All Ebook Formatting Made Super Simple

I finished my final round of edits and began working on formatting. GRR! UGH! SERIOUSLY??????? and a number of expletives left my mouth early on...until I found Jutoh. I originally was looking for something free, but this program is worth 40 pounds of gold, not just $40. I only paid $24 in a combination deal to purchase Writer's Cafe as well, but that's a separate blog post.

How easy is Jutoh? This easy.

Download OpenOffice.org if you don't already have it. Write your story. Pick one style for your chapter headings. Pick another for your ebook text (set your paragraph indent with the style, DO NOT USE TABS). Save as .odt [you can have more styles, I have 4 in my book total and it preserved them all!!!]

Open Jutoh. It works on Windows, Mac, and Linux (YAY!). Start a new project. Fill in your metadata (be prepared for this, this helps Amazon and the other sites catalog and show your book for other readers). Select the .odt file you made with everything in it. Select the file you want to be your cover. Tell it to autogenerate your Table of Contents. Click compile. Wait a minute or two. Run the check, then go to FILE:Export and pick the format you want. 

TA DA!!!! You now have access to your book is every format you need. Including .epub, .mobi, the file for Smashwords, and other formats I don't even know where they sell.

Want to get fancy? You can change up which files are included in making the ebook for different versions called configurations. So if one store doesn't allow links in the book, but another does, have two different files of the area with the links and presto changeo.

Like I said....worth 40 pounds of gold. Which at current market value would be almost $1.2 million. 

Give Jutoh a try, a trial copy is free. I don't know exactly how long the trial lasts, as I played with the software for about 30 minutes before deciding it was a must-have for a self-published author.

UPDATE: All formats uploaded to the Amazon, BN, and Smashwords with 0 problems. The Smashwords edition I just saved the file I made perfect for Jutoh that was .odt as a .doc. I fixed the Copyright page and added the ### to the end. So far, so good. A few typo issues, but that was my fault of choosing the wrong file. In the future, upload day will not involve me being the sole caregiver of my toddler. 

And I've already sold 3 copies! 

Get 50% off any version on Smashwords! Coupon code: JZ49W. http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/88799

"CANCELLED" arriving SEPTEMBER 22, 2011. A robotics engineer asks his business partner to marry him, but a previous one-night stand is having his baby.

Self-Published Author: Paying the Tax Man

Taxes? Who thinks about the tax ramifications when they are self-publishing a novel? I most certainly did, and you should, too.


There are two types of organizations the IRS and State Treasurers see writers falling in: hobbyists and professionals. Serious problems arise when an author moves between the two groups and doesn't adjust accordingly!


Hobby Writers: while they might make some money off their writing, do not take steps to improve profitability, turn vast majority of money back into running their hobby. A good example would be a short story writer who runs a blog with advertising on it that covers her website operating expenses. 


Now, that same short story writer gets popular. Suddenly, her advertising costs aren't just covering her hosting expenses, but bringing in $100, $200, $500 of extra money in per month. Uh-oh. Someone just turned into a business! 


Generally, a business is any activity that makes a profit in 3 of the last 5 years. 


Here's the million dollar question (okay not really a million dollar question, but important):


CAN AN UNPUBLISHED WRITER WORKING ON HIS OR HER FIRST NOVEL CLAIM EXPENSES RELATED TO SELF-PUBLISHING THAT NOVEL BEFORE IT COMES OUT?


Yes. Yes, you can.***


And here's the ***, you must be in this for the win. This means, yes you can claim a reasonable loss for writing your first novel. Examples of reasonable expenses might be cover art, web hosting space, office supplies, etc. Should you go out and splurge on a $4,000 gamer's delight desktop and make it a tax-write off? I wouldn't unless you are planning on making that computer a work computer first and foremost. If you go out and buy a reasonably priced "work" laptop? Sure, and you can depreciate it, but that's a whole blog post by itself. 


The bottom line is you must keep records. Actual receipts or bank statements showing the purchases. I use Mint.com to keep my financials straight so I can tag expenses as they come it. I also have a separate bank account just for my writing income and expenses. All of these little things make it clearer to the IRS should I get audited that I am serious about my writing business. And don't make the mistake that just because the profits you make is considered "fun money" by you and your partner that the IRS will agree that means you don't "live off it." They won't.


