When the idea of publishing Chronokari Alpha: Time is Relative popped into my head I thought, "How hard could it be?" I'm being a bit facetious, as nothing is as easy at it seems, but I truly thought that after writing the manuscript and getting the artwork completed that the final steps of getting the project into consumer's hands would be the easiest part of the journey. In some ways writing the book was the easiest part. Going digital and self-publishing your work really opens the doors for creators to get their work into the marketplace. However, by going it alone, writers are now responsible for all of the things a publisher would take care of: putting the book together, editing, marketing and distribution.
Before getting to the marketing stage, self-publishers need to figure out where they're going to sell their book and in what format. There's the traditional paperback option and then there's digital. Some of us still tend to think of books as tactile pieces of literature, but with the growing number of digital storefronts, an author can publish their work at a lower cost by forgoing a printed version of their work. Another benefit is that going digital means that writers going the self-publishing route won't have to find a place to store numerous boxes filled with copies of their beloved novel. I've chosen to go digital at this point and after looking at several self-publishing options, I've chose Amazon. After reviewing Amazon's guidelines for e-book submissions I was sort of confident that I could do it on my own. However, being a rookie I decided to put my fate in the hands of those who have experience converting manuscripts for Amazon's KDP program. I took a look at their list of Amazon's recommended conversion companies and after doing a little detective work, settled on Booknook.biz.
I sent them an email and got a response from the owner, Kimberly Hitchens. Hitch was very open and welcoming about how Booknook operates and I agreed to send in my manuscript to get an estimate. Once I got the estimate, I sent the images and the final version of the manuscript for them to convert into an Epub and then a mobi file for Amazon. Hitch and her team have been very communicative during the process and have answered all of my questions during the conversion process. I'm sure that some self-publishing authors would feel comfortable converting their work on their own, but going with a company that does it for you allowed me to focus on the revisions, and how the book would look and flow without getting bogged down with coding and other technical stuff. Perhaps I'll look into doing it on my own after my first couple of novels have been successfully published, but for now working with Booknook.biz has definitely eased my stress levels.
The final conversion process is almost done and the mobi file should be ready to submit to Amazon in the next week or so. I'm pretty excited and a little nervous as the finish line approaches. I'll keep you posted on how things progress as this part of the journey winds down and I'll have a sneak peek of another image from the upcoming Chronokari novella in the next few days.
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