There’s only one thing I will gently disagree with you on, and that’s the cost of copyediting/proofreading. I know who you’ve got working for you for $150, and I know that person is fantastic—no arguments there. But that person is charging below the going rate.

I’m a full-time writer and a former professional copyeditor (as well as production editor, content editor, blah blah that was all nonfiction anyway), and I’ve been copyediting for colleagues who are putting their work up. Good, solid writers who know how to write kick-ass books. But they still need a professional eye to go over them. Heck, even I hire someone to go over my book ms before I put them up, because I know I’m going to miss things in my own work. When I get to doing POD, I will probably have them reviewed again, for things like bad breaks and ladders and widows/orphans.

The thing is, it’s more than just typos. For example, most people don’t know that extra spaces before a paragraph mark can screw up formatting. Stuff like that.

I’m not advocating spending a ton of money; I agree with you 100% on that. I just want people to be aware that quality copyediting can cost a little bit more than what you quoted. Copyediting is a skill very different from writing. Make sure you get someone who’s well-trained.

I set my MS up in Word (I know – but it worked for me!) tweaked it over and over, then saved to PDF and printed some of it out. CreateSpace has a very good walk-through for how to do this. Mirrored margins, even/odd page numbering, etc.

The thing is, if you have a little time and are willing to do some iterations, you don’t have to get it perfect the first time. Sure, I tried, but when I got my first proof copy, I compared it to the published books on my shelf, and realized I needed a little bit more spacing, and a slightly bigger font. Not to mention printing on cream paper, instead of white.

So I made those changes and got another proof. It looked great – except that I needed to re-center some graphic elements.

Third proof was the charm, and it really wasn’t that hard. I recommend taking a physical book that you think is laid out well, and studying the elements. How did they head the chapters? What kinds of fonts are they using? etc. Then see how much of that you can duplicate in your document.

Precisely. These are two separate functions, with two separate skills sets, and they’re done by separate people.

A copy editor’s job involves things like spotting where you wrote “now” when you meant “know.” The spellchecker won’t catch that, and the writer may have been too careless or exhausted to see it himself.

An editor’s job involves saying things to the writer like, “It makes no sense that your lead character, Adolph Hitler, breaks the non-aggression pact, invades Russia, and starts a two-front war he can’t win. Plus… who’d be stupid enough to invade -Russia-? Didn’t you read WAR & PEACE? You’ve got to provide Hitler with compelling motivation for launching Operation Barbarossa, or else take it out of the story.”

(In fiction, unlike life, things need to make sense.)

dr.cpe

Some people shouldn’t be put anywhere near a graphics app. Really. But coming up with 50 to 75 bucks to pay someone to do it isn’t really a huge deal and there’s plenty of cheap royalty-free art. I do think that a cover that gives a professional impression (and I suspect a lot of that is properly kerned type and appropriate font choices for title and author) carries a message to the potential reader. I know I can’t do that so I pay someone to do it for me. No apologies for paying a flat fee for what I’m not comfortable doing myself.

And the guy who lives in the same house with a Hugo-winner editor says you don’t need an editor. *snickers*

The problem you should be aware of before you contemplate doing iBooks via a friend or a friend’s Mac is that… you can’t even MONITOR your iBooks accounts (let alone do changes or updates) without a Mac.

(It’s a really silly system for a vendor to have. Basing access on whether or not the supplier is a Mac user? What are they THINKING?)

Yours, Cyn