A Step by Step Guide to Self Publishing: Or a DIY Checklist for Writers
An excerpt is pasted below. Further down is the PDF of the entire booklet, free to download.
Chapter 1 – Introduction and Disclaimer
Chapter 2 – Write the Darned Book.
- Pantsing vs. plotting.
Chapter 3 – Cover (Say What?!)
Chapter 4 – Crit partners, Developmental Editors
Chapter 5 – Boring, Confusing, but Absolutely Essential Legwork
ISBN
Ebooks don’t need ISBN when putting them up on Amazon, and the Zon does provide you the ISBN for your paperback, but you cannot use it elsewhere. If you plan to go wide, you’ll end up using your own ISBN, anyway, or you’re going to have the book under different ISBNs, making it difficult to track sales and such.
The above link is where you can get ISBNs. I bulk-purchased since I knew I’d need more than one. Also, the pricing is like that in fast food restaurants. Medium 4.99, Mega 5.99. Hyperbole, of course, but you get what I mean.
Remember, if you change trim size, you’ll end up using a different ISBN.
I used ISBNs for both my (fiction) ebooks and used ISBNs I owned for my paperbacks.
Copyright
An addendum to the disclaimer: I’m American, and this is applicable mostly only to the U.S.
People like to claim you own the copyright if you pee and invent something in America. Not exactly. Aside from the fact you need to read the fine print on your employment contract which may actually state your employer owns anything you create even if entirely unrelated to the business, I’m told unless you officially register copyright with the U.S. government, you won’t have legal recourse if someone steals your work. I found that out the hard way. Picture it: somewhere in the American Midwest, fall of 2019. A brand new author receives an email from Amazon that her paperback is being taken off the website because there is some doubt on the work’s copyright. Startled, the anxious author calls KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing)’s customer service. They don’t really know what’s going on except that there might be a question of the work belonging in public domain. “What?” yelps the writer. How could it be? She spent sweat and blood and tears over the manuscript. It is hers, darn it. The customer service rep tells the writer he’ll look into it. Days go by, and they’re looking… and looking… and looking.
