Tag Archives: Images

FIVERR and the Pros and Cons of Formatting

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FIVERR and those who offer Formatting, also known as Interior Book Design, through this platform can be awesome and then not so much. Authors, especially new ones, need to know how to research and get the best. It’s time for those questions again. All Authors need to know what questions to ask to find a good business to help them get the work done. The company also needs to know various things so they can get your Formatting correct without too many edits.

First thing. Remember how long it took you to write your novel!  Well, Formatting isn’t done in an hour! I honestly wouldn’t touch any business who says they can format your work for $10 in an hour. There is bound to be something wrong.

Today I watched a video about Formatting. Some useful information, and with the book open on the screen, they showed the results. It was the results which caught my attention. Two things wrong from what I saw.  First, the indents looked too big and secondly, the text wasn’t justified. Though, this doesn’t matter on eBooks, in PRINT it is a MUST…Go look at any traditional book, and you’ll see the right hand edges of the text are straight. If PRINT books aren’t Justified, they look horrible. I’m exceptionally fussy, and I won’t even read a manuscript unless it is justified. It’s the first thing I do on a clients manuscript. I will also teach a client how to do this, so they know for next time. You will also find 99% of what I write on my blog is JUSTIFIED. Those articles not Justified are usually SHARED LINKS. I think having your text makes it look nice and tidy.

If you are going to offer a SERVICE to an AUTHOR, please make sure you know what you’re doing. It’s a hell of a learning curve and, unlike many, I’m self-taught and learnt the hard way. I’ve learnt so much now that I’m updating my own books as well as past clients.

QUESTIONS to Ask an INTERIOR BOOK DESIGNER

1. What type of books do you format?
2. What fonts do you suggest for my genre?
3. What size fonts will you use?
4. Do you use the same font for Headings & Titles or blend fonts to work together?
5. What book size do you suggest for Paperback and hardback?
6. What is the best indent size?
7. Do you Justify text?
8. Can you do Contents pages and Linked Contents for eBooks?
9. Headings, Page numbers – Starting at Chapter One, Dropped Caps and Header information?
10. Can your format full-colour children’s books for Paperback and eBook?
11. Do you have samples of your work?

You could probably add a lot more to this list. Make sure you have a good look at the traditional books you see. They can give useful pointers in how you may like to have your text laid out.

QUESTIONS FOR CHILDREN’S BOOKS

1. Font and font size are important, depending on the age of your readers.
2. Do they have experience with Full-colour children’s eBooks  and PRINT
3. Do they have experience with BLEED!  Will your book have a bleed or not.
4. How do they turn a full-colour book into an eBook and PRINT, so it comes out correct.
5. Will they check the IMAGES are 300 DPI if need be?

HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?

This once again depends on experience and what you want your book to look like.  It can also depend on how long the book is. Is it a Novella, Novel or Saga? Is it a Children’s book and if so, what kind?

HELPING AUTHORS.

Once again, as with assisting new authors with bad work, generally from FIVERR Businesses is something we do at Plaisted Publishing House. It can be trying and tiring work, especially if it is a full-colour children’s book. I have assisted with two of these in recent months. If you only pay small amounts, it should clue you in, they may not be as professional or experienced as you might think. I dislike seeing people ripped off, especially if they are on a budget like most Independent Authors are. We’re not all rich, and many of us have jobs outside the home to pay the bills.

Don’t complain about paying someone either. A slightly higher fee could mean better work and that you’re less likely to need someone else to do edits. Remember you pay the plumber to do their job! I have seen bad work. I’ve seen good work. Please do your homework and RESEARCH before you hire anyone.

KNOW WHAT TO ASK, WHEN TO ASK AND MAKE SURE YOU SEE SAMPLES. IF YOUR INSTINCT SAYS ‘HELL NO’ THEN LISTEN TO IT. IT COULD SAVE YOU MONEY.

BAD FORMATTING! 

THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF BAD FORMATTING FROM FIVERR FOR AN EBOOK. WHEN I WENT TO HELP THE AUTHOR, I LOOKED AT THE MOBI FILE, AND THIS IS WHAT I FOUND. I NEVER DID TELL THEM…TO HORRIFIED.

 

 

 

GOOD FORMATTING! 

THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT I DID TO MEND THE ABOVE FILE (DIFFERENT PAGE) AND MAKE THE IMAGE LOOK LIKE THE PAGES FROM A PAPERBACK BOOK. 

