The proofs are here! The proofs are here :(

Lulu Proof
I received the Lulu.com proof really quickly - it was shipped from France, so I wonder if it was published there? I do know that they have European printing sources in addition to the ones in Pennsylvania. In any case, it felt great to hold a paper version of my book, with the cover I created. It's a real book, something I've been waiting for all my life. I may have been more excited if someone else had done all the work and made it perfect, but then I would have had to wait two years or so for it, or so I understand. There was some ink bleen on the interior, but the print quality was otherwise clear and professional. The problem with Lulu is that it's very expensive, otherwise I'd have gone with them exclusively because of the ease of use of their website and interface.

CreateSpace Proof
The CreateSpace (company owned by Amazon) proof finally arrived yesterday. It took about 2 weeks to get here. I somehow expected it to be perfect. Why would it be perfect on the first try? It was definitely wishful thinking. If it had been perfect, I could have approved the proof and then distribute it on Amazon. I could start my marketing campaign. I could make my book known to the world! But it was not to be, not this week. The formatting of the CreateSpace version was wrong, and after thinking about it for a while, I realized that that problem is likely that I didn't embed the fonts into the PDF. You see, Lulu had allowed me to submit a .doc, but CreateSpace requires a .pdf with embedded fonts. I submitted a .pdf, but I didn't embed the fonts (because I don't have Adobe Acrobat X). Bad idea. Now I understand why they tell you to do it. If you don't, it can default to another font, which is a slightly different size and has different spacing. This can throw off your formatting big-time. Of course, indents and so forth will be the same, but different fonts produce different wordcounts on a page. What this means is that my carefully-formatted document (I had gone through all 300-some-odd pages to make sure I didn't have pages with just one line on them, etc...) looked like a wreck. Completely unacceptable.

Copyright Page
Another thing that became clear when I reviewed the copies is that books look really silly without copyright pages. My book is automatically copyrighted without my having to sign any papers or register it anywhere, but books need copyright pages or they feel wrong. So I added one into the new versions.

Thinking impatiently, I thought I'd forfeit the copyright page on the Lulu version in order to have a copy on the market. After all, the formatting and printing of the Lulu version were excellent. I went onto the website to buy the global distribution package (which makes it available on Amazon.com, BN.com, Amazon.co.uk, etc...), and it wasn't an option. What could be wrong? Fine print, that's what. Somehow, I had neglected to ask for an ISBN number from Lulu, which is (of course) necessary to sell the book anywhere other than on the Lulu website. And once you get an ISBN number, they tell you the other requirements for market distribution - there must be certain margins, the text on the cover has to be x centimeters from the edge, and you need a copyright page.

I have my work cut out for me. It's been an excellent learning experience, but I think I'm ready to move on to the marketing step!

Waiting for the proofs

As you will notice as you read through previous posts, there is a lot of waiting involved in publishing. Waiting isn't easy for anyone - and I hear that when you're published by a publishing house rather than self-publishing, there's MUCH more waiting involved. Another reason I'm glad I'm self-publishing.

My book is now available for Kindle, and has only been purchased by friends and family thus far. Of course, nobody else knows it exists because I have done zero promotion whatsoever, unless you count Facebook and e-mail (read: friends and family). And many of them don't own a Kindle. I don't own a Kindle. So I understand the low sales.

As we speak, I am waiting for proof copies of the paper version from Lulu.com and Createspace.com, my two POD publishers. I hope they come FAST because I am so curious how they turned out. And I hope that they're perfect and require no changes because the faster they are ready, the faster I can start promoting my book. I will not do any promotion until a paper version is available. The media says that paper books are on their way out, but judging by how few of my friends and family own Kindles (which are the #1 e-readers, I understand), paper books will not die soon.

Long live paper!

Now Available for Kindle

A big thing happened last night - the digital version of my book finally showed up on Amazon! It felt great. I was checking the Kindle Direct Publishing site about every half-hour, and it continually showed it as "publishing" (it takes about 24 hours from the time you click "publish" to the time they publish it). And then I got an e-mail from a friend who had bought it for her brand-new Kindle! She bought it before I even knew it was up. Thank you, Bechert family! So even though I have been writing my whole life, I am now going to call myself a writer. The next step is to get it on Apple iBooks and BN.com (the latter is a bit more complicated). Once it's up everwhere AND the paper version is available, I'll start the real publicity campaign with newspapers, etc...

