- Would you like to learn how to format
your book for publishing?
I'm talking about e-book and print book.
Then stay tuned to today's video.
(gentle music)
Hey, I'm Dale L. Roberts, best-selling author
as well as a self-publishing advocate
who wants to show you how to publish books that sell.
And if you want that too,
of course subscribe to this channel,
and also join me every Monday
at 12 p.m. at twitch.tv/selfpublish.
And if you have Amazon Prime you can subscribe for free,
and get a few freebies in the process.
Stick around to the very end
because I do have a step-by-step resource guide,
if you want to do it all yourself.
Now, just as a reminder this is a continued part
of the how to publish a book series,
that's exclusively sponsored by Fiverr.
Fiverr's put together a fantastic e-book
and book store for you, the author and self-publisher,
and you can visit that store over at dalelinks.com/fiverr.
Remember, it's two R's.
Now, already we've covered
a few different steps in the process.
we learned how to do the niche research,
as well as the keywords,
how to produce the manuscript,
and how to fully edit and proofread the manuscript.
Now it's time for us to format the interior
for e-book and print book,
and also get the book cover design done
for both the e-book and the print book.
Now, admittedly, I'm not gonna show you exactly
how to format the book,
I'm gonna show you how to hire out.
Again, at the very end I'm gonna show you a resource,
but I would say hear me out on this,
because at least you'll understand some of the process
when it comes to formatting your e-book and print book,
and as well as getting your book cover design.
Let's start out with stuff number one, interior formatting.
Again, we're gonna wanna make sure
we get both of them done at the same time.
Get the e-book and the print book set.
I see far too many people that will do one
and not the other,
and you're leaving a lot of money on the table,
and also you're leaving a few readers out in the dark,
and out on the cold,
'cause there's some people that prefer e-books,
and there's some that for print,
and some that prefer to have both options.
So we're gonna go to dalelinks.com/fiverr.
Then browse the book layout design gigs.
You're gonna select according to the genre,
seller details, budget,
and of course delivery time.
Now, I never try to rush this process.
I think that a good seller,
a good freelancer is going to need time to put together
something that's going to be quality for you.
So never rush this process.
So here's what I did.
Actually, Fiverr recommended a few different sellers
that have had a good background, a good sales history,
so I thought okay I'll go ahead and pick one
of the few of them that they sent to me,
and I was pleasantly surprised by the person I worked with.
So I selected one, and I communicated my needs in advance.
Now, I wanted to make sure before I purchased a gig,
unlike what I did with the editing gig in the last video,
that I talked to them ahead, and found out,
okay, can they address my needs?
I knew I was gonna have some images.
I thought I was gonna probably go with more images,
but I ended up with just having one image
in the entire publication.
Either way, this was important to me
because I wanted to make sure that was formatted properly
in e-book and print book.
And sometimes it can tend to be really labor-intensive
to actually put in pictures.
I've done it myself,
and I tell you I would just rather pay someone
to do it these days.
So I ordered the gig,
I filled out the details and then I upload the manuscript.
Within a few days it was done, and he send it back,
and I think he thought I was gonna probably volley it
back towards his direction,
but I was pleasantly surprised with the format,
what he ended up choosing for the specific layout,
and he put a couple little extra bells and whistles.
I thought, man that really is nice.
It was eye-catching,
and it got it to where I was able to go back through
and read the manuscript that I had already read,
because he did a great job,
and especially with the typesetting.
Now, a lot of people aren't very familiar with typesetting.
Typesetting is where you're formatting it
so it's better for the reading experience.
I think a lot of people assume they can just go ahead
and just take a document and slap it up,
and it's gonna be good to go,
but it does take a keen eye to get the typesetting set,
and especially for print format.
Here's the big kudos to the person I worked with.
His name was Polarbear, I'm not sure that's his real name,
but Polarbear did a fantastic job in formatting,
and he was able to do different
for the e-book and the print book,
and he also included instructions.
Now, I decided to download the instructions and read 'em,
and it was essentially for newbies.
