Confusion
We’ve seen quite a bit regarding “self-publishing,” often confusing various terms (like publishing) with activites the are not publishing. The situation is exacerbated by “publishers” who offer services beyond publishing, and by facilitators of various stripes who advertise about “facilitating” your “self-publishing journey.”
In this post, I’ll try to clarify “publishing” and what is not “publishing.”
What is Publishing?
Simply put, publishing is putting ink to paper. Or in the electronic age, creating the digital files necessary to put ink to paper. I think of publishing as having three activities:
Creating Metadata
Every book has metadata — facts about the book that must be created and recorded in various places. Some exaples of metadata are ISBNs, Library of Congress Number, Page count, Publication Date, Price, and others. The publication process creates these facts and records them in the varous appropriate places.
Creating a cover
A book cover is a piece of art that contains specific elements that help a reader/buyer determine if they will read or buy a book. Covers contain a barcode, the title, the author’s name, the publisher’s name, and other bits and pieces. Take a look at the covers of books you have and try to identify the elements.
Book covers are produced by designers. TNHY uses design “contests” to produce book covers, creating a contest request and then choosing a design from the entrants.
The result of a contest is a design in PDF and JPG formats.
Creating an “interior”
An interior is a single PDF containing the contents of the book. It usually starts with a “half page” with the title only, then a “title page” with the title, author, and publisher. Then other speciality “front matter.” and then a page 1, and on to page whatever. Back matter may include acknowledgements, an author bio, and other material.
Take a look at books on your shelf and see what is at the front and what is at the back.
The middle — the actual text of the book — it typically straightforward — organized as chapters or stories with or without sections, subsections, breaks.
The interior is “designed” — page width, height, fonts, page numbers, headers, footers, space on chapter and section pages, and more.
The interior is “typeset.” Speciality software is used to provide a great reading experience, spacing letters across lines to improve readability. Typesetting is an art, but that art has been encapsulated in fantastic software. TNHY uses LaTeX, and industry standard for producing beautiful interiors.
Creating an Ebook
Ebooks are a bit of a special animal, combining the cover and the interior into a single file, an ePub. Industry standards define an ePub. TNHY uses tex4ebook, an open source, well-supported, tool for creating ePubs.
Uploading to producers
Once you have metadata, a cover, an interior and an Epub, you are ready to upload these bits and pieces to a “producer,” a company that will print and distribute your book and/or host and distribute your eBook. TNHY works with the following producers:
- Amazon
- Ingram Spark
- Apple
- Kobe
Registrations and Archive
Once the book is available, various metadata registrations are done to finish “publishing.” The ISBN records are updated, a copy of the book is sent to the Library of Congress, the copyright is registered. All electronic materials are archived.
That’s it
That’s publishing in the modern world. Recap:
- Create meatadata
- Create a cover
- Create an interior
- Create an ePub
- Upload to producers
- Registrations and Archive
What is Not Publishing
“Not publishing” contains the two activities most authors are most concerned about. Neither is publishing.
Writing
Writing is not publishing. Writing includes editing and proofreading. Proofreading is not publishing (see above). The author produces a finished text. Finished. With all checking and all proofreading finished.
Selling the book
Selling the book includes promotion, advertising, marketing, events, giveaways, etc., etc., etc. None of this is publishing (see above).
Confusion resolved: Writing -> Publishing -> Selling
Well, I hope this post helped clear up confusion about “publishing.” Publishing sits in the middle of a three step process: Writing, Publishing, Selling.
TNHY publishes. It’s a technical and artistic activity.
You write. You sell (or hire a marketing firm/consultant).
Best wishes for your writing. And best wishes for your selling.