I’ve been working on a cover design for the first book. It’s still something of a rough, so it’s subject to change, but I wanted to add it to the website, so I figured I’d do a little writeup to announce it! Here it is:
I’m planning on officially publishing the book within the next few months, most likely. I think I’m going to go the self-publishing route. It’s just simpler and I have more creative control. I’m just trying to decide if I want to go full-on I do it myself and sell it from my site or if I want to get someone like Amazon to do the heavy lifting for me. I’m trying to decide what would be most cost effective for me at the end of the day. Since I already have a great day job, I’m not worried about making a living off of this, but I would at least like a system that would cover the cost of my prints, ya know?
Jessica, when did you first decide that you wanted to write a book – I believe you’ve been writing and drawing since you were very young?
Also, what all was involved in the copyright process for your books and how long was the process/cost, etc. (just good info for the beginning authors like yourself)?
Looking forward to reading your book(s)!!
Interestingly enough, I never decided I wanted to write a book. I was always thinking up little stories and creating characters even when I was young, and eventually, I just started writing them down and creating little adventures for these characters. My first draft of Shadow of an Unknown Past officially began when I was 14, but I didn’t really understand what I was creating at the time. It took a while before I realized I could actually publish it as a book, and even longer still to decide if I wanted to. I love creating worlds and telling stories, and that was all I really had an interest in at the beginning. But eventually, I decided I wanted to share what I had created, so I decided to publish it.
Because I self-published my book, it was actually a very quick process to get it published. I went through IngramSpark, and they have a great program set up to get your books out there. You get out of it what you invest, however, and right now, I’m trying to keep costs down. To start, it’s only $49 to upload a manuscript and have it approved for printing, but you can pay more to have them advertise the book in their catalogs for bookstores and libraries to purchase. The most expensive part was buying the ISBN for the book (the number libraries and bookstores use to identify the book, basically). I had to purchase multiple numbers because I have both an ebook and a physical version. That cost $300. Eventually, I’m going to do some marketing, which will cost more. However, I get back a much larger profit from each sale than I would have if I published traditionally. The most significant gap in income between the two methods is how hard it is to market a self-published book. Again, you get out of it what you invest, but in this situation, it’s more about time and effort than money.
Technically, the book was automatically copyrighted the minute I started writing. I can, however, get it officially copyrighted, which makes it easier to defend my claim to it legally. It’s expensive and a long process, though, so that is still something I’m working on.
I hope this helps answer your questions and wasn’t too much information!