Finished Book 5

Written on June 12, 2017 by Damon Alan in Author Posts No Comments

The Depths of War is now completed, except the for the process I am about to detail below.

I’d be curious to see how other Indie Authors handle the process of completing a book. Here’s mine.

I write <<< To Be Continued >>> for my series, or <<< The End >>> for a standalone.
I set up Scrivener to compile the book into a .rtf file. This often takes a long time because Scrivener doesn’t remember how you set it up for the last book you published. It resets to the default. There is probably a way to change it to how I want it for good, but I don’t know that way and learning is time that could be spent writing.
Once I have the .rtf file, I edit it to be how I want it. Another hour or so invested.
After that I open the .docx template for Createspace’s 6×9 format. I copy the text in the .rtf file, and paste it into the template.
Formatting that takes a bit more time, adding in the front matter (Title, dedication, etc). I edit the text to make sure there are no blank pages and set all of the styles properly.
Put the table of contacts in place. A quick procedure if you used the styles option on the home tab of Word. Check the page numbering. If you do any edits after this, delete the table of contents and do it again to make sure the numbers are correct. Sometimes one character will add or delete a page in the book.
Set up the page numbering. This is a nightmare for me every time. Because I don’t do it often, I have to relearn. Every time.
Upload to Createspace. Inspect the book with the online previewer. Edit. Reupload. Inspect. Repeat until hair is clean… er, I mean the book looks good.
Here is where I might deviate from the norm: I order 3 proofs in print. My editor gets one. I get one. And if anyone volunteers to read it and mark it up, they get one.
Once I have all three books edited and in my possession again, I go through and fix what I found. I put a big red checkmark next to each thing I fix that is marked in the book. Then I take care of the other two copies. If there is any content editing, I’ll repeat the entire process from uploading to Createspace to ordering proofs, but this time I only order 2. 1 for me, 1 for the editor.
After everything is in order, I approve the file at Createspace and they set about making the print copy available on Amazon. I take that final file for Createspace and copy it, paste it into a non-templated .docx file, and edit it for the ebook. Once that’s done, I upload the ebook to Amazon.

I always provide my contact information in the Author Notes I put at the end of the book. Once in a while a reader will let me know when they see the error, then I edit the file for that book with their correction and re-upload it.

Viola! Book is completed. Book 5 is about to get this entire treatment. Wish it luck.