager. Maybe. Okay, probably. I’m sorry.)

It’s an intimate thing to write a book, so having other people read it is intimidating. But I’m here to tell you that no matter how many treats you eat, that anxiety won’t fade. Just ask the five extra pounds I gained while getting ready to publish Mirror. Those pounds are still with me, so you can ask them. They’ll tell you I have no control when it comes to peanut m&m’s. And bread. And diet coke. And maybe cold cereal.

Anyway, being scared to publish is normal. It means you really care about what you’re doing. Hopefully for you, and your thighs, you pick a healthier way to deal with your anxiety.

8. Before publishing, create goals you want to accomplish with your book.

Do you want to become a NYT Bestseller? Do you want your book to speak to a certain group/age of people? Is your book going to help others who are in need of a certain kind of help?

I published because I wanted to give the books to my girls when they’re teenagers. That was my goal–just to publish. After publishing, my goal is the same, but I’ve added new, small goals.

But before you publish, you need to know where you want to take your book. It’s not going to go anywhere if you aren’t driving it. If you want it to be big, you need the guts to put yourself out there. Make goals, draw up plans, research about self-publishing and how to market your book, and then . . .

Be realistic. PLEASE don’t push that publish button and expect to begin selling hundreds of books in your first few weeks or months. What happens is your friends and family will buy it to be supportive, and probably out of curiosity. If they like it, they’ll hopefully tell other people about it. Some people take weeks to finish a book, so the word might not get out about your book for a few months after it’s published. People forget to write reviews, so those sssslllllooooowwwwwllllllyyyyyy begin building. Some people will buy your book, then forget to read it. Others will read it, love it, then not talk about it because they’ve moved onto a new book.

If your goal is make make writing a career, you need to figure out how to make people remember you and your book, while also not being annoying/pushy about it. Build relationships with people in the writing community, take advantage of connections you may have, go to local libraries about carrying your book, give away a few free ones to people who have a bigger platform than you.

If you want it, you’ve got to make it.

9. Push the publish button.

You did it! You formatted your book, managed to keep all your hair, have the perfect cover, all the errors are erased from your manuscript, and you may or may not have stayed at your pre-published weight. Now you can push that button.

No one told me this, but now the real work begins. After fighting my manuscript over formatting, I sighed in relief when it was finally ready and up for sale on Amazon. But then I had to promote it. I had to tell other people that I wrote a book. I had to write family and friends and tell them to rate it after reading it. I had to reach out to other people and ask for help promoting my book. I had to practically bite my fingers so I wouldn’t look up how many books had sold that day. Which brings me to my next point….

10. Don’t look up to see how many books you sold that day.

My first three weeks were really good. The first few days I had a spike in sales, obviously from my family and friends who were curious about my book-writing skills. At first it was fun to check a lot to see how many I sold, but that was a horrible idea. Because after a while I wasn’t selling as many, and checking every hour was like going to the cupboard for another square of Symphony bar only to realize I already ate it.

Pick a schedule that works for you. Check in monthly, or bi-weekly. If your curiosity is as rampant as George’s (I have four young kids, stay with me), check in weekly, but really really try to stay away from checking daily. I promise it’ll do loads for your self-esteem if you can look back at a week and say, “Yes! I sold -this many- books!” As opposed to looking daily, and at night saying, “I didn’t sell any today.” (I need the sad-face emoticon here)

Unless your JK Rowling, (if you are JK Rowling, I blame you for making me fail my college exams. And also, HOLY COW–JK ROWLING IS READING MY BLOG!!!), you aren’t going to be selling a considerable amount of books in a day. It’s okay to wait. I promise. You won’t melt into a puddle of helplessness. Your hair won’t fall out. If you’re like me, you’ll develop an unhealthy relationship with chocolate, carbs, and Netflix, but your patience will prevail!

11. Last one: Have fun!

When I started doing this, I would write down little experiences I had that I wanted to remember. The second day my book was out, I took a screenshot of my place in Amazon’s rankings. I got to #9 in one of the categories, and I thought that was probably the highest it’d ever be, so I took a picture. I’d tag emails I received from family and friends who had read my book and took the time to write me to tell me how much they enjoyed it. I took a picture of the first Amazon review I received that wasn’t from friends/family.

Little things along the way are fun to celebrate. I’m sorry to say, but it’s unlikely you’ll sell millions of copies–so celebrate the first ten, then the first dozen, then the first 25. When you get to 50, go do something fun. You managed to convince 50 people to buy your book. That’s awesome! That’s 50 more people who get to know the characters YOU created. The world your book describes is now inhabited by 50 more people. Your characters are not only loved by you anymore.

Celebrate the little milestones you pass. They’re important. Don’t be looking so far ahead at your ultimate goal that you’re missing the little moments that you won’t ever get back. I’ll never have a first review again. I’ll never have a first email from someone I didn’t know that said they liked my book. I won’t get to push the publish button for the first time. My book will never get in the top ten for a certain category for the first time.

Have fun with these little moments, because soon they’ll only be memories. And if you love to write, you’ll have to format another book, and then you’ll resort to eating insane amounts of chocolate, and then you’ll have to find time in the day to exercise because apparently your pants shrunk in the dryer, which means you’ll be living a few weeks in yoga pants.

See? Life gets in the way, so have fun!