Mike's Autojournal 2010-07-11

Mike Shea's Website

Writing and Publishing an E-book

Mike Shea, 10 July 2010

30 Second Version

  1. Write your book. Don't worry about formatting and editing. Just write.
  2. Edit your book. Recruit friends to edit it. Edit it again. Edit it a final time.
  3. Wait for your cover and any internal art you've commissioned.
  4. Use your favorite word processor to format and export a PDF version. If you want to stay simple, this is all you need to do.
  5. If you have a small run, host the PDF yourself and use Paypal to process payments. You can make 94% of the cover price this way, but you'll handle a lot of the transactions yourself.
  6. If you want to publish to the Kindle Marketplace and iBookstore, convert Markdown to HTML.
  7. Use HTML and CSS and Calibre to convert to ePub and Mobipocket.
  8. Import the Mobipocket version to the Amazon Kindle Marketplace.
  9. Publish the print-on-demand PDF and ePub versions with Lulu.com, Lulu can publish it to the Apple iBookstore.
  10. Profit!
  11. Start writing again.

Expletive-filled Longer Rant

Over the past three months or so, I wrote an ebook on Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master Tips. I wanted to do nearly all of it myself, save artwork and editing, so I ended up doing the writing, conversion, publishing, financial transactions, and marketing all myself. The following are my experiences and instructions on writing and publishing your very own beloved ebook. Let's dig right in.

Write

First, start by writing your goddamn book. Don't get all high and mighty about the fact that you're going to be an e-publisher. Don't start reading a thousand tutorials about formatting HTML for Kindle. Just write your goddamned book. Write it in markdown using a text editor. Don't buy some fancy schmancy software. J.D. fucking Salinger didn't need fucking Scrivener, neither do you. Just open your favorite raw text editor (I love Textmate) and start writing.

Edit

Second, edit your goddamned book. Don't start formatting the minute you're through vomiting up your brilliant idea into ASCII. Actually edit your book. If you need to, convert your Markdown to HTML and print it. Give your HTML printout to a couple of people you trust to actually do a decent job editing your book. Give them a free pen for their efforts. Don't monkey around with your CSS to make it look just right, just print the fucking thing out as it is. Don't even think about converting your document yet. Don't "just experiment to see how it goes".

Edit more

Don't start dorking around making a PDF copy just so you can feel like fucking Stephen King. Any time you're thinking about your book, go read it. Read it, cut shit out, switch passive to active, cut out every needless word, remove all the anecdotes you added in to make you look smart. Cut it down until it just says what you wanted it to say.

Once you've edited it a bunch of times and your drafted friends and loved ones have given you at least two edited drafts, give it one last look. Again, don't start monkeying around trying to get it on the Kindle. Just hold your goddamn horses, you'll get there.

Wait for art and edit again

If you're commissioning a cover or any internal art, wait until you have all of it in hand before you start to do any conversions or formatting. Again, don't waste your time experimenting. If you want to spend time "working on your book" than work on the words, not the formatting. You'll have plenty of time to dick with the formatting once you've put every word is in its place and removed every needless word.

Format

So now you have a perfect markdown-formatted book and a nice pile of images. Now you can start formatting.

You have a choice of formats to publish your book. If you want to go simple, just publish a PDF version and sell it yourself. PDF can be displayed on computers, printed to paper, and exported to both the Kindle and the iPad. It won't look perfect on all devices, but it can mostly work. If you want, you can make two PDF versions, one for small devices and one for larger devices.

If you want to publish to the Apple iBookstore and the Kindle Marketplace, you'll need an ePub and Mobireader version of your book. To export to these versions, you'll want to convert to HTML, write some custom CSS, and use Calibre to take your HTML+CSS and turn it into ePub and Mobipocket.

I'm not going to get into all of it here because it will simply take your time to monkey with the software to get it to work with your book. Read up on how to use Calibre and how to do some CSS formatting for ePub distributions.

If you don't know what HTML and CSS is, stick to writing it in Word and dumping it out to PDF.

Publish

Once you have these four versions, you're ready to publish. You have a choice about how and where you are going to publish. If you're going to have a small run, like 50 to 100 copies, you can host the book yourself on a website and use Paypal for your transactions. Check out their Payment button merchant services. If you use this method, you can get 94% of your cover price.