Another must have if you are going to take a loss for your first year writing (and MOST businesses take a loss in their first year due to start-up costs), is a BUSINESS PLAN. Don't break out into a sweat. A business plan is just a document you write that shows your plan for becoming profitable. It gives an expected publication date (or in the case of a writer pursuing traditional publication, an expected date of a deal). It shows how much you expect to make, either in sales or in an advance, and where that money will be cashed out to you, the owner, or reinvested into the company. We don't write on typewriters anymore people, you should have a plan to get that novel written and making you money in the next 24 months. 


WHETHER YOU DO OR DO NOT ITEMIZE DEDUCTIONS, YOU DO HAVE TO REPORT YOUR INCOME.


Here's the deal on Internet writing. Many websites find loopholes around reporting income greater than $600 to the IRS for their users. Either the website is based in Canada, or they label it as something else. n the end, it doesn't matter. The responsibility to report YOUR income is on YOU. 


If you have given your social security number (or FEIN) to a website that is paying you via Paypal or any other manner of transfer, the IRS can find out how much you made. If you HAVEN'T given your SSN to a website that is paying you via Paypal or any other manner of transfer, the IRS can find out how much you made. 


How? You still bank in the United States, right? Imagine you get audited for something else, and suddenly you find yourself trying to explain these lump sum transfers into your bank account. Remember, even gifts over a certain amount you have to claim as income.


BEWARE THE TAX DOWNSIDE OF SUCCESS!


Another problem self-published, or any writer can face, is success. That's right. As you start making money, the IRS wants some withholding. Now, when you work for an employer, this is automatic. You set it up with a W-4, and your employer withholds a certain percentage for federal and state taxes, and pays half of your Medicare and Social Security taxes. As a writer, you are self-employed, and on the hook for the full 15.4% (this doesn't include your federal and state tax obligations, just the self-employment tax). 


If you are going to OWE the federal government more than $1,000 when you go to file your taxes, you MUST make quarterly tax payments to avoid penalties.


There isn't a hard and fast threshold on when you need to start making quarterly payments. In my case for example, my husband and I file jointly, and his withholding more than makes up for my current tax obligation at the end of every year. We still get a tax refund. However, since we are military, I file state taxes on my own and have to be very careful there. States require quarterly payments too, but the rules vary. Some states only require quarterly tax payments if you are required to make federal tax payments (a loop hole I fall into), some have a monetary threshold based on the taxes you'd owe the state. It just depends, but all states have a website now and you can look yours up.


If you don't feel comfortable estimating a tax return to figure out when you'd owe more than $1,000, then make quarterly tax payments. You get the money back when you file if you don't owe enough tax to need it. The only downside is you lose any interest you could have earned had that money sat in your bank, IF it was going to sit in an interest bearing account. Some writers I know use their quarterly tax payments to make a "cash stash" for their projects next year. I don't agree with this philosophy; if you can save it for a tax bill, you can save it in a savings account. But that's just me.


Also, if you are getting into the area of enough profits that you wish to hire an accountant, ask about moving your reporting dates. As a business, you have the ability to file a form with the IRS that says your fiscal year runs from June 13th to June 12th of the next year, or any year-long span you choose. Some accountants will offer a discount for their services if you stay away from January-April (tax season) and September-October (end of the government fiscal year, time when many government contracting companies do their reporting also). This means you won't bring added stress to their busiest times, and depending on how you time it (late July/August) you'll probably get better service and a glimpse at the tax changes to come and can plan ahead more.


Finally, use your local Small Business Administration. It's what they are there for. Their help is free, and their goal is to help small business owners navigate the myriad of state and federal laws concerning business. Plus, they are a great resource for grants and loans.






"Cancelled" arriving Late Summer 2011. A robotics engineer asks his business partner to marry him, but a previous one-night stand is having his baby.

Self-Published Novel: Marketing Ideas #1 Folded Business Cards

Like most great procrastinators, I'm good at ideas. They swirl and stew and drive me nuts, thoroughly interrupting my current work. Usually, I have to write them down to get some peace and quiet in the noggin. So, without further adieu, here are some of my out-of-the-box marketing ideas I plan to use for my first self-published novel, CANCELLED.

Above is the image of the folded business card from Vistaprint. It is pretty easy to design them online with just about any image you want. You can also design in a different program and upload, but that's WAY too much headache for me. Now, why folded business cards? Easy. One of the downsides of e-books is the lack of a tangible product AND no one gets to flip the book over to read the back unless they are near a computer. So what if you are somewhere and there are potential readers all around you? For me, that's the hair salon, library, coffee shop, book store, toddler Mom meetings, the YMCA, and on and on. I am a very social, talkative person. Now when I tell people I'm a writer and they go "Oooooh, like books?" And I nod, I can give them my card. 

