Amendment: Earlier in the Publishing Process section I stated that a book with a KDP ID number won't appear at Barnes & Noble. It can, however, the KDP tile must be enabled for wider distribution and follow certain guidelines. I've amended that section in the Publishing Process post and I've further explained a bit about Amazon's distribution under the Amazon post.
Anyway, that concludes my Ted Talk for now LOL
Feel free to ask any questions!
Dude I love the final look! The white cover with the framing of the painted illustration in the middle is very professional and it came out lovely (and mysterious.) Thanks for all of this helpful information!
This is a finicky nerdy question--but did you find a lot of options for the type of paper they used for the cover? Because there's covers of different thicknesses that are smooth, or shiny, or matte, or the ones that feel a little like leather--I don't know the names for all of em but I've wondered how it was if you had plans to do a cover that had texture (or even different textures on the same cover like raised letters, for instance) I was curious if self publishing had those options.
Wow, this is really useful, also really good timing! Thank you for taking the time to post all this info!
To clarify on the ISBN, I won't need to if I'm just planning on going through crowdfunding to print the books? I plan on having a few taken out of personal funds to sell to stores, but the mass majority is just going to be done through a Kickstarter, and sent to people who funded it.
Also, really dumb question, but does every ISBN look different? Meaning will I have to order books individually rather than in bulk? Same with barcode.
@rajillustration
Thank you!! 
For paperbacks through Amazon and Ingramspark, there's only a single paperweight for the cover and you can choose between 2 finish options, glossy or matte. I chose the matte option because I feel it fits better with my book.
If they had more papers, I would definitely pick something more textured! Perhaps they may roll out more options in the future, but for now it's either glossy or matte lol.
However, there are more options for hardback on Ingram and are as listed.
@UrMom
Thanks!
Yeah, if you're just crowdfunding a small limited run and don't need your book pushed to nation-wide chains, you can skip the ISBNs. I'm sure local bookstores and comic shops would be open to an exclusive run like that~
Each ISBN and barcode corresponds to 1 edition of a book. Say you've got 10 hardcover books of the same title and same print run, they will share the same ISBN number and barcode.
Oh thank god! The printer I'll be going through doesn't offer individual prints, so knowing that I don't need a new ISBN and barcode for each book is really nice. Thank you so much for the response!
and just to add to this for anyone who's curious, because I used to work in a bookstore at one point, most bookstores have inventory systems that are based on scanning an ISBN, even the smaller chains. So if you don't have one, they have to make a special sticker for each of your books to get it logged into their system (which will do serious harm to covers). So if you are ISBN free just be warned about the sticker that will likely be used.
That's really great to know! Thanks!
At one of my local comic book stores, I ran across a physical copy of one of the comics I follow on Tapas (The Pale1 for those curious) and they just had the basic neon paper price sticker on the comic sleeve. So it's interesting to learn how books are handled!
@joannekwan the worst is if you have a book that gets stolen a lot (so manga for instance were stolen quite a bit from my store, especially ones with trading cards) they'll put these really heavy duty stickers inside the book on a random page that are supposed to trigger a sensor at the door--not only do they rarely go off but like--that's a sticker in the middle of a comic page! Kind of a crime to prevent crime.
Oh yeaaahhh! I remember those stickers! They had like foil in them for the sensor bit.
Luckily I got my manga from Borders back in the day and all their stickers peeled off really well.
@joannekwan Yep yep! those were the ones. It broke my heart to put them in there (and to watch other people who just slapped them right over pictures willy nilly) but at the same time, most of the comic books that didn't sell we had to destroy in the store because comic publishers were hella weird and unlike other publishers, a lot of them didn't take unsold books back. Bookselling is kind of weird.
Interesting! That reminds me of another point, for IngramSpark there was a section for you to choose what would happen to returned books. Most regions had the option to return to the publisher's address, while some only had the option to destroy the books. I believe one was Australia. Guess postage to return to the US would cost too much lol
@Arushi Thank you! ^u^
you'd think they'd have an option to donate to local libraries or schools. Oh well, guess that's capitalism.
Now that would be a good idea!
Speaking of, donating one's book to libraries and schools can also be a way to spread one's work out there. It can be an investment, but it's a good cause and could possibly be a tax write off where applicable.
I actually had the idea to get some extra copies of my book, keep them in the trunk of the car, and stick them into neighborhood lending libraries whenever I come across them. I've seen a few in the residential neighborhoods in my city. Ones like these
I'm so happy you shared this. I plan on self-publishing my novel as well and I marketed this baby from the day I put the first word down. I appreciate you being open on your journey.
Of course! There were a bunch of things I wish I knew before I started, so if I can save a few people some headaches then I'm glad to have typed it all down!
yeah it's a weird part of book publishing we never talk about--publishers have a contract with the author where if they sell past a certain date or sell more than a certain amount they have to renew the contract to sell again. So they only have a certain window to sell those books.
To avoid having to pay to store all of those unsold books that the bookstores also can't afford to keep on their shelves, publishers have 2 options, they will "remainder" the book (most books get remaindered), so when a book gets remaindered, they sell it hella cheap to a discount outlet and just recycle the rest. I imagine that a lot of books that are in schools and libraries are remaindered books, which are significantly cheaper. (remaindered books are like buying in bulk, Deadalus is a pretty popular one if you want a cheaper hardback.)
The other option is to "strip" the book, which is to destroy the book, since is sometimes cheaper for the publisher than selling at a discount, especially if your book was cheaper to begin with. So if you ever find a book that is perfectly fine but has a stripped cover, that means it's a stolen book--because a bookstore will strip the covers off before sending it to get recycled. Usually pulp books and certain comic publishers.
Great posts!
Wanted to add that for Ingram Spark, I believe if you just do a print version first, you can keep editing without paying the revision fee because you get a chance to sign off on the proofs each time, refusing to do so can give you another chance to upload a file. The eBook version goes up instantly once you've approved it. Revising after that is what dings you with the fee.
I don't know if this is still possible, originally we released the print version of a Children's book and added the ebook months rather than do both at the same time (as you mentioned, they are weird formats to wrap your heads around so we needed the extra time.)
This was before Ingram Spark changed their UI so unsure if you have to do all the files at one time.
For colour quality, the standard wasn't too bad and is half the cost of the premium (which really shoots up the unit cost).
Hope adding that is of some help to people.
We quietly released our comic after originally having it set for May 2020. All shows were cancelled at that point but we'll figure it out when the world opens again.
Brilliant! I'll definitely try that for sure next time. Most of the revisions I had to pay for went to the ebook so if I can put the actual file off until the very end, that'd be great!
When I uploaded, it had the fields to upload the print and ebook files on the same page, so I thought it was mandatory to have both at the same time. @_@
Quickly, I would just like to add something. CreateSpace vs LuLu
My wife and her writing circle have self-published their books for the last eight years or so. They sell physical copies at convention dealer tables, so bookstore viability is not much of a concern. For the actual printing, they have tried two print-on-demand services, first Lulu.com and then Amazon's CreateSpace.
Their experience with Lulu was mixed. The books arrived looking good, but they were very frustrated with the user interface at Lulu. The formating of the actual text to make it readable was their problem. I should also note that Lulu will print anything. I've known gamers to print their copies of the fan-made new edition of the Star Wars roleplaying game and been very pleased with the result.
The ladies tried CreateSpace and never looked back. The user interface was far easier for them to master. I think.that Amazon created slightly more print errors though.
Both systems have their own learning curve. Both systems have their own fans. Both companies did produce some copies with printing errors, but both companies were responsive to complaints and replaced the error copies at no charge.