If you're going to sell a lot more copies (unlikely, let's be honest), you can use a number of services that either take a bigger commission or charge you a flat fee. A lot of folks have had luck with E-Junkie. If you want to sell a print version, I've always had great luck with Lulu.

Lulu also offers a service to sell your book on the Apple iBookstore as long as you format your book in ePub and validate it properly.

Amazon's Kindle Marketplace requires a Mobireader version to import into their own proprietary version of the book. Like the iBookstore, you get 70% of the cover price.

Ship

Now you should be ready to ship. Write up a nice website about it. Offer up some sample PDFs so people know if they'll like it or not. Get over your asinine ideas that you don't want to give up good stuff for free. Sell it like drug dealers do. Give them a taste and then take their money. Tweet about it. Push it on your Facebook friends. Get involved in whatever social circle exists around your topic. Don't spend money, spend time and energy getting to know your potential audience directly.

Write

When you're done, go treat yourself to a nice steak dinner. Then go home and start writing your next one. After all, this last one was shit. Time to do better.

Sly Flourish

Dungeon Master Tips book released

This week I released Sly Flourish’s Dungeon Master Tips, an e-book focused on giving you useful tips to help you prepare and run awesome 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons games.

You can learn all about the book or buy the PDF directly from Paypal for $7.99. You can also buy it at the Kindle Marketplace or buy it inePub or Mobipocket formats. The paperback version should be available next week from Lulu.com.

I wrote this book to help DMs who have run a couple of games or even veterans who may have run a whole lot of games. I wanted to write a short book with clear tips for building awesome stories, designing excitingencounters, and running an great game at the table. Sample chapters, artwork, and the table of contents can all be found at the book’s official site.

This is a completely original book, not a rehash of this website. While it has tips for running any tabletop roleplaying game, it primarily focuses on Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition.

Jared von Hindman of Head Injury Theater did the cover art for this book as well as nine pieces of original internal artwork.

If you have a friend who might like this book, please send them a link to the book’s official page at http://slyflourish.com/book/.

Of course, you can send me any questions or comments to mike@mikeshea.net.

Now go build your next awesome D&D game.

Three D&D Tips from Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad is one of the greatest television dramas in the past twenty years. With an amazing depth of character, great writing, and wonderful cinematography, Breaking Bad makes us wince but never look away.

There are some valuable tips for Dungeon Masters when watching a show like this. Today we’re going to look at three tips from Breaking Bad that can make your game’s story a lot more fun.

Tell past stories to fill in the gaps

In one memorable episode of Breaking Bad, we are treated to a small flashback that tells the story of a drug dealing uncle who teaches his sons a lesson in dedication to family by sticking one of the children’s head under water until the other hits him hard enough to release him. It’s a chilling tale of two of the show’s villains, the Cousins.

A short background story on your game’s NPCs, perhaps sent over email, can give your players a far greater sense of depth than a few lines thrown out here and there. Write up a short story to tell the tale of your game’s villain. Make it specific but representative of the character they will face.

Actions have reactions

In Breaking Bad, a series of terrible events all occur from a tiny element of chance early on. Like the show, don’t shy away from a chain reaction of events that change your campaign’s entire path.

For example, perhaps your characters poked fun at a particular bar maid. Perhaps that bar maid, cursing her luck, joined a ragtag band of thieves only to slowly become a master assassin. Perhaps this master assassin shows up again 20 levels later to exact her revenge.

Good and bad is relative

Breaking Bad is the story of a once-good man who steps closer and closer to the darkest evils of the world. While his initial intentions are good, Walter finds himself getting deeper and deeper into a world of narcotics and murder. Worse still, he begins to like it, taking a dark pride in the work that he chooses.

In D&D, good and bad are just as relative. In a world like Eberron or Dark Sun, there is less of a distinction between good and evil. There is a large muddy gray sea where good intentions can lead to bad actions. Use this principal to put your players into positions where they must choose which path they will take, the ideal path or the practical path.

Breaking Bad is a wonderful show. It’s the sort of show that sets your imagination on fire and can, when channeled, lead to some great stories in your D&D game.

If you enjoyed this article, please consider using these links to purchase Breaking Bad Season 1, the Dungeon Master’s Guide 2, or the Player’s Strategy Guide. You can also use this link to purchase anything from Amazon.com. Need any gaming accessories? Visit Troll and Toad, an official Sly Flourish sponsor.

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