A to Z: Going Indie: V is for Vellum

 

Welcome to Blogging A to Z! My theme this year is Going Indie. I hope you enjoy it. Don't forget to check out the other participating blogs. 

If you're old like me, you probably saw "Vellum" and thought about that thin, translucent paper you used for school projects back in the day. 

But in this case, I'm talking about software. In particular, software for book layout. (Fair warning: Vellum is a Mac-only software, so you'll have to find another tool is you're a PC user). 

Book layout is something I was kind of stressed about when I thought about Going Indie. It's important to get right, and I assumed it would be difficult. After all, most software I've used related to graphic arts has been complicated and unintuitive (for me at least).  

But Vellum? It was a breeze. 

Now, I'm not trying to be fancy yet. Maybe in the future I'll learn to do things like add custom art as section dividers and all of that. I'm just using the basic settings and options the book itself provides, but it really was as easy as importing my Word file, then playing around with menus until I found a look I liked. 

A few style options from Vellum

Then I went through the document, making sure the import hadn't screwed anything up, like chapter divisions or spacing, fixing the odd little things I found. 

For Acid Reign, I began each chapter with song lyrics from an imaginary song by the imaginary band I created for Abby, so I had to decide how that should look. It took a little finagling, but I settled on putting the lyrics in italics and right justified, with the song attribution in regular text, then adding a little three-star border to indicate where the actual chapter starts. That was as complicated as my layout for these three books got, and it only took me an hour or so to figure out then set up for each chapter. 

 

Page 1 of Acid Reign

Then I use the "Generate" button to create whatever kinds of files I need (in this case, .epub for ebooks and .pdf for print), then uploaded those to my printer/distributor (I went with Ingram for both, then uploaded the ebooks separately to Amazon so I could claim them for ACX and audiobook production). Ba-da-bing-ba-da-boom! It was so easy. 

The paper books and ebooks both seem to be working well. It all looks right on the page, indistinguishable really from books that came from big publishers with their our layout specialists. I was pleased that I could manage this bit myself and not have to hire the work. 

A to Z: Going Indie: U is for Unfinished

  
Welcome to Blogging A to Z! My theme this year is Going Indie. I hope you enjoy it. Don't forget to check out the other participating blogs. 

Last time, I talked about time management and my struggles on that front with taking on Indie publishing alongside everything else I do. One thing I'm having to come to peace with is letting things stay unfinished longer than is my liking. 

My work-in-progress is a Gothic romance called The Architect and the Heir. My goal is to finish writing the book by summer, so I can get it to an editor and perhaps bring it out this fall/winter. And I've made progress…it's just slower than I'd like. 

Draft cover for the Gothic

 

That's kind of ironic since one of the appeals of going indie for me was being in charge of my own timelines, being able to get more work out there faster. But then I remind myself that I'm already bringing out three books in 2026. That's a lot! I'm a greedy girl, though. I want it all!

But for now, this novel remains unfinished while I work on bringing my other three novels out into the world and into the hands of readers. Unfinished isn't a permanent state. 

 

  

A to Z: Going Indie: T is for Time Management

 
Welcome to Blogging A to Z! My theme this year is Going Indie. I hope you enjoy it. Don't forget to check out the other participating blogs. 

I need more than 24 hours a day. 

Maybe this would be a good time to find a vampire to bite me so I could stop needing sleep? Is that how this works? 

Because there is simply not enough time, y'all. 

For context, I have a full time day job and my caregiving responsibilities include two rescue dogs, a disabled newly adult child, and the beginning of elder care. That means that I fit MY WHOLE WRITING LIFE into 2-4 hours a day. That's the most time I can beg, borrow, and steal from all the rest. 

Luckily, I have ADD. I mean that--it's actually good in some ways. It's useful in that it lets me make connections quickly and because when I focus, boy howdy do I focus. A tornado could remove the house around me and I wouldn't look up. 

But you probably didn't pop by my blog to hear me kvetch about not having enough time. So, here's a few thoughts on "making" and managing your time to support an indie writing life.  

