FIRST, WRITE A NOVEL

I’m still all cranked up after having prepared four of my “backlist” novels for publication on Amazon Kindle. All four–CONJURER’S OATH, DEVIL’S TOLL, PRIVATE SHOWINGS and WICKED KING DICK–are now live on Amazon and there have already been sales. A number of ace reviewers have graciously agreed to read one or more of these novels, for which I am truly grateful.

I’m not a tech guy so the process of self-publishing online seemed to me rather intimidating. However, by the time the weekend was drawing to a close I felt I had mastered the process. For those of you who might be contemplating doing the same and placing your magnum opus on Kindle for, one hopes, mass consumption and filthy lucre, I have prepared a flowchart of sorts outlining the process, in the form of an interview between MR. ANSWER MAN and his impertinent young ward, LITTLE JIMMY.

LITTLE JIMMY: Mr. Answer Man, how can I get my novel published on Amazon Kindle without laying out a red cent?

MR. ANSWER MAN: I’m glad you asked me that question, Little Jimmy. Here are the steps you should follow. First, write a novel. Finished? Good.

LITTLE JIMMY: I just got done writing a really swell novel, Mr. Answer Man. Now what?

MR. ANSWER MAN: Now’s where the real fun begins, Jittle Jimmy. I recommend removing all headers and footers. It’s easy: simply select Insert on your Word 7 toolbar and under the Header and Footer section select header and footer in turn and click on the “Remove Header” and “Remove footer” buttons.

LITTLE JIMMY: Now what, Mr. Answer Man?

MR. ANSWER MAN: Now save that novel of yours in Word. I use Word 7 but the formatting works better with Word 97-2003 (doc. instead of docx. format) so save it in both formats but work from doc. Now save the doc. document in plain text, select all, copy and paste back into Word 97-2003 and save again. That gets rid of most of the hidden detritus picked up from multiple word processors over the years and gets you a relatively clean text. Now let’s take this opportunity to shower together naked.

LITTLE JIMMY: All clean and pretty, Mr. Answer Man. What’s next?

MR. ANSWER MAN: Now go to:

https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A2RYO17TIRUIVI

and work your way down the list. You will need to insert a page break at the end of every chapter. In Word, this means you hit Insert on the upper left of your screen and then click on “page break” at the upper left of your Toolbar, third selection from the top. Repeat this process as many times as necessary in order to insert a page break at the end of each chapter as well as after the title and author, copyright info, dedication, and whatever other “front matter” your book may contain. It tends to be a tedious process, and I’m told there’s a simpler way but I don’t know what it is.

LITTLE JIMMY: Boy, that WAS tedious, but I think I’m all finished. What’s next?

MR. ANSWER MAN: Got your page breaks done, Litle Jimmy? Good, now save in doc. again. Now for the fun part: selecting an image for the front cover. Make sure it’s a public domain image. Wikipedia provides some good sources for these materials here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain_image_resources,

or you might prefer to Google “public domain” and photo, painting or image.

LITTLE JIMMY: What’s the big deal about pubic domain, Mr. Answer Man?

MR. ANSWER MAN: That’s PUBLIC domain, Little Jimmy, heh heh heh. You don’t want to get sued by some shyster over unauthorized or unlicensed commercial use of a copyrighted image, do you?

LITTLE JIMMY: No way, Mr. Answer Man. The whole idea of publishing this way is to get by dirt cheap.

MR. ANSWER MAN: That’s my boy. That’s why you want to be sure to check the website where the image in question appears for unequivocal language that it is in fact available for commercial use and is in the public domain. Don’t take any chances here. I recommend using the “Snipping Tool” in Word to take a screenshot of the webpage containing that language. Ever heard of the “Snipping Tool,” Little Jimmy?

LITTLE JIMMY: (clutching his privates and wincing) I never even know there WAS a “Snipping Tool,” Mr. Answer Man.

MR. ANSWER MAN: Unfamiliar with the “Snipping Tool”? Go to Start and type “snipping tool” into the “Search Programs and Files” field at the bottom of the left-hand column. While the webpage is displayed, click on Snipping Tool, select New and click on Full Screen Snip at the bottom of the drop-down. You will want to save the screenshot that appears for future protection should your use of a particular image ever be challenged.

