I just finished writing "Invisible Me", with my friend and co-author Brad Tesh, We took our time, so this has been a year-long project. Brad and I both enjoy writing, and we were very happy with the subject we chose to write about - our spiritual self. The editing was not even too difficult ... just time consuming, even with two pair of eyes. Then it came time to submit. We both have books up on Kindle and the former Create Space, now merged as Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP Publishing). We knew that it was going to be a bit trying ... but it ended up being more than a bit trying!
The submission process to KDP goes something like this:
- Upload a formatted manuscript.
- Create a cover.
- Define keywords and categories.
- Decide if you want to use your own ISBN #, or get one free from KDP. (E-books don't need ISBN numbers, print books do.)
KDP has great software out now that will format a book for you. It is called Kindle Create, and is free to download. This I did appreciate, as the last time I submitted I was running in the dark and praying a lot! With Kindle Create you can format for three basic types of books: (1) text heavy, (2) image heavy with complex formatting, and (3) comic or graphic novels of low complexity. With next to zero techie skills, I managed to get our essentially text-only book up without too many problems. We did include pics with our bios, but they loaded easily.
Kindle Create has three formatting themes to choose from: Classic, Cosmos, and Armor. Elements can be formatted by type: Chapter Title, Chapter Subtitle, chapter first paragraph, Book Title, Book Subtitle, Author Name, blockquotes etc. The system is easy to use, and we only had to make a couple of tweaks with it.
Now, the book cover - that was another story! Brad basically did the work here, with me just adding in the text for the back cover. I have to say, he did a marvelous job, and I had a meltdown! (Only one meltdown for the entire process of the book, so that is good! Perspective, people!) You can choose to upload your own cover, or you can create one with the imagery KDP provides. We choose the latter. We ended up with a slightly different cover for the print version - basically because the cover would not play nice!
"Invisible Me" is up on Amazon in e-book format, while our print version is being "reviewed". (Now why don't I have a good feeling here!)
I am happy that we choose to self-publish (we did look into other options), and my hope for other writers is that if they want to self-publish, they check out the KDP system. (It has its issues, one of which is do not choose "auto fit" when adding text to the back cover - it doesn't work! Set the font size that you want o use.) But, overall, our book is up, and we did it ourselves!
(c) March 2019 Bonnie Cehovet
Reproduction prohibited without written permission from the author.
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