Exceptional So You Wanna be a Paperback Writer?! Yours and Ringo's Dreams by Jay Squires

Some of you have barely recovered from my post from some time ago, entitled, “What the Hell’s a Jay Squires?”, and now I’m being asked by a number of you, “Where the Hell’s Jay Squires?” I’ve gone from being hyperactive in my reviewing for well over a year, to becoming hyperabsent for about a month, well, except for a story I posted Saturday, “On the Altar of Self-Sacrifice”. More on that in just a minute. Anyway, to all who are interested, my absence deserves an answer—or a couple. Here it is, or they are. See, I’ve been sitting on a three-volume trilogy (well, duh!) finished for better than ten years, reasoning that one of these days, I’ll have to send these off to a publisher (which really means ferreting out an Agent who has enough faith in me to get my books in front of a publisher). It’s a task that’s easy to put off for another day. Then another. I did just that, as I said, for ten years. So, I decided instead, I’d go the self-publishing route. After all, Amazon has been good to me. They’ve delivered my socks and tee-shirts on time with nary a hitch. It was high time I was good to them. I’d give them a slice of my tasty pie. Or, so I thought. Some of you are old hands at publishing on Amazon. If you are one of those, I bow to you and pledge my unending respect for your accomplishments. Really! Truly, I do. Now, go and get a cup of coffee and a snack, oh wise ones, while I share a couple of the pitfalls I encountered with those who choose to remain. To the dear departed, this post will probably still be open when you return and you can cozy back in to the ending. Actually, I have precious little to complain about with publishing an eBook on Amazon. I’ve done several. It’s not rocket science. But listen, when you accomplish that, alas! you know you’re still in the minor leagues. Now, let me hasten to say, there’s nothing wrong with the minor leagues. But something happens as soon as you see the words on your Amazon bookshelf, “Your Book is live”, and you allow your eyes to rove down just below that … until you encounter words to the effect of, “But why wouldn’t you also publish your book in paperback? You’ve got another ten minutes, don’t you? It’s a snap!” And there you go …. So begins your journey to the major leagues. First, consider the cover picture that slipped onto your eBook so seamlessly. (And why shouldn’t it since it’s only used as a thumbnail picture on Amazon’s sales page?) The cover picture for your paperback, on the other hand, is a whole nother animal! It has to be sized correctly, measured in pixels, for cryin’ out loud! The good news is that if you pay to have your cover made, or if you use a site, such as Canva, to make your covers (as I did for my trilogy), It’s automatically pixelated to the correct dimensions. By the way, if you don’t want to climb onto the learning curve which comes absolutely free with building your own cover on Canva … investigate using Fiverr.com. Their artists will create a decent cover for you for as little as $5.00, though hundreds of artists will crawl out of the Fiverr woodwork if you’re willing to pay $20.00. So … somehow you’ve got your cover; you’ve uploaded it to Amazon Direct Publishing, and you’ve been notified that it uploaded successfully. Next comes the uploading of your manuscript. But at the risk of being anticlimactic, so much has to be done before you push that send button. It must be thoroughly edited for grammar, spelling, and the hundred-and-one other things that go into effective writing …. That should go without saying. Aside from that, far and away, the most time-intensive activity is “linking” your table of contents. Each chapter heading must link with the corresponding chapter number in your Table of Contents (ToC), so that by clicking chapter 23 in your ToC listing, you are immediately deposited onto the doorstep of Chapter 23 in your book. But it doesn’t stop there. If you click on that chapter number in your book, you are returned to the ToC listing. But you’ve managed it all over the course of an evening … and you’re good to go! Like Ringo … you’re gonna be a paperback writer! Here’s where the real fun begins. (OMG, if I’ve ever been sarcastic, it was with that last sentence!) Unless you’re the Marquise de Sade don’t plan on smiling for the next four hours—unless, like me, you slam down the lid on your laptop in hour number three! Here’s how it works: Picture your book opened up to roughly the middle and laid flat on your desk, your cover picture to the right, and to the left, your book’s back cover with a place for your bio-pic, a place opposite that for your Author’s bio … and below both of those, a blurb you’ve composed about why the world should read your novel. My first reality? My Bio-pic, which was taken by my son in my insurance office, just before I retired about 15 years ago. It’s a good picture that reeked of wise competence. You could trust the guy! The instant I dropped it in, I received a message to wit, “Hey, Dummy, your picture needs to be resized to larger than 300 DPI”—Google told me that DPI is Dots per Inch. In a panic, I uploaded the only other Bio-Pic I had, which was my afro-hairstyled profile from age 35. Less competence, more raw sensuality. Amazon must have loved it! A perfect DPI fit, probably due to the extra two or three inches of curl around my dome. Are you with me so far? Well, picture this: Superimposed onto the front and back cover were two similarly-shaped rectangles side-by-side. The perimeters of the rectangles weren’t solid, though. They were horizontal and vertical dashes. My job was to move the front and back book cover, together, right, left, up and down until they were perfectly aligned within the rectangles—and my eyes perfectly crossed.  