NEEDLESS TO SAY, IT CAN TAKE A WHILE TO SORT THINGS OUT. MAKING SURE IMAGES ARE THE RIGHT DPI AND SIZE – ESPECIALLY FOR PAPERBACKS.

One last thing. I’m still learning. I will always be learning my trade, updating how things are done as technology changes. I’m happy to learn the same as I’m happy to share the Pros and Cons of looking for the right contractor, be it an illustrator, editor or interior book designer.  

PLEASE RESEARCH!  NEXT TIME I WILL TALK ABOUT EDITING

What you need to do to sell your books on Amazon – by Derek Haines

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Just Publishing Advice is a great website written by Derek Haines.  Generally I reblog the good stuff…like this. This time I have to share instead.  Enjoy the read and You’ll find the rest on their website with many more interesting articles.

https://justpublishingadvice.com/what-you-need-to-do-to-sell-your-books-on-amazon/

You can’t sell books. You can only bring your books to the attention of book buyers.

The most difficult task for all authors is maintaining consistent book sales.

There is a catch 22 that applies to most new books. It is that you need book sales to get book reviews, but you need book reviews to get sales.

Then you need to get enough regular unit sales to keep a good sales rank, so you can sell more copies. It is a fact that the top-ranking books in a genre, sell far better than lower ranked books. And by a huge factor.

Can you answer some of these questions?

What can I do to give my books the best chance of sales success?
What are my niche genres?
What are my best performing keywords?
How can I make my book more visible?
How can I get potential book buyers to notice my book?
Who are the best book retailers for my book?
Is my book price too high or too low?

 

Are you having trouble answering these questions? Here are a few tips to help you improve your book sales potential.

Does your book get an A grade pass on these three fundamentals?

These three elements are key to selling books online.

Your book cover

You know you need a great book cover and probably have one. But have you considered that the colour or font might be a problem?

Look at the top ranking books in certain genres. You will see that there is often a commonality about colours. For instance, science fiction books are generally dark, and very often blue.

For romance, pastel colours are predominant. For mystery and thriller, heavy and dark, with black shades are common.

What about your title font? Romance titles use a lot of fancy script fonts, whereas mystery and suspense use bold san serif fonts. But paranormal and fantasy often use fine serif fonts.

Compare your cover with the 50 top-selling titles in your genre. See if you can make your cover better suited to what readers expect.

Your manuscript

Yes, you checked it one hundred times. But check it again now. Is it totally error and typo free?

If it has been some time since you published, it is a very good time to revisit your book and make sure it is perfect.

Your book description

Did you write your book description in a hurry when you published?

Your book description is second only to your cover in attracting reader interest. Make sure it contains hooks that will instantly gain interest or intrigue.

It should scream, please enter! Also, why not write three versions and then you can test which one works best?

Like a book cover, compare your book description with bestselling books. Can you get a few clues from them to improve yours?

Do you know your niche genres?

When you published, did you quickly choose your two broad categories? Romance and Fantasy? If you did, your book is lost amongst thousands of other similar types of books.

You need to drill down through the categories to find two niche categories for your book. It will have a much better chance of being found by buyer search. It will reduce competition and help you to rank better and sell better.

Again, check top-selling books in your genre and look at their categories. Here are two examples of a good niche.

Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Teen & Young Adult > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery

Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers & Suspense > Spies & Politics > Espionage

Another way to get your book into a niche category is to ask Amazon. Yes, you can ask Amazon to add a specific category to your book.

Your search keywords

Did you do any keyword research? Do you have a list of your book’s keywords? Have you checked if they are performing well?

Your seven search keywords on Amazon, and sometimes more on other retailers are vital for getting book sales. It is because these keywords are how people will find your book when using retailer search.

Your keywords can also be used on your blog or website to help get organic traffic from Google.

So they are very, very important!

One mistake new authors often make is that they select seven individual words, thinking that a keyword must be singular. This is not true.

A keyword can and should be a short phrase. Think about your book and make a list of seven keyword phrases related to your book’s story that you can use. Then test them by using them in Google search.

Good keywords often use only verbs, adjectives and nouns, so avoid prepositions and conjunctions. Short questions can sometimes work too. But you don’t need to add a question mark.

Examples:

 

Italian love story
Where was she killed
Hot tropical island adventure
Dark days long nights

Online book retailer visibility and discoverability

Can tick off all the tips so far in this article? If you can, you will be a long way towards getting your book seen more often. You will start to attract online book buyers and readers who have an interest in your genre.

Getting your book looking right and in the right place is the very best you can do.

Book buyers make the decision. But make sure you give them the best means to find your book and every reason to consider buying your book.

