I consider myself a smart person. I have two graduate degrees, passed the Illinois bar exam, managed a several million dollar territory for years and earned national top performer awards at two companies. Yet myriad steps to self-publish are making my brain explode.
It’s like having cockroaches. You think you’ve zapped them all, breathe a sigh of relief…and then another appears. No matter what I’m doing, whether it’s deciding what images to put on my cover or choosing a font for drop caps, everything seems to require two steps back before I can take one forward.
Today’s example: my formatter (who I hired to avoid having to figure out all of the spacing and layout issues) suggested I upload the proof she’d sent to CreateSpace (CS), because the two-page PDF layout wasn’t an accurate reflection of how the book will look.
But CS doesn’t let you review just the interior of your book. No. You have to make many decisions and finish the whole setup, including having a PDF of the cover “measured exactly to your book’s trim size, spine width (calculated by multiplying the page count by 0.0025 and allowing for 0.0625″ variance on either side of the fold lines ), and .125” bleed. My eyes glazed over. I emailed my cover designer, and now have to await their response. Will this require an additional fee?
So many authors self-publish so many books, it often seems, with ease. Yet every step of this has been like pulling teeth. Like pulling teeth while cockroaches run around.
Will all of the time and effort I’ve put into this process be worth it?