1. Decide what you're NOT going to do. Currently, you use your waking hours for a variety of things. So to find hours you'll devote to this, there will have to be things you stop doing. For me, that was cutting most television and videogame time and finding a new day job that actually stays within the working hours most of the time. 

I started by doing a time study, where I literally logged what I did for what hours of the day and then looked for holes I could exploit. I also had a BIG TALK with my family about the time I'd need, because it really requires their cooperation and support. We've also had to renegotiate as a household several times as circumstances and needs of all the household members have shifted and changed. 

2. Prioritize. There are A LOT of decisions that end up in your hands when you go indie (see my post of D is for Decisions for more on that). It's easy to fall into a game of whack-a-mole where you run around trying to do all of it at once and you miss things. I've had to be really intentional with my time to make sure I don't spend my limited hours on the wrong things and end up feeling frustrated and overwhelmed. 

The hard part for me is not letting myself do the thing I'm most excited about if there's something else that really should be handled first. Right now, for example, I'm chomping at the bit to get my audiobook reviewed and uploaded, but I have a few things I have to handle first. I'm trying to hold that more "fun" work out there as a carrot to myself to drag this donkey through the stuff I don't enjoy as much. 

3.  Be realistic. There really are only the 24 hours a day. And even though you want to do it all and do it all now (at least I did), remember it's a marathon not a sprint. You'll burn yourself out if you don't set realistic expectations. 

I almost learned that the hard way in February, March, and early April when I said "yes" to too many things and ended up with author events of various sorts ten weekends in a row. 11/10 do not recommend.  

4. There's ebb and flow: To everything there is a season, right? Because I'm in a book launch phase, I'm spending a lot of time and energy on promotional and sales related activities. Because this is only my fourth month of building processes, I'm still figuring out HOW I do things. 

The fallout of that is that I've stopped making progress on my Work-in-Progress for the time being. It's hard for me to set that aside and accept that I can't work on it right now, but that's what I'm doing because I can't make good progress on the new book with all the other balls I'm juggling right now. But I'm keeping a careful eye on things to make sure I don't let that state of affairs go on too long. 

Sometimes the hard part about this is saying no to myself. I soften the blow by saying things like "not yet" or "now's not the time, but later will be," but I do definitely have to keep my excitement under tight rein sometimes for my own protection. Everything, everywhere, all at once, might be thrilling, but it's not sustainable, and I want to do this for the rest of my life. 

 

A to Z: Going Indie: S is for Self-publishing Stigma

Welcome to Blogging A to Z! My theme this year is Going Indie. I hope you enjoy it. Don't forget to check out the other participating blogs. 

Self-publishing isn't a new thing. I mean, Charles Dickens did it, back in 1843 with A Christmas Carol which is arguably his best known book. 

But success stories in self-publishing have been kind of unusual. While there are Cinderella stories in the 70s-90s like What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard N. Bolles and Bone by Jeff Smith (later republished by Scholastic), mostly self-publishing became associated with vanity. 

In fact, an entire industry of "vanity publishers" began to grow up to bilk would-be writers out of their dollars to produce books with no distribution system behind them and little chance of any measure of success. 

Then, in 2007, Amazon introduced an amazing new device: The Kindle. Producing an ebook is waaaaaaaayyy cheaper than producing a paper book, and readers loved the ease of access that ebooks provide, so it was a hit all around. There were some major successes: Christopher Paolini’s Eragon, E.L. James’s Fifty Shades of Grey, Hugh Howey’s Wool, and William P. Young’s The Shack to name a few. 

That was the beginning of a new era, where individuals could get access to printing and distribution and get their books out there in the world without having to play along with the Big 5 publishing game. 

It didn't mean that self-publishing was considered the same as traditional publishing though. And there is and was quite a variety of quality of work in all those self-published books. 

I remember sharing a table with a man who had started self-publishing in his retirement at one of my first author events and being shocked to see how error-ridden and careless his books were. He admitted that he published his first drafts! To me that was like saying you go outside in just your underwear. 