I should probably say, “relatively perfectly aligned”, because, at bottom, it is guesswork and the quality of your book will suffer if you chose heads and the coin landed tails. Which takes me to the next stage. The most important stage. Since I’d experienced all the variables involved, along with the occasional flip of the coin, and not wanting to suffer the embarrassment of having a customer return the paperback to Amazon owing to poor quality, I opted for having a proof sent to me. In fact two proofs: one for each of the two paperbacks I was planning to publish. Now, the writer has to pay for these proofs, though Amazon only charges for their production cost. I paid three and some change for each book. But wait! It gets better. Amazon charges for the shipping as well. Now, I don’t mind telling you, I am poor as a church mouse. For that reason, I signed up for Prime, which offers their first month free … along with the removal of the shipping costs. Except that the shipping costs weren’t removed. I discovered later that Amazon publishes books through an outside vendor, and therefore, my proofs didn’t qualify for Prime’s free shipping. (I screamed loudly enough into their customer service attendant, John’s, ear that he reimbursed me for the shipping, as an isolated exception.) But having to pay for the proofs and the shipping isn’t even the worst part! The worst part came with the opening of the proofs. I wasn’t sure which would come first: my tears, or that morning’s breakfast. Luckily it was neither. From somewhere within me came a rumble of demonic laughter. It lasted a full five minutes. I am looking now at my proof for “RSVP: Invitation to a Chumash Massacre.” I leafed back four pages to the Table of Contents (though the heading was missing). In the long list that followed, the first chapter shown was Chapter Forty-eight. Below it was Chapter Forty-Seven … yep, all the way down to Chapter Twelve on page one. Then, flipping it over, on page two, it went from twelve down to chapter one. The next four headings on page two were DEDICATION (In caps) Dedication (lower case) then Prologue and again Prologue (both in lower case.  Finally … as you might guess, it began at that point with Chapter One and went all the way, without a hitch, to Chapter Forty-Eight. And, Sweet Jesus, all the way to the bottom of page 3, was my actual Dedication! Now, I don’t know about you, but when I dedicate my book to someone, I don’t want it all the way to the bottom with the page number just below it! But my dear friend, my Brother, my Sister, the capper was this: At the beginning of each chapter in the book itself … Amazon omitted the chapter numbers! Oh, hell! I should probably apologize to you. What started out as an explanation to my Fanstory Brothers and Sisters for why I have been gone for over a month, has turned completely into a rant. I’m sorry for that. If you will let me, I’d like to make it up to you in this way: I am celebrating a new book cover, and I hope, a new lease on life for my book of short stories I’ve had on Amazon Kindle (in eBook format) for some time. Simultaneous to uploading that new cover, I also published a novelette I am really proud of called, “The Uneven Zen of Time,” in eBook format (and somehow I even managed a decent paperback of it). Now, I’m not allowed to sell that Kindle eBook for less than $2.99. But! Just listen to this contradiction!  I am allowed to run a promotion on it for a one-week window, during which time—I’m shaking as I say this—I’m giving it away! You read that right! Free! Zilch! Por nada! Why? Well, because I love you. That goes without saying. But also, because you’ve been patient with me on so many things. I only ask this: Will you also tell your friends and family about the free deal? Your postman? Your garbage man? I want the results of my promotion to knock Amazon’s algorithm off kilter. Also, come in close for this; put your ear right up—that's good—now listen: you’re gonna love the book. I’m sorry for being boastful, but I just know you will. So … wait for my next post. The one with the yellow book cover (the new cover I mentioned). Follow the yellow book cover. Follow, follow, follow, follow … follow the yellow book cover. Sorry about that … but that post will announce the beginning date of my freebie. Don't miss out on it. Until then—clicking my heels—Jay out. Recognized

© Copyright 2024. Jay Squires All rights reserved. Jay Squires has granted FanStory.com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.