Outside the bookstore

You can help your book a lot by listing it in narrow niche categories and using solid keyword phrases. It helps your book discovery in online bookstores such as Amazon, iBooks, B&N and Kobo.

To promote your book more broadly, you will need to leverage the Internet. Your two best avenues are your website or blog and using social media as best you can.

One overlooked avenue to gain a lot of potential readers is Google. To give you an idea of how powerful Google Search is, I can give you the example of one book that was listed on our book promotion site in 2016.

During an SEO upgrade of our site, we began adding sub-titles where possible in an H3 tag and in the SEO title.

This book had gained some traffic during the time it was listed. But after these two simple SEO improvements, it began ranking quickly on Google.

What did we change? The title and author could not change, of course. But by adding the sub-title, “Japanese Love Story” as a keyword, it soared.

As I mentioned before about keywords, it obeyed the rule of only adjectives and nouns.

Apply strong keyword phrases and add them to your title. Also, add them to H2 or H3 tags, as well as your SEO title and description. For your blog posts and web pages, it is the best way to get your book discovered organically.

For social media, the best lure by far to gain clicks to your book is your cover. Images are the most powerful means of attracting attention on social media.

Find other powerful images you can use for your blog posts. It will add variety when you share on Facebook or Twitter. Make sure that they are connected to your book’s theme. This will stop you from blasting your cover all the time.

For Google Search, keywords and text rule. For social media, images rule. That’s the rule.

FOR MORE ON THIS ARTICLE

Uploading your Self-Published eBook to Lulu

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Welcome to the world of LULU Uploading.  As promised here is the second installment about UPLOADING…This time it’s for eBOOKS.

WE start with picking what we wish to publish, of course this time it is the ebook we wish to do. So follow the images and I’ll explain what is what as you scroll through them.

You picked the ebook now it is time to think about if you wish to do this for FREE or need to ask for help.  This of course depends on how proficient you are at formatting and if you can format the way LULU need you to. 

One think I have noticed with ebook distribution sites, they all have their own styles of formatting. Some are easier than others. Once in the know…it becomes easy.

This blog is about how to publish your book for FREE and we would hit ‘MAKE YOUR EBOOK’ Tab to continue.  

Meanwhile. If you need any assistance and a guiding hand you can ask for some professional support  from LULU – who will handle the heavy lifting for you.

The choice is made and you are starting a NEW PROJECT. It’s time for the TITLE and AUTHOR NAME.  It also asks what you wish to do with your project. Most people want to sell their books and this is the recommended route to take. After your choices are made click save and continue.

Next you get to choose your ISBN for your book.  You can pick the FREE LULU ISBN which can only be used on books you distribute via LULU. 

If you are uploading to another site, it is likely they will offer their own FREE ISBN.  If you have already purchased a set of ISBN then use them.  There is a link on the below image on how to purchase your own numbers. 

If you don’t wish to use an ISBN then you WON’T be able to distribute through LULU retail channels.

Below is shows the FREE ISBN for my book which they will email to me.  Since you haven’t yet uploaded your manuscript, now is the time to add the ISBN to your copyright page and save it again.

DO NOT UPLOAD YOUR MANUSCRIPT UNTIL YOU HAVE SET UP YOUR CHAPTER HEADINGS IN ACCORDANCE WITH LULU RULES.  YOU CAN ALSO DELETE YOUR CONTENTS PAGE HYPERLINKS…LULU WILL MAKE THIS FOR YOU.

Choose you manuscript and upload. You will see the BAR below turn and orange-yellow.

Once it has uploaded it will show the document as below.  If you have to make amendments later make sure you delete this file first on the X

Remember back to when you organised the HEADINGS in your manuscript.  Well this is what LULU do. They show you the list for your contents table which you can adjust by changing the headings.  When you do the HEADINGS you can use HEADING 1 – 3 ONLY You will also need to change the style to what you wish to see, making sure you embed the fonts as well.

Most Authors will also have their own BOOK COVERS by this stage in the process. If you do then you will need to upload the cover during this next stage.  Having your own BOOK COVER means you can use any Theme, they are technically irrelevant though you still need to choose one.  As you can see I stayed with the gold one with my name in the bottom right corner.

Click onto Backgrounds & Pictures. You can see where you can change the colour and edit the image.  If you have a BOOK COVER already made you will need to EDIT the IMAGE. If you need to build your own you can ask for professional help from a LULU Cover Designer.

Once again LULU have a criteria for the BOOK COVER.  This is where you will USE A DIFFERENT FILE – as shown below. Or you can accept this image and proceed to building your own cover.