On the front will be my title, name, and personal website for my readers. Inside? Ready? The blurb for the book. That's right! the 4-5 sentences with a hook that would have been on the BACK! And on the back? All of the websites where they can buy it, or a coupon code, or other promotion as I'm running them. 

Now, as with all marketing, it is important to consider cost for effort. This is also called evaluating a channel. By placing a unique website on the back (perhaps I will make one off my reader site like www.eawestwriting.com/buy, this doesn't exist yet so don't try it) I can watch my traffic and click-thrus. So, on that page I would put the links to the various places you can buy my book, but by using the unique website name, I can tell if people came from a business card vs. a "Buy My Book" link that goes to an identical page but located at www.eawestwriting.com/buymybook. 

How much will this cost? Current quotes are $40 for 500 non glossy or $63 for glossy. I'm going to go with glossy, and with shipping that will be roughly $80. Alright. Pricing my book at $2.99, I will make roughly a $2 profit on each book. This means to recoup the cost of producing the business cards, I need to sell 40 books from the 500 cards I give out. Breaking out my sales experience, given that most of these cards will not be cold cards (meaning they are just sitting somewhere for someone to take one, or use one to wad up their chewing gum, etc) but given to qualified prospects (people I have spoken to personally, found out they like my genre of books/own an e-reader) that is not a high threshold at all. 

The uses of these types of business cards is infinite. For a little extra, you can buy the kind that are perforated, where you give a coupon or other information and on the other piece, the reader fills out an email address to join your mailing list. 

What if you are on a tighter budget? Check out the "free designs" where you could maybe do a teaser line and your website. You only pay for shipping, and the back advertises vistaprint.com. 

For cold business cards, ones you would leave out, I would suggest using single sided. On the front, maybe put something to grab someone's attention, and then on the back put the places to buy the book. 

Another promotional item I have thought about since my first novel collection is the Red Ink Collection (Cancelled, Past Due, and Served), buying limited edition pens with the "Red Ink Collection Book #1" etc. as a promotional item. These are pricier and will need to wait until after I start seeing significant sales. For example, I could wait and use these as promotional items when Book #2 comes out, perhaps a contest. I could mail these out with a personal thank-you note from me and the pen in a standard sized envelope. Since I would want the pen to write in red ink, they are a bit pricier, but I found a quote for $0.39 a piece at The Printed Pen Store. It would cost $200 plus shipping for 500 of them, but after the people who bought the book asked for them, I could pass them out to places as well. 

Enough Swag, Other Plans

Marketing is about reaching your intended audience. Most self-published novels do not have a very large marketing budget, until the author sees royalties. Every dollar counts. J.A. Konrath's recently blogged about appearances. His position is that going to conferences etc. doesn't really raise sales. I didn't comment because I planned to address this issue long ago. Traditional author appearances aren't going to work for self-published authors. First, we probably won't be invited, and secondly, we wouldn't want to go, anyway.  

For an appearance to matter, it needs to be where readers are going to be, and be receptive to hear about a new book in their favored genre. If I was writing a sci-fi, then FAN conventions and the like would be where I want to go. Not even as a "featured" person necessarily, but maybe just as another attendee and talk about my book as appropriate. For my genre, my readers are where I go everyday. The grocery store. The playground. I have a new project brewing to compromise on the $.99 issue, a serial story following three college freshman in their first year. Not idealized college, either. The real "I-am-mad-at-you-so-I'm-hogging-the-shower-for-an-hour-when-I-know-you-have-an-eight-o'clock-class-and-mine-is-at-eleven" college experience. Each "episode" will be $.99. I plan to talk to the Student Life Offices of various colleges and see if I can't offer the first episode(s) for free to the student body, perhaps as part of Freshman Orientation. If it's any group of people who can use the Internet efficiently, it's a college student! 


I wish I could talk more about that, but it's still growing as we speak. ;) 


We aren't tied to just bookstores anymore. Think about where you see people use e-readers. Train stations. Airports. Coffee shops (maybe talk to the coffee shop about in exchange for them handing out your business card with a cup of coffee, you will advertise their coffee shop on your other cards?).  Gyms. Another place people forget are doctor and dentist offices (if you can provide reading material for their waiting room, many will take it!). If you write Christian fiction, talk to local churches! Maybe offer to do an e-reader demonstration one week night for the congregation and help them download a sample of your book. The possibilities are endless.... and at that, it's back to actual writing for me :)


CANCELLED arriving September 2011. A robotics engineer asks his business partner to marry him, but a previous one-night stand is having his baby.