It's that way in a lot of the arts. Professionalism and high standards for quality come from within, and plenty of folks are willing to "throw something together" but not to truly invest in it with time, energy, and, yes,  money to make it the best it could be. So, that caused the stigma that still comes up from time to time in 2026--where someone assumes that a book is self-published because it's not good enough to have been picked up by a traditional publisher. 

When really, there are a LOT of reasons to go indie, including plain old business sense and a desire to take risks in your work that traditional publishing houses just aren't comfortable with.  

That stigma? It's less and less all the time. 

At one of my recent events, someone came up to my table and said, "So, are you self-published?" I braced myself for impact and offered my short spiel about being hybrid, with some of my books produced by publishers and some of them being books I published myself. I honestly expected something more like interrogation and a demand to prove myself by establishing my credentials. 

I needn't have worried. Turned out, they just wanted to talk shop for bit and learn about what systems I used to make my books. Like many readers, they have aspirations to publish their own books someday. "These look great!" they said, walking away with one of the romances. I just hope they leave a review!

 

A to Z: Going Indie: R is for Reviews

 

Welcome to Blogging A to Z! My theme this year is Going Indie. I hope you enjoy it. Don't forget to check out the other participating blogs.  

In the algorithm games, one of the horses writers are betting on is reviews. Indications seem to be that having reviews for your book increases the likelihood that your book will be surfaced in different kinds of searches, get added to lists, and just generally be more discoverable.  

Is it true? It's hard to know. It's like Amazon would just be straightforward, direct, or honest with either the authors who sell there or the customers they sell to. It's all smoke and mirrors. Google's not really better. 

But I figure it doesn't hurt and might help. So, I set out to get reviews for my GenX romances in the months leading up to release day. I figured ANY reviews were better than none, but I'm hoping for 20 reviews for each book. 

Here's what I tried: 

1. Asking my audience: I put out feelers in some engagement groups I'm in on Instagram, posted sign-up forms for ARCs on social media, and offered ARC access in my newsletter. How'd it go? Well, so far, for Not Too Late, 11 people requested ARCs through those channels, and 2 have posted about it. Of course, I'm writing this on April 13th and release day isn't until April 28th, so they still have time!

2. NetGalley: My entire N post was about NetGalley, so I won't repeat all the details here. But the short version is that I paid for a slot in a NetGalley co-op ($63 for one month, as opposed to $500 for one book directly), and netted 10 public reviews for Not Too Late so far. I also did this for Acid Reign and Ready or Not. 

3. BookSirens: Another ARC service that connects authors and readers. They've had my book available about 3 weeks at this writing, and only 4 people have selected it to read, and 1 person has reviewed. I'm wondering if I should have done this earlier in the process to allow more time. 

 In contrast, for Stories for Shadow Hill I sent a copy to two friends who said they would review and that was all the effort I made in that regard. To date, that book still has zero reviews. 

See, up there next to the title? No stars, no reviews at all. (sad trombone noise)

 

From past experience, I know that reviews do matter. People are reassured, when taking a chance on a new author, if there are reviews. My first Menopausal Superhero novel, Going Through the Change, for example, has 713 reviews on Amazon and I have anecdotal evidence at least that just the number of reviews was enough to convince some folks to give it a try. 

I don't even get upset about so-called "bad" reviews. After all, what a review is meant to do is tell you whether this particular story worked for a particular reader. You're dreaming if you think there's a book out there that will please EVERYONE and sometimes those "poor" reviews reveal the very thing about the book that would delight a different reader, so they still can help with sales. 

Getting reviews isn't easy, and I won't know for a little while yet if all these effort will help my book find a broader audience or not. Reading reviews is a whole different kind of difficult, and I don't advise spending too much time there. But I also don't advise ignoring reviews all together. They can be useful!

Reviews give me pitch language. Seeing how readers describe my book gives me categories, phrases, and descriptions I can use to hand-sell my book, make social media posts, and use in advertising. It's sort of like sorting through feedback from a focus group, especially if you can distance yourself emotionally from the more harshly worded criticism.  

Reviews also give me food for thought in improving my craft in general. Going Through the Change was my first published novel, so I'm willing to admit it has flaws. For example, most lower star reviews complained that the ending of this first-in-series book was too much of a cliffhanger. 

