| Books, Craft - An Argument, Craft Beer

Lockdown Book Project Week 12: One Week Till Launch!

I’m writing and self-publishing a book in 13 weeks and sharing the experience for anyone doing or thinking of doing the same. This week: final edits, hopeful uploads, and pre-launch marketing.

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This week, the learning curve is at its steepest. My main learning: if you’re going to do a project like this, allow as much time for editing and production as you do for writing. I finished the first draft weeks ago. We’re still working on the text with a week to go. I now understand why my publishers in the past have allowed as much as a year between me submitting first draft and publication date. The work has split into three streams – it might be useful to summarise them as such.

Final Edits

I mentioned before that there are two main edits: the structural edit and the copy edit. In reality there are many more. I’ve read the “finished” text from start to finish maybe eight times now. Liz, my wife and editor, has done the same. In addition our friend Marian very kindly did a professional edit, and several friends and colleagues I gave copies to have also given feedback. And EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. someone has picked up at least one typo, or a word left hanging in the wrong place after some text has been cut and pasted, or a sentence that made sense on the first seven readings but suddenly doesn’t on the eighth.

The detail of the edit intensifies, the scale becomes smaller, and that’s when, to me, it starts to feel like gently sanding and adding another layer of varnish to the book. You go from writing new chapters, shifting sections of text around and doing extensive rewrites, to discussions on English spellings and whether you should keep US spellings if they’re quoted from American books, making sure the line space between quotes is consistent across all quotes, and my personal blind spot: deciding whether a close quotation mark goes “before or after a full stop”. Each time you do, the book develops a patina of professionalism. It now scarcely resembles the first draft that we all thought was pretty good on a first read-through.

Uploads to publishing platforms

We aim to publish the book in three formats: ebook, audiobook, and print-on-demand.

EBOOK

The quickest way to get distribution and awareness for a self-published book. Getting the advance listing on Amazon across all global sites, and on Barnes & Noble, was fairly straightforward, if onerous. There are then two steps: choosing an ebook platform to format and publish, and uploading it to sales outlets. We chose Jutoh to format and publish, because it had the best reviews and was far cheaper than options that hadn’t reviewed as well. It took Liz about two days to feel comfortable with it, and another two to finish all the formatting. Needless to say, while doing this she was still picking up the odd typo and formatting glitch.

We’re then selling through Amazon Kindle, Apple Books and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. The Jutoh file has to be uploaded to each one separately, and each has its own formatting quirks. It takes another couple of days, and quite a lot of patience. But when it’s done, your ebook is available for sale anywhere in the world!

This is an important point for a book like this one: the topic is far too niche for any publisher I’ve approached, but publishers have to make something work on a territory-by territory basis. Publish this way, and you’re looking at one publication for a global niche, which starts to look far more financially viable.

AUDIOBOOK

Quite a few people seem to enjoy my books as audiobooks but they often ask why I don’t read them myself. Well, I’d love to and now’s my chance! We’re recording it on GarageBand, which comes as standard with MacBooks. I’ve spent £60 on a good studio-quality mic, and will be rigging up a makeshift studio with duvets and clothes driers to deaden the ambient noise. We’re starting tomorrow, and after a bit of mixing and editing, we should be uploading for sale before launch date. More on this next week when we’ve figured it out.

PRINT-ON-DEMAND

Because the book is currently only listed as an ebook, I’ve had a lot of enquiries about a print version. We cannot finance a full print run ourselves: fortunately we don’t have to. Both Amazon and Barnes & Noble offer a print-on-demand service. You can’t make this available for pre-order until you’re in a position to upload your final text, so it’s going to be a tight squeeze on this one.

Marketing and Promotion

Writing a book is one thing. Publishing is another kettle of fish entirely. And then there’s trying to spread the word.

ADVANCE READERS

I’ve sent early drafts out to a few people in each key territory: UK, North America, Australia/NZ, and South Africa. Hopefully they will like it, and if they do they will hopefully spread the word.

PATREON

I launched my Patreon a couple of weeks ago. The timing was key: I’ve put some special offers in to encourage sign-up, including a £10 tier that gets you a free copy of the book and your name listed in the back. I’ve also done advance previews, access to deleted content, and first dibs on tickets to…

LAUNCH PARTY

I’m doing a Zoom launch on the evening of the 25th. I’m keeping it to 30 people so there’s a reasonable chance to interact. The chance to join went out to my Patreon yesterday, and if there are any spaces left, we’ll open it on a first-come-first-served basis on Monday. All of these give talking points to help raise awareness of the book without resorting to simple repetition.

PRESS RELEASE

Later on this than I would like to be, I’ve compiled a ‘trade’ and a ‘public’ mailing list. Liz used to work in PR so we’re fairly confident about writing a good press release. The trade one will major on the debate over the meaning of craft beer, while in the public one we’ll focus a bit more on the story of our challenge as a couple to write and self-publish this book in 13 weeks during Lockdown.

Those are my ideas – obviously all amplified via social media channels. If you’ve done this before or have any ideas of your own that aren’t listed here, please feel free to comment!

My new book Craft – An Argument: Why The Term ‘Craft Beer’ is Completely Undefinable, Hopelessly Misunderstood and Absolutely Essential, will be published in e-book, audiobook and print-on-demand formats globally on 25th June. The ebook is available for pre-order now. (Links in this post are to amazon.co.uk but the book is also available on your local Amazon site.)

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