Now save the image you have selected for your cover. Save it into My Pictures using .jpeg and then open it with Paint in Word. With a little practice you can resize, crop and add title language to the image fairly easily. Kindle prefers a larger image so when you resize try to get as close as possible to 1260 pixels on the longer side and then save again, always in .jpeg. At this point you might try posting the cover image with the title language on Facebook, see how it looks, e.g., does the title language stand out and does the image arrest the eye in thumbnail format? When you have finished, you might want to delete the cover image from Facebook.

LITTLE JIMMY: Can I use CFNM images for my cover, Mr. Answer Man?

MR. ANSWER MAN: Clothed female naked male? I like the way your mind works, Little Jimmy, but you should avoid images that might be considered pornographic, offensive or in questionable taste.

LITTLE JIMMY: Awww, shucks!

MR. ANSWER MAN: Even if you follow all my advice about public domain images you may still be hit with a cease-and-desist letter from some shyster. The only way to be absolutely sure is to create your own original image, which is what I recommend.

To insert the image into your document place your cursor in the upper left corner of the first page of the novel and on your Toolbar click Insert, click on Picture under Illustrations. You should be taken to the My Pictures folder in your Documents. Select your cover image. You can center your image by clicking on the image in your novel and on your Toolbar select Picture Tools, Format tab and clicking on the appropriate layout option.

LITTLE JIMMY: I found an image and got it centered at the beginning of my novel. Now what?

MR. ANSWER MAN: Now you need to create a table of contents out of hyperlinks. Here are some instructions on how to do it:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/285059.

If you found those instructions as confusing as I did, try this: highlight each chapter heading in turn, click References on your Toolbar and under Table of Contents click Add Text. Repeat for each chapter heading and any epilogue your book may have. Next, position your cursor where you want the Table of Contents to appear. Then under References click the Table of Contents tab at the extreme right of your Toolbar and in the dropdown click Insert Table of Contents. The hyperlinks will appear as if by magic in the order in which you added them.

LITTLE JIMMY: Wow! That DID happen like magic, just the way you said it would, Mr. Answer Man. All of a sudden I’m getting excited!

MR. ANSWER MAN: Me too, Little Jimmy. Now for the Guide Items. Click on your cover image and then click on “Insert; Bookmark.” In the ‘Bookmark name:” field, type “cover” (without the quotes) and click “Add.” Move your cursor to the point where your book starts, click “Insert; Bookmark.” In the ‘Bookmark name:” field, type “Start” (without the quotes) and click “Add.” Move your cursor to the place where your Table of Contents starts, and click “Insert; Bookmark.” In the ‘Bookmark name:” field, type “TOC” (without the quotes) and click “Add.”Insert whatever back matter you choose to include, remembering to insert page breaks after each section of back matter. Did you fart?

LITTLE JIMMY: (singsong) Sor-ry!

MR. ANSWER MAN: Now save your document as .doc and also as Web Page filtered. To do this, click the Office button in Word, select Save As and click on Other Formats at the bottom of the dropdown. In the “Save as Type” field near the bottom, select “Web Page, Filtered” and save in that format. The resulting document will be used to build your book in the Mobipocket Creator which you can download here: mobipocket.com.

LITTLE JIMMY: I never downloaded anything before but… HERE GOES!

MR. ANSWER MAN: Open Mobipocket Creator. On the right-hand side, under “Import From Existing File,” select HTML document. Browse and insert your “Web Page, Filtered” file in the field marked “Choose a File.” Hit Import. On the left-hand side of the resulting screen select “Cover Image” and click on the button “Add a Cover Image” which after a couple of clicks will take you to your My Pictures file. There you will select your cover image. Click “Update” and your cover image will be uploaded.

LITTLE JIMMY: Gee, Mr. Answer Man, this stuff is easy peasy!

MR. ANSWER MAN: Don’t get cocky, Little Jimmy, you’re not done yet. Now on the Mobipocket Creator toolbar click Build, select standard compression and no encryption and press the Build button. You may then preview your book in the Mobipocket Reader, Kindle preview, or both. If you have not downloaded them, do so now. Mobipocket Creator will have created a file in My Documents entitled My Publications where the document you will submit to Kindle has been stored. It is the file with the blue book cover icon. After you open a free account on Kindle and go here:

https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A37Z49E2DDQPP3

You may upload the file with the blue book cover icon once you have provided the necessary information on the online form which is fairly self-explanatory (“unless round is funny.”)

LITTLE JIMMY: I got the sly reference to RAISING ARIZONA, Mr. Answer Man.

MR. ANSWER MAN: In less than twenty-four hours your book should be live on Amazon Kindle, Little Jimmy. Good luck!

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