DRavenTempeBk1CvrOn 1/5/2015 my first full sized novel became available to purchase as a digital book.  It’s a full novel under my name.  There’s something empowering about a dream realized.

It’s also a little scary.  This isn’t a short story published with other hopefuls.  This is a novel with just my name on the cover.  Love it or hate it, it’s all me.

Since part of my blogging goal is to provide publishing lessons, here are a few:

  • I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  Unless you want to learn a graphics program for personal enrichment, pay someone to create your cover art.  While I enjoyed the learning process, it’s time I could have spent writing.
    • It took three months (nights after my day job and weekends) to review various tools and then get up to speed on the one I selected, just so I could do my own cover art.
    • If you are digitally publishing on Amazon, they have a thumbnail option.  Certainly worth looking into.  I loaded the artwork I had worked so hard on into the Kindle profile and I’m pleased with it, but in the back of my mind I believe a true artist would have made a more impressive cover.
  • I’m in the process of setting up the book for paperback availability.  Suggestions I received indicated that it was better to publish the digital copy first and then work on the print copy.
    • Important © Note!  If you publish digital first, when you submit your copy for copyright protection you only need to send a digital copy.  If you have a print copy of the book you will have to sent two of the best print versions you have, so two hardcopies if you have them or two paperbacks.  Obviously, sending a digital copy will save you a few dollars.
  • I used Kindle Direct Publishing through Amazon.com.  I found their process easy to follow.
    • One irritation I had was you can’t set up your profile in Author Central until the book is available for sale.  It would have been nice to set that up while waiting for the digital copy to be prepped for sale.
    • Since I’ve decided to go exclusive with KDP for the digital copy for the first 90-days I’ll provide more information later on how I think that worked.
  • I purchased my ISBNs.  Some places offer them when you publish but I’m a control freak.  It’s a decision each author has to make when publishing.
  • I’ve learned a lot in this final step of the process, mostly to have everything written up ahead of time, so that when the book is available you can complete your set up quickly.

Okay, I called it the final step, but it’s not.  Not really.  I still need to publicize (here’s where a support team would come in handy) the book and finish up the print copy.

You can check out the book at Amazon.com.  Deceived is a kindle book written by yours truly, N. R. Tucker.