So if you happen to be new to the business,
he does walk you through from point A to point B
with very, you know, little, you know, work in between.
So it's really nice.
Big kudos on that.
Step number two, book cover design.
Okay, so again, we're gonna account for the print book
and the e-book cover.
So I wanna make sure that I went to one-stop shop.
I wanna get it all done.
Now, it's going to be very likely
that I may have to come back
when I get the audiobook produced,
to have her fix the audio book cover,
but for right now since I'm not launching the audio book,
I'm not gonna sweat it.
Now what you're gonna do
is browse the book cover design gigs.
Gonna select according to the genre, seller details,
budget and delivery time.
Remember, don't rush this, all right?
And especially the book cover.
You need to make sure that the cover designer
takes their time and it looks really good,
so that this is going to be the thing
that represents you, your brand and your content.
So it can make or break the success of your book.
Here's what I did.
Now if I ever gave me some recommendations,
and they gave me a few just like in the previous one,
and they actually recommended, of the three,
something pretty unique.
It's called Fiverr Pro,
and actually if you were to go over to dalelinks.com/Fiverr,
you go into the bookstore,
but if you see at the very top it says Fiverr Pro,
select that, and you actually will go into very unique gigs.
And, Fiverr Pro is essentially,
professionals that have been personally vetted
by the Fivere headquarters.
And in their words, they say,
"We personally verify our Pros to exceed your expectations.
"Put a Pro in charge of your next project
"and prepare to be wowed."
Okay, so with that type of, you know, hype,
I thought let's go ahead, let's give it a shot,
because I looked at this sellers work,
and oh my gosh, even the cheaper gigs were just phenomenal.
But it does come at a bit of a higher premium,
and since they stand behind these sellers I said,
"You know, there's gotta be something to them."
So, I went ahead, I selected the one I wanted,
and I communicated with her in advance.
Her name was Florfi.
And Florfi was just phenomenal.
Honestly, I didn't pay a dime
and she spent quite a bit of time answering
and addressing some issues and concerns that I had.
I even gave her a link to each of the bestsellers lists,
so she can kind of go through my specific niche,
to see what is going to work out, or where and how,
and I wanted to make sure I had a book cover design
that would honor that niche,
and not stand out like a sore thumb,
but more so, that it stands out and apart from the rest,
so that way people are more apt to buy it.
So I ordered the gig and then I filled out the details,
and we had a bit of back-and-forth dialogue,
just some general, you know, light things,
and for me I'm so strapped for time
I wanted to kind of give her the ball,
and have her run with things.
So that's why I gave her a lot of links
to some of these book cover designs,
so that way she can kind of get a general idea
of some of the themes and what to shoot for.
And within four days it was done.
She sent me inside the e-mail inbox.
She showed me a 3D rendering of it
as well as the e-book cover.
Now, here's what I would recommend,
is when you get a book cover in,
don't approve the gig immediately.
What you're gonna do is open up the bestseller list
for your specific categories, and take a screenshot of it.
Now, take the image that you have,
shrink it down and put it into the bestseller list.
It doesn't matter, you can put it number one,
number two, number eight, doesn't matter.
And just see, does it match?
Does it, you know, does it fit in?
Is it something that seems right?
Like it's placed in the right area?
And if it does, great.
If not, you need to probably go back to your seller
and request some revisions.
To me, mine matched really well.
By the way, stay tuned to this full video series
'cause you're gonna see the cover reveal in due time.
Remember, don't rush it.
The book cover is so important.
This is one of those steps
you just cannot breeze on past and say,
well that's good enough.
I think I was fortunate in getting a seller
that just nailed it on the first try.
Hey, I told you you can learn how to do it yourself,
and in fact I've actually got you loaded up
with The DIY Publishing Course For Beginners.
You gotta go over, hit that little button down over there.
And also, hey, we're gonna go ahead and talk about
how much does it cost to self-publish in 2020.
So, I'm gonna give you the entire cost of this whole project
in this very next video. (bell rings)
It's gonna be coming out here really soon.
It'll be clickable down below.
I will see you in the next video.