How I Published My Debut Without Paying For Services
Good evening all you lovelies,
I thought I’d come on and explain my process. I was brought up poor, my family couldn’t afford much so we didn’t tend to get what we wanted most of the time. But I’ve been dreaming about getting my book published for so long.
Now, because I moved out of my parent’s house, I have to pay for everything including my schooling and with the economy the way it is now, it’s been difficult. So there hasn’t been a ‘book budget’ the way I’d maybe have liked there to be. But I really wanted to make this dream happen. I needed this dream to happen.
So I made a choice. I picked a book that I thought would sell the best when published first and I took the book that was the most completed of any other manuscript I have. I refused to put this dream off any longer. I was going to work hard to make it happen.
No ‘Book Budget’
Now, because there was no ‘book budget’ there were no funds to hire an editor or cover designer or even to buy a pre-made cover. There was nothing I could spend on this book. Now, I’m not going to tell you that this is the best or most efficient way to self-publish, because I doubt that it is anywhere close to that. And it definitely wasn’t easy by any means. It wasn’t even entirely free, but I didn’t pay for anything for the actual book.
Ask For Help
Now, because I knew I didn’t have access to any of those services, I knew who would have to put in all that extra work. Me. I would have to pull overtime with this book and polish it up and get as many extra free eyes on it as possible. So I searched Facebook groups and asked for help. I recruited my partner who was willing to bounce ideas off me and help with some of the editing and structuring and help me talk through any issues I ran into. I found a community that I needed to get this done and to get it done well.
I do think I got a bit lucky that I caught the eye of an editor. This woman had worked as an editor but said she wouldn’t charge me because I was asking for a beta read, not an edit. So I let gave her a copy and let her do her thing. She left some comments in the document for me to follow and a list of questions she’d answered during her read-through. She gave a lot of good feedback as did a few others. So I went to work fixing what I could fix.
Programs Are Your Best Friend
Now, because I was working alone (generally speaking) I knew I’d need any extra help I could get to polish up my work. So I used a few free versions of online programs. Pro Writing Aid was a godsend. It helped me work through inconsistencies and polish up the grammar (which I admit, I am not great at) and I used Edit Out Loud to read my work back to me- For Edit Out Loud, you can pay for the free version so you can listen to the entirely of a document without having to split it up. I did pay for this version for one week in order to get this feature, but stopped the subscription after I was finished with it.
Canva, But Watch Copyright Laws
Now, I did the book cover design and the formatting myself (with some help and suggestions). If you really have no idea what you’re doing, feel free to even ask an artistic friend to give you a hand. It was hard. I made three covers before I settled on one that was good enough to keep working on. That’s how I came up with the current cover that I Was happy with. But once it was complete, there was a lot of tweaking, especially when you upload it to the Amazon KDP site, you have to tweak it until it fits just the way you want it to. Now, to get around Canadian Copyright laws, in order to make money from my cover design, I actually had to have paid something for it. I had to pay for a month’s subscription of Canva which is where I made my book cover, which was fine by me because I actually wanted to use some of the pro features and designs anyway. Now, once the month was over, I stopped my subscription because I didn’t have the extra money to pay for it every month.
Now, when it comes to the cover, be very careful if you’re doing it on your own. Because I’ve seen so many covers that look like an amateur did it and they look uninspired and uninteresting. You want a really good cover. So if you are going to do it yourself, do your research on your genre. It’s important and worth the time you spend, I promise. I did this too and it paid off. I have a cover that is great and fits my genre.
Do Your Research
Now, I did a lot of research on how to self-edit and make it the best it can be. I took a couple of free courses to teach myself how best to work around all the issues I had with my story and how to catch all the mistakes I possibly could.
I made a friend through a Facebook group and was able to recruit her help with the formatting because nothing I tried was working. So she helped and showed me how to do it and we figured out things together.
Now, from start to finish on my debut. Once the rough draft was complete, mind you, was two years. All this editing and cover designing took me 2 years to complete it enough to feel confident in publishing it for the world to consume. So if you’re not willing to spend that time then I would suggest finding services as it will likely be a lot less time, but it’ll cost more. And remember, you get what you pay for so cheaper services doesn’t always mean the same work. But if you can’t afford services and have enough determination, it is doable and probably doable faster than I did it. But I went through phases of trial and error to get where I am today.
And I’m sure there are many trials ahead of me in my career too.
If I can do it so can you! Just do your best, work hard and you’ll get where you need to go!
Thank you so much for following this journey here with me today. I wanted to share what little expertise I have in this area. Remember, as long as it’s been edited by multiple people and been polished well, you can publish a book without needing to pay for an editor. One might be recommended, but is not required for a well-rounded product.
Thank you for your time and thank you so much for stopping by! Consider popping over to my contact page and subscribing to my newsletter for more updates on my publishing and writing and blogging info!
Have a great night and have a happy writing or reading night!
Celine Rose Marie
