I’ve been absent the last couple of days because I injured my back. The pain was terrible, and I could barely walk. I’ve been resting and taking muscle relaxers and ibuprofen. I’m much better now. And our spring weather finally seems sustainable. It’s 73 degrees, sunny, and clear. I sat on the porch last night until 8 pm and watched the stars come out.
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The exciting news is that my Ebook of Ariel’s Song: Published Poems, 1987 -2023, is now available on a new book club social networking platform called Fable. The company is based in Palo Alto, California (Silicon Valley.) I never heard of it until Draft2Digital emailed me and let me know that my book could be listed there. Of course, I agreed. Here’s the link:
I’m excited to share that my first poetry book, Ariel’s Song: Published Poems, 1987 – 2023, is now live on multiple platforms. Here’s where the Ebook and the Paperback are available right now–and all the links!
I’m excited to announce that my first poetry collection has been published!
At the end of 2023, I realized that 65 of my poems had been published — enough to compile a collection of poems. I used Atticus to design and format the book. When the manuscript was complete, I sent it to an independent publisher (with her permission). She told me she could not publish the book because all the poems had been previously published. She was concerned about copyright concerns and felt that Amazon would give me a hard time. I reassured her that I own the rights to all my poems (which I do) because they were all published with non-exclusive rights (the rights revert to the author on publication). She offered to create the files, but I had already done the work.
I considered using Amazon KPD and dealing with whatever hassles they gave me, but I didn’t like that idea. After days of pondering my options, I decided to follow a different path. I decided to use this book to learn about self-publishing and stay in control of the process. After all, if for some reason I couldn’t publish it, it was better to find out now. But I was determined to get it published.
1. I created my own imprint, Horse Mesa Press, which has been registered with the state of Arizona as a trade name so nobody else can use it.
2. I subscribed to Canva and created my own cover. Some people don’t recommend this, but I’ve seen some pretty awful covers designed by “professionals.” I know what I like. It took hours looking through public domain photos and artwork to find what I wanted. But if you don’t like the cover, please tell me!
3. I had to learn how to resize a PDF file and resize and adjust the dpi on photos.
4. I bought my own ISBN numbers.
5. I researched what other authors were doing.
6. Finally, I chose three paths to travel: Lulu, Draft2Digital, and IngramSpark.
7. I used Lulu as the testing ground. The company was really easy to work with. They produced a beautiful product. The Lulu EPUB, PDF, and paperback are currently available in the Lulu Bookstore. I wanted to get the Ebook onto Smashwords, so Draft2Digital was my next stop (they’re affiliated). D2D was easy to use with the Ebook, but not with the paperback. They accepted my print-ready book cover files but rejected all of my print-ready interior PDF files. My docx. file was not formatted for a finished project (and I wasn’t going to type up a whole new manuscript for them). The Ebook and paperback have gone smoothly with IngramSpark, but I had to use their cover generator to recreate the cover, and that was a nightmare. It took me four freaking hours! They are slow with processing but thorough. In fact, I just got an e-mail that I need to redo the back cover because some of the colors aren’t showing up. It’s very frustrating. Here’s where hiring a professional makes sense because they understand the technology better than I do. (Did I say this was a learning process?) Once the digital proof is processed and approved, they will send me the proof copy. Once that’s approved, they will publish the book.
8. I read that Lulu’s global distribution was not that great, so I passed on them and went with D2D and IngramSpark. Since I could only choose one company to get my book on Amazon, I chose IngramSpark. And yes, they got the Ebook onto Amazon and other venues without any issues. As soon as the print book is ready, they will get it onto Amazon, etc.
9. Although I had planned to launch the Ebook and print book together, I’m not sure how soon the IngramSpark print book will be ready, so I am going to launch them separately. Since several people have asked, the Ebook is available right now on Amazon and other platforms. The Lulu print book is available right now in the Lulu Bookstore.
Dawn Pisturino's Blog 