Day 16: Marketing Jargon for Self-Published Novels

*** I haven't actually worked in marketing as a full-time employee, but I freelanced for two different marketing firms for over two years and picked up a great deal of information.***


Do you know what a clip is? A clip is any instance of advertising for your book (or product/service, but this is a self-published novel blog, so let's stick with book). 

• A comment on a blog read by anyone with your name that links to a website/blog promoting you and your novels.
• A purchased advertisement.
• A review
• A tweet

Judging marketing campaigns requires channels, and being able to count the number of impressions a particular channel makes. For some channels, this is easy. Others, more subjective. For example, buying a one-day advertising slot on Kindle Nation. If you use a unique coupon code, you could track how many sales/impressions you made from that channel. Comparing number of sales (or profit) to the cost of the advertisement gives a ratio that can be used to compare the effectiveness of all channels on equal footing.


But what about "free" advertising?


Technically, nothing is ever free. Either it took time or there is a string attached you must later address. The channel method still applies. Instead of money, use time as the variable as compared to sales or impressions.


For example, say you create a unique shortened url to go directly to your book for sale on Amazon. In my case, I might buy a shortened URL that I can use Bit.ly Pro to customize for shortened links. Why? Because readers are increasingly skeptical of the generic shortened URLs, but one you can customize lets you lend credibility. http://eaw.book/ip1 vs some jumbled mess. By customizing the tail (ip1 or whatever) (Or use tiny.cc where you can custom the tail for free). I can create a clickable channel. Now, I can see which blogs gave me the most bang for my time, a niche or massive audience? You might be surprised by the results. A focused, contributing comment in a list of 4 or 5 is more likely to be read by a reader than a comment just hocking your book and competing with hundreds of comments.


Marketing is all about creating channels (individual paths to your book that you can measure and judge against the cost in money or time) and clips (mentions of your book that you arranged or bought or happened spontaneously). Luck is going viral.  


How to be effective in your marketing


There are tons of novels, scams, and programs dedicated to this topic. Effective marketing is results, plain and simple. If commenting on blogs in your genre for one month bring you a boost of an average of 10 more books sold per day, that's effective marketing. Optimized marketing is doing the smallest effort for the greatest increase in sales. That will always be an individual calculation. You could assign a pain ranking to each channel, meaning how much pain did utilizing the channel give you. For some authors, free blog comments are a real pain, a 10. Others, that's a 1 and something easily done while watching Dora the Explorer with your toddler. Using these types of rankings makes it easier to decide where to put more effort or money. If you love to make book trailers, debut a new one every few months to keep it fresh. Or to put in different channels. If you love graphic arts, play around with print advertisements you can put in forum signatures, or email blitzes (where you email a very short, graphical email to everyone on a contact list announcing your book and ask for a forward).


I will write more about niche marketing and things I learned from watching non-profits later on. Here's an update on my book, "Imperfect Timing" for today. I fixed my digital story board alleviating the writer's burden that was preventing me from jamming out the chapters. I wrote 492 words, almost completing Chapter 7. I started pages on my major settings with pictures, addresses and descriptions for handy reference. I fell in love with sheet protectors in a notebook and dry-erase markers.




"Imperfect Timing" arriving Fall 2011. Johnathan Michaels, a robotics engineer, jeopardizes his engagement with his business partner when a previous one-night stand surfaces, carrying his child.

Day 8 Self-Published Royalties Schedule

Pouring over the Terms and Conditions of Amazon's CreateSpace and Kindle Digital Platform, I added buying an ISBN to my budget. I will have to post my budget here, probably as a page. So far, I know I'm going to pay $39 to go Pro, probably  pay $149 to be listed in PW Select, and probably a pack of 10 ISBNs (since 1 is $125 and 10 is $250). 


While I have run a business for a few years now, I want to do more research on creating my own imprint. It seems like this will be easier in the long run, so each book can have ONE ISBN, rather than one free one on Amazon, one free one on Smashwords, and etc. 


This weekend I plan to write some more. I hope to be done with 10 chapters by Monday, maybe more. I have chapters and parts of chapters finished throughout the book (no, I'm not a pantser, but since I have an outline, I write scenes as I feel the need to write them). My fingers have recovered from my marathon sessions earlier this week, and on Thursday, I started working out at the YMCA. Last night, I took the kids swimming. With discipline in both writing and fitness, I will be a published author that looks fabulous to photograph.




"Imperfect Timing" arriving Fall 2011. Johnathan Michaels, a robotics engineer, jeopardizes his engagement with his business partner when a previous one-night stand surfaces, carrying his child.