Dead Man Bloggin’ – Sept 22nd, 2024

When I first started writing, I thought I knew it all. I had an idea. I had a story. I had Wordpad. That was enough, right?

Right?

Me of a decade ago (and 8 novels) was not bright.
Me now isn’t much of an improvement, but I’m trying.

With Necromancer’s Bullet coming out in a little more than a week ( #panic ), I thought I’d talk about all the things that went into getting the sausage made. For writers… you probably know this (or you’re about to be in for a shock). For readers, you probably had no idea.

With luck, you’ll learn a thing or two.

First, two notes about me in brief:
1. I am an independently published author. That means everything from my cover design to my website design flows through and ends with exactly one person: me. I make the decisions and I call the shots. As a result, I take the credit… and the blame.

2. I am an affiliate for one of the software items below – Publisher Rocket. With that said, I haven’t written my full review for it yet. I just wanted to be clear with that fact.

The Software Packages & Websites

This list isn’t inclusive, and I’m sure I’ve left something or other off. But, if you’re thinking about writing a book and doing it all on your own, here’s some of the skills I’ve had to learn over the last few years… and the sites that help put them together.

• LibreOffice Writer
  Okay, so let’s jump into the brass tacks on this one. Libre is a free-to-download word processor and office suite. It is one of several that you can find online that all do roughly the same thing; it works as a word processor.
  
  I have a love/hate relationship with it. I love that it’s free; I love that I’ve used it since I was in college two decades ago. I don’t love that sometimes it can be incredibly buggy, or that it doesn’t always recognize “American” English.
  
  That said, there’s been a large push over the years for people to migrate over to Google Docs. I personally don’t like web-based solutions, but I may switch into it for my next title.
  
  
• Grammarly
  Recently, Grammarly has made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Depending on your stance on AI and AI content generation, you may want to skip using the service. I do use it, knowing that they parse my documents for their AI models. On the other hand, God help any AI that gets it’s digital fingerprints on my first draft.
  
  But why do I use it?
  
  Let me be perfectly clear: I don’t generate content with it. Period.
  
  I do use it to check for basic typos, misspellings, or grammar breaks. It isn’t perfect and we don’t see eye-to-eye. It is NOT a replacement for an editor. It does, however, cut down on the work that either my editor or myself have to do for the next revision. Anything that makes my life easier is for the better.
  
  Not perfect, but useful. That said, neither is their stance on AI.
  
  
• LibreOffice Calc
  A little less important than writer, but I use the spreadsheet functions to keep track of my yearly sales, advertising keywords, advertising links, ad copy, and basically anything that can be spread-sheetable.
  
  
• Affinity Photo 1
  I can only speak for the first version of Affinity, and they have released an updated version since. That said, it is a one-time purchase with no subscription required. Why do I use it though?
  
  When you advertise online, the vast majority of posts you’ll see have an image in them that utilizes their book cover along with a background image and other features. Affinity is a graphics software package that rivals Photoshop, and as a one-and-done purchase, it’s my preference.
  
  
• Covers by Christian
  But there are some things I can’t do – and detailed graphic art is one of them. For that, I outsource to the immensely talented Christian Benultan of CoversByChristian.com. Is he cheap? No. Is he worth every penny? Absolutely.
  
  Christian has done the covers for the vast majority of my work – everything from Snowflakes to Requiem and Bullet. I can’t recommend him enough, and in fact, I’ll recommend him so much that I already have two more covers ordered from him!
  
  
• Google Forms
  While I’m not a fan of G-Docs, Google Forms is an incredibly useful tool for pre-sales. With the way that I have my business structured, I use a free Google Form to accept paperback pre-orders for people that want a signed, dedicated copy sent direct from me on book launch. Truthfully, it took about fifteen minutes to put together and it notifies me whenever someone orders in.
  
  
• Google Drive
  I am a fan of off-site storage. I want to know that my documents are going to be salvageable in case the worst-case scenario happens. Drive helps me accomplish that. As a perk, I can get into them wherever I am – at the mall, on my phone, in traffic, whatever. I seriously can’t recommend off-site storage enough; if you’re a content creator, use it!
  
  
• Social Media Platforms
  Listen, I know that you didn’t land here by chance. Odds are very good that you came to this blog by way of my YouTube channel, my Facebook page, or a post on X. I use all of them, plus Threads, LinkedIn, and Goodreads.
  
  Who do I advertise on, though? For my paid advertising, I keep it simple: Amazon Ads and Facebook Ads, both rarely (at the time of this blog) but with intent. I post semi-regularly on TikTok, X, and I am working on building up my engagement on the ‘tube and Threads.
  
  
• Atticus.io
  With previous ebooks, I used the Calibre software package. Typically speaking, it would take me up to a week to format a title, eliminate the bugs, check the table of contents, organize the metadata, and test it.
  