I could have gotten defensive about that. After all, it's a superhero book and the comic book and pulp material that inspired me in the first place is chock full of cliffhangers. But instead, I took that to heart and as I wrote the rest of the series, I tried to better balance wrapping up one book satisfyingly while still flowing into the sequels. That "cliffhanger" complaint isn't there in the reviews of the other books nearly as often, so I think I found a better balance, at least so far as the evidence reveals. 

So, review what you read, y'all! Especially if it's by someone small potatoes like me. It helps! Even when you didn't like the book that much. 

A to Z: Going Indie: Q is for Questions

 

Welcome to Blogging A to Z! My theme this year is Going Indie. I hope you enjoy it. Don't forget to check out the other participating blogs.  

So, I had (and have!) so many questions about indie publishing. The wonder and the curse of publishing in 2026 is that there are so many options. So many paths you might take, tools. you might use, ways you might go about the whole thing. That's freeing and paralyzing at the same time…because how are you supposed to know what's "right" even when you just mean "right for me"? 

So, I ask questions. I reach out to other writers and ask what they do and why they do it the way they do. Sometimes those answers mean I try what they were doing, sometimes they don't. 

For example, SEVERAL romance writers advised me to go with Kindle Unlimited since so many romance readers are book gobblers and they LOVE those one-fee services. They say I'm shooting myself in the foot by not having my book available in that program. 

But I hear from so many other writers that KU is a worse and worse deal for writers every year. I mean, I know "the house always wins" but do they have to win by such a LARGE margin? Makes it so some of us can't afford to play at all. I'm not willing to let Amazon exploit me for their profits if I'm getting so little in return.

So, I asked a lot of questions, and settled on what they call "going wide" which basically means that I'm not enrolling in KU or any other exclusive agreements, but am making my books available broadly. 

Is it a good idea, going this way? Time will tell, I suppose. All you can do is keep asking questions and making the best decisions you can with what you know at the time.  

 

A to Z: Going Indie: P is for Profitability

 

Welcome to Blogging A to Z! My theme this year is Going Indie. I hope you enjoy it. Don't forget to check out the other participating blogs.  

So now that I'm trying to treat my writing life with a little more respect and be more of a businesswoman about it, I have to pay attention to things like profits. And the big question is how to measure that. 

There's a lot that I've bought for my writing life (see my M post on Money for details), but which things count in my reckoning for whether a book is profitable yet? 

Mostly, I've decided that things I buy that are for author life in general or serve as infrastructure don't go in the reckoning for any single book. So, buying an author banner, getting bookmarks made, paying a table fee at an event, doesn't count. 

But things specific to that book like editing, book cover, buying copies, etc. DO count. 

So for Not Too Late as an example:  I came up with $726.10 as my starting number, my "sunk cost." 

That includes: 

• $62.50 for Vellum (not sure this should actually count, because I'll use it for ALL my future books, but if it does count, that is 1/4 of what the software cost me, since I've used it on 4 books so far)
• $59 for two ISBNs, one for ebook, one for paperback (since I bought in a group of ten--they're cheaper if you buy more at a time)
•  $196.80 editing
• $400 book cover 
• $7.80 for a paper proof copy 

Since then, I've purchased 68 copies of the book for resale. I know that's a weird number, but it's because I shipped to bookstores in weird amounts for consignment arrangements as well as buying for my own in-person re-sale. I've sold 9 copies at full price in person, three at lower price to the cover artist, and one through one of those consignment arrangements. 

When I track how much I spent buying books, I always include the shipping, too. So each book costs me between $4 and $5 on average. So, the copy that sold through consignment paid me $9, but it's really $4 or $5 profit since I had to buy the book in the first place. I hope that makes sense. The copies I sell in person make me $10 or $11 each, for comparison. 

So I've put all that into a spreadsheet and currently, I'm further in the hole than I started, at $834.35. I'm not worried though, because, like I said, this book hasn't actually released yet. This is all PRESALE still.

My *hope* is that the book will be "in the black" within its first six months. So, just in time for Halloween. I'll let you know how it pans out!