Song of the Day: Knockin' on Heaven's Door, Bob Dylan - cover by RAIGN
Hey-o! How are you all doing? Well, if it wasn't obvious from the title of this post, I'm going to talk further about my publication plans. Because there has been a recent development and I wish to keep all my readers thoroughly informed. Let's hop to it.
Let me break down what I have been planning. I was going to publish ONLY a paperback edition of whichever book I decide to debut, and leave the book on Wattpad. I was going to publish via Amazon KDP and move from there. When I originally made this plan, CreateSpace was still a thing and I was going to use them for the paperback. A friend of mine does this and I thought this would be the way to go until I was ready to put out eBooks as well. I was also thinking of how to make a hardback edition with Ingram.
Needless to say, I do know that it would be more profitable to pulish BOTH eBook and paperback. I would attract more readers. I would cater to both preference of readers who prefer paperbacks or eBooks. All that jazz. But I wanted to gently dip my feet in the water before diving in head first.
I've done all the research you can imagine. So, yes; I know all the different publishing platforms that support indie authors. I know the In's and Out's of the indie world (having been a book blogger and helped indie authors promote their releases, etc.). I feel fully prepared to have negative reviews, positive reviews, trolls, etc. I am totally ready. Mind you, I do not intend to make publishing a full-time income. This is just a professional hobby.
With everything I have mentioned above, let me dive into the new decision I have made recently.
I have heard of Draft2Digital countless times. It has popped up in many recommendation blogs and videos during my research sessions. I didn't take much interest in them because I had my sights set on the 'Zon (with reservations). However, my plan has changed, slightly. I currently do not have access to Microsoft Word, which is the best offline tool for formatting eBook/paperback. I tell you, on my old laptop I have ALL the test documents where I was practicing formatting. Because I have/had full intentions on doing it myself.
I ended up wanting to dive deeper into Draft2Digital after seeing a video of an author unboxing her book. She mentioned how she'd uploaded her manuscript to Draft2Digital and that she used that formatted file to publish her paperback. That is what caught my attention. I've been trying to practice my formatting using OpenOffice. But it's proving to be so tedious because the settings are so different MS Word. There are features I just do not have with OpenOffice and that kinda bothers me.
So, I played around with Draft2Digital for a few hours one day. I didn't have to do ANYTHING except upload my file and click a button. I ended really liking the design and layout they have on there. Granted, they have a fairly limited selection of different layouts, depending on your book's genre, but they fit what I was hoping to accomplish. No, I won't get to use my fancy fonts on the inside, as far as I can tell, but it gets the job done. That's all I really want out of it.
As I have mentioned many times in some of my posts, I am going the indie route. If Draft2Digital helps me cut my work in half, then I'm going to really consider using them for eBook distribution. Something else I would like to share with you is that I will grab as many free resources as I can. I will do as much of the work for my book as I am able.
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