  With Bullet I used Atticus, an online formatting/semi-wordprocessor.
  
  The cons? It hated the print edition and nearly doubled the size of the book. That’s my number one beef. The other? It’s designed to be user-intuitive, but since it’s web/browser based, I kept making the mistake of going “back” when I just needed to close an overlapping window.
  
  That said? A task that normally would take a week and a slew of old HTML/CSS knowledge took an afternoon.
  
  No joke. And I was able to add some extra bells and whistles I’ve never used before. Seriously – no joke. I’m delighted with it and how the end product came out.
  
  
• Publisher Rocket & Kindleprenure.com
  Okay, full stop – I am registered as an affiliate marketer for PR. I am not linking to it in this blog, because I want to dedicate an entire post to it later.
  
  With that said, the reason I registered as an affiliate is because PR has vastly improved over the years. A semi-recent update has made it incredibly easy to find *valid, relevant keywords* for advertising, Amazon-specific ad targeting, and general marketing. I cannot stress how important this is.
  
  I also can’t stress at how fast it makes your research, from a marketing standpoint. A task that two years ago took me 3-4 days of reviewing and then a month+ of testing took a whopping HOUR to get my keywords and categories set for Necromancer’s Bullet. It is the #1 reason I am going to try to run Amazon Ads again at book launch.
  
  Anything that makes advertising less of a headache is entirely worth it to me.
  
  
• WordPress.org
  Welcome to my website. I’m not going to lie; WP gives me a headache on most days. On the other hand, there’s a reason why it’s one of the most popular web development platforms in the world. It’s more than just blogging; it’s e-commerce. It’s design. It’s development. It’s plugins. SO MANY PLUGINS.
  
  A lot of authors think that having a social media page is enough. It isn’t. When you have a website, you have your own part of the internet that you can do almost anything, say almost anything, and host almost anything on. You have more control over it than you do your FB page, and that’s important.
  
  Your website serves as a one-stop shop. Look at everything on mine; it’s a portal to all of my other platforms. It hosts first chapters of all of my books. It links to my vlogging platforms. It supports my charity work. It hosts my newsletter signup page.
  
  It’s also not at the whim of a random social media bot deciding I’ve violated “a policy” that will get my account suspended. If I lost my FB account tomorrow, it would be freaking terrible; but I’d still have my website. I’d still have a line of communication. I’d still be able to sell direct, even if I’ve been ‘zucked.
  
  It’s worth the investment, even if you don’t see a positive ROI (yet).
  
  
• Bowker
  Do I like that I have to use Bowker? No. Do I have to use Bowker? Technically, no. Do I use Bowker? Yes. Why?
  
  In the US, ISBNs aren’t handed out freely by our government – unlike in some countries. Bowker is the agency that handles registration fees and ISBN assignments for any form of media you create. Can you get a ‘free’ ISBN from a publishing company? Yessss… kinda. Except you don’t own it; you’re effectively freely leasing it (and that’s a story for another blog).
  
  For me? I bite the bullet and pay for them. It’s better to own your own, so for all of my print books, I do.
  
  
• Ingram Spark
  IS is a Print on Demand (PoD) distribution agency – you give them your work, you upload your files, and you grant them the right to fill orders. I’m not going to lie to you: their prices have increased repeatedly over the years, and I am not a fan of it. However, most non-Amazon bookstores won’t stock books if Amazon does the PoD service…
  
  …so if you want to see your books carried in smaller/alternative retailers, Spark may be the service you want.
  
  
• Amazon KDP
  For me, this is the core of the self-publishing world. Without Amazon, I wouldn’t/likely couldn’t do what I do. There are plenty of places to self-publish, but Amazon is the biggest. While it’s not always fun to play by their rules, it is their sandbox – and everyone is welcome.
  
  With that said, be wary! There’s a few services out there that promise they will publish your book on Amazon, but you don’t need them; Amazon KDP is Amazon. Period. Here’s a direct link so you don’t get ripped off:
  
  https://kdp.amazon.com
  
  Start there for your publishing journey!
  

But at the end of the day…

…at the end of the day, these are just tools, services, and service providers. What world you make is up to you; what stories you tell. It STARTS with you, it ENDS with you.

Sure, you need a bit of mental elbow-grease to put it all together. Sure, you need time, effort, and tech to polish it. However, all the tech in the world doesn’t matter if you don’t put pen to paper, or cursor to screen.

Just remember:
You’re not just creating content, you’re creating a product. Writing for fun is writing for fun, but writing to publish is a business – and you’re the de-facto CEO.

Good luck, and I hope this list helps you out in the future!

~Joshua E. B. Smith
Grimdark Fantasy Horror & Cyberpunk Novelist
josh@sagadmw.com