The Self Published Life

Greetings! I hope your week is going well. I've been slowly adding my novels to Barnes and Noble Press. It's taking time because the formatting with that seller is completely different than Kindle Direct Publishing. Why? Well, because nobody ever wants to be caught wearing the same outfit at the same event, it would appear.

With KDP, the cover is a simple JPG and, for the print book, you format the cover using their cover creator, which allows you do do the whole cover at once, including using the same JPG cover you used for the ebook.

On B&NP, the cover picture for the print version must be a PDF. Then you have to also create a PDF of the back cover. For the ebook, it has to be a minimum of 1400 x1400 px and also be less than 2 MB...Oh and be a PNG or a JPG. 

And the manuscript. Well, for KDP, you upload your PDF to an app that then creates the kindle ebook. You then format and review it all because it's probably you need separators in between breaks in the story of if you have a drop cap at the beginning of a chapter, you'll see a HUGE break in between the drop cap and the rest of the word.... Like this:

It becomes, "H                   ey" instead of "Hey." (And yes, for those who recognize it, that is the opening for The Ghost of Oscar, book 3 of my Portrait series.) On KDP, it's a fix that you can do rather quickly the save it in the .kcp format and boom, problem solved. HOWEVER, B&NP, you must use epub format and no matter how many times one corrects it, it doesn't fix it unless you dump ALL of your drop caps. Of course, I'm doing all this on Kindle Creator, which now allows you to save as an epub, and it just now made me curious if B&NP has a downloadable app that creates the epub. I'll have to check that out. So, once you finally get your manuscript formatted perfectly, and the correct cover, you then go through, choose the genres your book should show in, the words you want it to pop up under, then set price, approve the whole shebang and then you're ready to click on the little button that says, "Put on Sale."

That is such an intimidating little button.

My mind quickly flies through everything, hoping it all is perfect and that I uploaded the correct version of it and that all my errors are corrected and then I just close my eyes and click. 

Voila! Published ebook on another platform!!! 

Of course, with both KDP and B&NP,  it goes through an approval process, then a publishing process, and takes about 72 hours to make it to the online store front so...It's not instantaneous.

Now, for the print books, you go through the whole similar process, except you can't "Put it on Sale" until you get approval and then order a physical copy of your book. These are 'proof' copies so you can do one last browse of formatting and look for any glaring errors (yes, errors do glare at you). So, I am now waiting for those copies for, let's see, Along the Way, Wherever It Goes, Portrait of an Unlikely Affair, The Legend of CuSithGrim, and The Ghost of Oscar to make their way to me. One of them was supposed to arrive today but it's been delayed for (and this is the first time I've had this delay 'excuse') a "A railroad mechanical failure has delayed delivery." Of course, with all of the seemingly daily trend in train derailments all over the country (I'm sure they're ALL coincidences, btw) I never once thought that they still shipped packages via train. Who knew? 

So that's where we're at in the progress of getting books onto Barnes and Noble. I haven't found out how to create my own author page on there, but there is so much to learn still.

If you have Nook and would like to order the ebooks from Barnes and Noble, the links are as follows:

Along the Way can be found here on Barnes and Noble in ebook form.

Wherever It Goes is here. (Ignore the paperback copy of it with the brown cover. That version is no longer available through that publisher and I have no idea why they haven't taken it down yet.)

Now, for my Portrait of an Unlikely Affair series: 

Portrait of an Unlikely Affair (Book 1) is only available for pre-order at the moment on B&N because it's currently on Kindle Unlimited. But you can find it here on B&N.

The Legend of CuSithGrim (Book 2) is available here.

The Ghost of Oscar (Book 3) is available here.

The PRINT copies of those first five books above will be available soon (or whenever they dig them out of the car from the 'train mechanical failure' incident) and make it to my hot little hands. In the mean time, I am working on getting the last three books of the series reformatted and posted. The Allegheny Chronicles: Eden and the Alchemist will be on there soon too, as the Kindle Unlimited campaign for that ends here in May. I believe the print book will be available before the ebook. Links to follow!

Q: But Em, are the costs going to be the same?

A: Yes, the costs of the books for you are the same on Barnes and Noble as they are on Amazon. For me, the royalties are a bit different because the print costs for the print books are different -- which makes me really curious to get the proof copies. But I still pay printing costs and I get whatever is left over from my cut after the merchant takes theirs. But hey, if you multiply those royalties by numbers of books sold...then add in some common core math, multiply it some more, toss in some statistics, and boom! One day, in the future, those numbers will be big!!! ;-)

In the mean time, I am still working on getting my short stories out for the summer and a new installment of The Allegheny Chronicles!!! (With a new character!)

I think on Friday (if I don't get lost in formatting or writing or just plain don't forget to do a Friday post) I will discuss what is apparently called ACRs or Advanced Copy Readers. It's a thought I'm still working on. 

On that note, remember to support your local self published authors! Like their posts, share, comment, encourage, ignore their random strange topics and babbles (or smile and nod), and remember -- don't get too close cuz they live in their own little world and they just may bite....Unless you are holding a copy of their book and want them to sign it, then they'll attempt to act normal.....er. 😂

Hope you all have a wonderful week!!!!💕

Find all of my books in one easy place on Amazon at www.amazon.com/author/embrooks.

Find my ebooks (so far) on Barnes and Noble by clicking the links above! 

Keep up to date with all of my writing at TheAuthorEmBrooks.blogspot.com