There may be an element of mild disgrace in the eyes of the major publishing houses and agents, but I am already glad that I self-published this book because, as a writer, I really just want people to read my book. It will not make me rich or famous. But it's always fun to learn new things, and to feel like I'm not just writing for myself. If you buy a copy, let me know, and let me know what you think!

Not so fast

Bismillah. I have sent the necessary files to Amazon for publication on Kindle! Next up, BN.com/Nook and Apple iBooks. Paper versions will follow.

In the back of my mind, I've been thinking that this is way too easy. That anyone can and will start putting up random books that they write, and that Amazon will be inundated with bizarre, unedited, spontaneous "books".

I really don't think that's going to happen. Even with all of the technological advances that have been made, it's not as simple as uploading a Word file and there you go, you have an e-book. And maybe that's intentional - because Amazon doesn't want an avalanche of random e-books.

Getting a book up there takes quite a lot of work. Allow me to elaborate:

1. Write a book in your "spare" time.
2. Reread, edit, edit, edit, edit, edit, edit until you can't take it anymore.
3. Torture your friends and loved ones with your manuscript, at which point you think you hope they're honest.
4. Take the honest feedback and edit some more, until you're fed up.
5. Take a break. A year is good.
6. Revisit your manuscript and edit some more until you want to give up.
7. You think you're done? Read it through one more time. Believe me, you'll find changes that need to be made.
8. Decide that it will never be perfect, and decide it's ready to publish.
9. Save file as .HTML
10. Convert file to Mobi using Mobipocket Creator
11. View with Kindle Previewer.
12. You thought you were done? No. Now you can see the strange formatting caused by a power struggle with MS Word, which takes the liberty of inserting weird formatting at random and where you don't want it. Make a note of all the odd stuff.
13. Go back into Word document or into .HTML document and take the crazy MS stuff out.
14. Repeat steps 10, 11, and 12. You won't find all the errors the first time.
15. Repeat step 13.
16. Repeat steps 10 and 11 as many times as necessary to get rid of as much weird stuff as you can before you are fed up with it.
17. View your document with the Kindle Previewer and look carefully at every single page (all 300-something of them) to catch any last-minute errors. If you still find some, which you will, repeat steps 13 and 10. Decide that you have found enough errors and you want to publish this document before your head explodes.
18. Fill out all the required information and upload .prc file and cover art to Amazon. (This is after spending days creating and perfecting the cover art, with the help of your sweet husband).
19. Hold your breath and click "Save and Publish".

TIRED YET???

I am not by any means good at computer stuff, but self-publishing requires you to stretch the computer-scientist part of your brain. It is an interesting exercise. You will gain some appreciation for people who work with computers behind-the-scenes.

Now, I will have to do slightly different processes to post on BN, Apple, and on-demand publishing sites. I guess I'd better get some rest...

Waiting...

I'm almost there. I'm at the end of a very, very long marathon, but I am not at the finish line yet. I see it, but I can't cross the line until I jump through a few more hoops. Levent is reading my MS (manuscript) once more, and I can't publish until he finishes because he is the chief editor. Or maybe that's me. Whatever, he is the other chief editor. He catches the things I have not and cannot catch. Writers cannot be the sole editors of their work because we KNOW what we mean. Whether or not we get our message across is the important thing, though, so we need others to read our writing, to tell us what's good and also where we've failed. A good editor tells you the truth. You don't have to listen to the truth, but at least they point it out to you...

Meanwhile, I've been thinking about my next book. I have some ideas laid out, but I am very drawn to the idea of writing a comic novel. That said, I am not a great artist. I know some great artists, but they're all to busy. So I think and think and think about how I could maybe do it. Kaan, my oldest son, sits looking at comic strips for hours. He can't read yet, but the pictures tell him the story. Or maybe they don't, but he sure has fun trying to figure out what it's about...

I think I am starting to see the finish line...

Twitter

I'm now on Twitter. I haven't written anything yet, as I have no idea how it all works. But if you want to follow me, my Twitter name is SaskiaEAkyil. It's not going to be used as a personal twitter account, but as a professional account :)

The Back Cover

Here's the back-cover text, so far. It's really hard to summarize a book in a paragraph or two - you want to entice readers, but not give too much away. It is MUCH harder to briefly summarize a book than it is to write a book (but it doesn't take quite as much time).

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Can coffee grounds tell your future?

Will fate bring you to your soul mate thousands of miles from home?

How will you know if it's him?