Since you have clicked ‘Use a different file’ this new box will appear asking you to either upload your cover from your computer or browse the LULU GALLERY.  When you upload your own file make sure the sizing is correct or….

Before the ‘OR’   The file will upload the same way as the manuscript did…One the bar has finished loading you will be asked to ACCEPT or TRY AGAIN due to sizing requirements.

As show here…The first time I uploaded my BOOK COVER the requirements weren’t met, meaning they rejected my file asking me to alter it and upload it again.

Once the BOOK COVER file meets their criteria you will see the image – like shown below. Now you can ACCEPT the file and move on to the next stage.

Now you can see your cover you will need to click on TEXT. If you have a ready-made cover you will need to take out the TITLE and AUTHOR information as shown below.

If you have built your cover here then you can now edit your TITLE & AUTHOR name, give them the font, size and colour you wish them to have.

Once you have done, click SAVE and CONTINUE to go to the next stage.

You’ve nearly finished now. Unlike Kindle, Createspace & Draft to Digital where you describe your project at the beginning. With LULU you do this towards the end

Fill in the blanks. On my children’s book this is what I choose to go with. You can change this at any stage.

My children’s story is all about adventures in the Insect world in a Country Garden. It is suitable for ages 3 upwards though parents, grandparents, siblings etc would need to read to the younger children.

Fill in the description which you would usually find on the back of a PRINT Book. This will show on your AUTHOR PAGE and in the LULU Shop. I choose the Standard Copyright License though there are quite a few you can look through and choose from.

YES YOU MADE IT…IT’S TIME TO REVIEW, DOWNLOAD THE INTERIOR, CHECK THE FORMATTING, SEE IF IT ALL WORKS CORRECTLY. IF NOT THEN YOU HAVE SOME WORK TO DO, OTHERWISE IT IS TIME TO PRICE YOUR BOOK

DISTRIBUTION TIME – PLEASE REMEMBER IF YOU HAVE UPLOADED YOUR EBOOK ELSEWHERE THEN UN-TICK IT HERE.  ALSO REMEMBER YOU CAN GET YOUR BOOKS DISTRIBUTED VIA INGRAM SPARK WITH LULU

Make sure your LULU website is in the country where you live. Then pick the price and how much royalty you wish to make. Tick the boxes you need and hit REVIEW PROJECT. 

Next is the eBook Distribution Terms and Condition. Read them and ACCEPT if you wish to publish.

The next slide shows your REVENUE excl taxes. Once you are satisfied you have what you wish go to the last TAB – SAVE and FINISH.

CONGRATULATIONS YOU HAVE PUBLISHED

 

This is all from me for now. I hope it helps.  I will be making a post on how the HEADINGS work next week. Meanwhile enjoy the read and please SHARE.

Tutorial for Auto Indents

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It seems to be that time again.  A learning curve for me a couple of years ago doesn’t mean all authors and writers are aware of how Auto Indents work and are made.  I still see some Indents in eBook which are way to big.  To me this shows lack of learning and professionalism of the author or writer.  If I find it difficult to read as a publisher…think what your readers will fell like.  Personally I have stopped reading some eBooks due to the lack of professionalism in formatting.

Here is a short tutorial for those who wish and those who participate in my Anthologies or are clients.  This is how AUTO INDENTS are made in WORD.

Open your word document.  Look across the top bar with STYLES.  Inside the red line is a small ARROW.  Click on it.

It will open a side bar on your document similar to this.  You probably won’t have many STYLES until you make them.  You will make AUTO INDENTS using the NORMAL STYLE

On the bottom right are three squares.  Teh one in the read circle will open a box to make a new style.

In the next screen shot is the style box where you can create a new style.  In this instance it is INDENT.  Next we go down to the bottom left of the box to the second circle FORMAT and click to open it.

You need to click on Paragraph as highlighted in the next image.

You will find open another box looking like the image below.  

In the first red circle make sure it says JUSTIFIED.  This is so all text is straight on either edge of the page – just like in a book.  In the second circle is where you create your INDENT of 0.5mm.  In the third circle you need to make sure it is on single line or blank (unless you are sending a synopsis to an agent where you need double lined spacing).

Click OK and the box will close.  Look at the next image and TICK  Automatic Updates. Next click OK and the box will close and you can start typing.  

In the STYLE box on the right you will find the INDENT style you made.  Each time you need an INDENT (speech etc) then click on the INDENT tab and it will do the work for you automatically.

HOPE THIS HELPS