My Most Amazing Week To Date!

I didn't expect much from this week, honestly. I managed to snag a babysitter for only two mornings, one day less than usual, and couldn't go to yoga. I knew it was going to be crazy busy with the kids. I was resigned.

Then this happened!

My husband walked in the door with the package on Tuesday night after having put out the trash, and we both stared at it silently for a moment. He was smart enough to get out the camera and take video of me opening it, and I pulled out my very first book and showed it to my kids. Wow. There was a time last year when I thought this would never happen. I was stuck in the loop of submissions with very little feedback, and a YA novel I wasn't sure about. Now, I'm publishing a New Adult book I love to death. And I've done it on my own!

First, let me say, that I'm really impressed with the quality of the book. The cover is glossy and nicely printed. The paper inside is of good quality, not mass market. I'm proud of all the design work I did. I designed the title and half-title pages in iDraw, exported the bulk of the manuscript using Scrivener, and stitched it all together.

The cover I designed in Acorn (which is the Photoshop alternative I bought this summer). Each book in the series has an iconic image associated with it. I decided not to put people on the cover on purpose. First of all, my characters are not white. They're Japanese. Finding Japanese couples for a scifi romance cover is next to impossible! But I have all these photos that I took myself in Japan, so I decided on that instead. Besides, I think the covers are a little more accessible to a wider audience without people on the covers. I guess we'll see if I'm right. REMOVED certainly stands out among all the other New Adult and Scifi Romance books out there.

I'll be putting together a series of posts in two weeks on how to export your manuscript from Scrivener to paperback format so that you too can design a paperback to be printed from Createspace. Are you an independent author and are trying to self-publish? What was the hardest part of formatting your work? What do you need advice on? Let me know in the comments, and I'll see if I can answer your question.