My Tools of the Trade
There are many ways to approach writing and publishing, and the tools of the trade vary from premium apps that'll cost you a pretty penny to a simple notepad and paper. The tools you use should depend on your budget, willingness to learn new things, and what works best for you. If you're curious and don't know where to begin or just interested in my process, here's a run down of the tools I use for novel creation.
Editing. I hire Hot Tree Editing for my novels. They're friendly, helpful, and do a great job! Before submitting a manuscript, I usually have multiple people proofread the work. This lowers the cost of the edit and produces a higher quality product. The more eyes on the text, the more likely everything will get found. That said, do not skip a professional edit such as Hot Tree. They provide me with far more than simple grammar checks. The editor helps streamline, tighten my wording, and catch inconsistencies.
Covers. My covers are created by Deranged Doctor Design. They ask for a summary of the story, characters, weapons, and any details I think are important for the cover. From my rambling, they design awesome covers for my ebook, print, and audio products.
Audio. Theo Copland at Chaos Button Productions narrated Earthborn Awakening and Earthborn Alliance, and I couldn't be happier. He does a fantastic job. I used ACX for production management and distribution. After choosing a section of each novel to upload as an audition script, I received many samples from audio producers. In my opinion, Theo was the best fit for the novels. ACX handled all the contracts and final product sales making the process smooth.
Ads. Images and videos featuring artwork from the covers are created by Deranged Doctor Design. I occasionally alter the images with Photoshop or GIMP.
Writing. I typically write in Microsoft Word. There are other word processing tools out there, such as pages, scrivener, etc. but I've stuck with good ole Word. Why? Because that's what I'm most familiar with using.
Flourishes. Between text breaks in the Earthborn series, you'll see a cool little design. I made this in Adobe Illustrator. After saving it as an image, I then incorporated it into the novel.
ebook Formatting. I use a few different apps for ebook creation. For uploading my ebook to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), I use Amazon's free downloadable tools: Kindle Create and Kindle Previewer.
Kindle Create is fantastic for inserting drop caps, kindle supported text styles, and overall formatting the ebook specifically for Kindle readers. It's super easy.
I import my completed Word document into Kindle Create where it is immediately converted into an ebook. Then, I add extra styling as desired. When I'm done, I export a kindle specific ebook file format (.kpf) which can be uploaded into KDP's publishing platform. But before that final upload, I double check the formatting using Kindle Previewer.
Kindle Previewer is a nice app designed to preview exactly how your ebook will appear on all the different Kindle readers that are available. It's helped me catch more than one formatting error for sure.
To format for uploading to other vendors, such as Barnes and Noble Press and KOBO, I use Vellum. Vellum costs $199.99 for unlimited ebook creation or $249.99 for ebook and print creation. With Vellum, I upload my Word document into the platform and then configure the text as desired. I only use Vellum for ebook formatting.
Print Formatting. For the print versions of my novels, I've used Word for formatting. It's relatively simple and can produce PDF files required by the KDP printers.
Watch out here though. Word on a Mac computer can't convert images to PDF at the proper resolution for publishing (300 dpi). That is dots per inch (dpi) if you were wondering. I usually write on my Mac. So how do I get around this?
When my manuscript is finished, I transfer it to my Windows PC. From there, I can reload all my images in the manuscript in Word, and export the PDF from Word while maintaining the correct 300 dpi resolution.
Why Microsoft hasn't fixed this issue with the Mac version of Word, I have no idea.
There you have it. That is the bulk of the software I use to for novel production.
Did you find this helpful or have any questions? Leave me a comment and let me know.