Would the evil eye dare stop two souls on their paths to each other?

A last-minute opportunity to spend a month with a Turkish family on the Aegean coast drastically changes the course of seventeen-year-old Rachel Guo’s summer. This intercultural coming-of-age novel is full of exotic tastes, summer heat, promises kept and broken, and love. In a summer village on the western coast of Turkey, you’ll meet Rachel, who doesn’t know what she wants; Aylin, who doesn’t know if she wants the one who wants her; and Leyla, who knows who she wants, but doesn’t know if she’ll get him. Love and romance are secret pleasures in the summer village, which only make them more exciting.

Travel with Rachel on her journey far from the comforts of home, to a place that will captivate her and leave her changed forever.

Promoting Secrets of a Summer Village

I will not have the luxury of having any help from a publishing house to help me promote my novel. I will have to rely on my friends, family, and social/professional network. So far, here's who I will contact. Do you have any additional suggestions?

1. Facebook Friends
2. Friends and family via e-mail announcements
3. TACAWA and other Turkish-American associations... and maybe also the Turkish associations in Canada, Australia, Great Britain, Ireland, South Africa...
4. My high school and universities
5. My brothers' high school
6. CIEE, EF and similar study-abroad programs and organizations
7. The Olympian and Seattle Times newspapers (the main character in the book is from Olympia), The Gazette Telegraph of Colorado Springs (because my mother lives there), The Denver Post (because my father lives there)
8. My EFL contacts at Turkish Universities - perhaps the book could be good reading material for students studying English?

To-Do List

I suppose if your book is picked up by a publisher, they still expect you to do lots of editing, but they take care of the rest - the cover, the formatting, the electronic formatting, the publicity, the book review requests. But that's all up to me, and I'm learning. I've got an almost-perfect (as perfect as it's gonna get) version of my book. Levent just needs to read over it one more time to catch the things that I didn't catch, before I upload it electronically to Amazon.com, BN.com, and iBooks. I have to change the formatting before converting it to a format that they accept, too - the formatting doesn't work the same way on Word as it does on EPUB.

Here's what else I am working on:

• my cover art
• a letter to send to newspapers, etc... for publicity purposes
• a list of places who will receive my publicity letter
• creating a blog for myself where friends, family, and unknown readers can contact me
• a one-paragraph summary of my book - like the kind of thing you'd find on the back cover of a book
  

Welcome to me

Welcome to my author blog! I already have a personal blog, but Writing in my Head is a blog I am keeping strictly with regards to my writing and publishing.

In 2008-2009, I wrote a novel. When I was finished, I started querying it - for those of you who are not in the writing industry, it means sending letters to agents, in the hopes that they will want to represent you. If they take you on as a client, they try to get you a contract with publishers. If they can do that, your book gets published by a publisher and may end up in bookstores. The publishers may help you publicize your book, though some of that will still be in your own hands. It depends how much of a big seller they think your book is going to be.

Quite a few agents were interested enough in the premise of my novel (which was originally called Silent Night, Unholy Night, then Some Things are Universal, now Secrets of a Summer Village), and asked to see the entire manuscript. None of them offered representation. So I decided to take a break from my novel, think about it, and edit it. 2010 wasn't such a great year for me, and I couldn't even think about looking at my novel, but once 2011 rolled around, I was ready to revisit it.

So, I read it again. And I really liked it. "Wow, I wrote some pretty good stuff!" I thought. So I edited it from start to finish and started querying again. In the nearly two years since I had queried the first time, the industry had already changed a lot. For one thing, lots of agents now ask for up to 3 chapters of your book along with the query letter, so you don't have the immediate satisfaction of the quick requests for writing samples. After receiving a few rejections, I decided to re-investigate self-publishing.

I hadn't been too interested in self-publishing electronically in the past because I'm old enough to still want paper books. Electronic books are not enough for me. Maybe I'll own a Kindle or a Nook or something one day, but I don't yet. I think they're great, but I don't particularly want one. And for me, if my book is only electronic, it's not published. I need a paper copy. That said, there's more earning potential (for authors) from the electronic version.... Still, even print-on-demand self-published books have come a long way in two years, both in quality and in price.

So I'm going to go for it. Self-publishing requires the author to wear a lot of hats - writer, editor, cover designer, publicist, etc..., but I think it's worth a try. Here I go...

I'll post about self-publishing as I get further along in the process, and will share my book cover and so forth with you. I'll also let you know when my book is available, and from where!