For Authors: Duration of Self Publishing a Book

Hey there, it's Julie Broad, and I have tip number two in a series of five on self publishing your book in tip number one, if you missed it, I asked you a really important question, which is why do you want to self publish your book? Because the answer to that changes everything you do. Now, assuming you've answered that question, let's talk about tip number two, which is understanding the timing around things. Because my bookbaby was ready, in my opinion, at the start of December. However, it didn't actually launch into the world until mid June. So what took so long? First of all, editing. And I skipped an important step in the editing process, which is getting content editors to read it, to ask you questions about the layout, the flow jargon, etc. I didn't know that kind of editing existed, so I just skipped right on past that and hired a copyright editor to go through my grammar, my sentence structure, and add what seemed like a thousand commas to my manuscript, etc. In my opinion, editing is critical. It's the difference between an amateur piece and a professional piece. And when you're self publishing, I think you really want to do everything you can, no matter what your reason for doing it, to make it as professional as possible. So spending a few thousand dollars on high quality editing, it's well worth it. But what I didn't realize was how many times you go back and forth. And while my editor was very quick, very efficient, I was always the bottleneck because she would send me back the manuscript and I'd have to go over it again. I was getting kind of sick of my book, I gotta be honest. I had to go over it again and again and again. And then I had to find some willing readers to read it, to catch other things. And so I found five people who tried to read it in a very short period of time and send me their comments. And any typos they caught, I sent that back to the editor and we had a final clean version, which, by the way, I've still found a couple typos in. It's incredible how that happens. But editing, all told, that whole process took three months. Once we had a final manuscript, then I could go and get someone to help me with layout, which is a whole nother ball game. Now, I understand there are some software programs that you can do it yourself with, but I just found hiring a professional again made my book look professionally done. And it also saved me a whole bunch of hassle for figuring it all out, putting it in a Kindle format and in a book format that I could upload to different sites. So that was a very simple thing for me to do. But again, she put it in layout and sent it to me and I had to read that silly book again, which took a couple weeks, right? I'm busy, so I didn't realize that I sent it back to her with some changes. She sent it back to me. I had to go through, make sure those changes happened. And in that whole process, there was actually a few mistakes that got created that then had to be fixed. So that process took six or seven weeks. Okay. Now, if you're ready to read that book and hammer through it really quickly and efficiently, this can get sped up. But I dare you to not be sick of your book by the end of this. Okay? Number three, account setup. What I did not realize was that I should be setting up my account, especially with Lightning Source, which is who I ultimately chose to go through. Which, if you watch video number one, you'll find out why. The account setup process with Lightning Source took a lot of time. Basically from start to finish is about five weeks for me to get my account set up. Then once my book was actually ready and I uploaded it, it was still another four or five weeks before it got listed on Amazon ca and another three or four weeks before it was on Chapters and available for other bookstores to order through the Ingram catalog. So that whole process, I should have started the account setup several months earlier because then once my book was ready and I uploaded it, then it would have only been a four to eight week wait for it to get listed. All of these places versus the whole process actually was almost a two and a half month wait from the time I had a finished product manuscript to the time Chapters could buy it. Okay. So that took way longer than I thought. As an American, this process is simpler and. And if you just want to have it listed on Amazon.com, createSpace is a very quick way to do it. I wanted to get some print copies really quickly and I was curious to see how CreateSpace lined up against Lightning Source. So as soon as my manuscript was ready, I loaded it up into CreateSpace. Three days later it was listed on Amazon.com and it also had the search inside this book, which I'll talk about another day because I had to do a separate thing to get that available on Amazon ca. But it was very quick, very efficient to get it listed on Amazon.com, but CreateSpace has some limitations for Canadians. But if you just want a really high quality printed book and you want it to be available on Amazon.com and you want to create a Kindle on Amazon.com CreateSpace is a fantastic option for you and you can eventually get it listed on Amazon CA through CreateSpace. I understand. I didn't go that route. Hope this helps. If you have questions, let me know. And if you want more videos like this, please give me a thumbs up. So I know you like it, I know you got something from it, and go ahead. Ask your questions below on this video, wherever you're watching it, whether it's on my website or on YouTube, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. All right, see you. Next video.