Bronycon Bookstore: The Basics of Horsebooking · 3:34am Nov 11th, 2018
Why don’t you start by introducing yourself?
“Sure,” she said, flashing a smile to the camera and adding a cheerful kick behind the words. The ears folded back a few degrees until they seemed more at ease, and her dock relaxed as well, draping her tail over the pillows. “My name is Star Power. I’m seventeen years old, I’m from Baltimare, and I play Princess Twilight Sparkle on the hit TV series Friendship is Magic.”
Do you want to publish a book in the 2019 Bronycon Bookstore? If so, I'm here to help! PM me any time with questions and I'll do my best to answer them. I can also recommend artists, proofreaders and the like. But before you go poking my inbox, you might want an overview of how to get your ponyfic in print.
Future posts will get more into the details, but at the high level, there are five steps:
- Finish your manuscript
- Pick form factor
- Format manuscript
- Cover art and chapter art
- Test printing and corrections
Step 1: Finish Your Manuscript
I know this seems obvious -- you can't publish the story before you've finished writing it -- but there is a more specific point here. Many decisions about printing depend on the exact contents of the book. For instance, text is formatted based on the text around it to make a prettier layout, and the dimensions of your cover art depend on how many pages the book has.
This means that any changes you make to the story after Step 1 are very expensive. They'll either be expensive in terms of time (as you have to reformat a lot of text) or expensive in terms of money (as you have to get new cover art). Your story should be written, edited, cleaned up, proofread, edited again, and otherwise entirely 100% finished before you start preparing it for printing.
Step 2: Pick Form Factor
Do you want to do paperback? Hardcover? A picture book? All of these form factors have slightly different page sizes and layouts, and so you need to pick before you format the text.
If you don't have a strong preference, I recommend the Premium Paperback 6x9in US Trade, Black and White on Cream, Perfect Binding form factor, as found on Lulu. This is the most common form factor for professional commercial printing, and it strikes a good balance of quality and cost. The books look good, but still only cost a few dollars each to print.
If you're dead-set on being published in hardcover, I recommend the Professional Hardcover 6x9in US Trade, Black and White on Cream, Dust Jacket form factor, also as found on Lulu. Be aware though that hardcover books generally have a minimum printing cost of $15 a copy. If you make other decisions like full color printing, they can run over $25 a copy.
There are other form factors out there, available from a variety of self-publishers. Lulu has a good reputation and they're the one I use personally, but feel free to Google a few others.
Step 3: Format Manuscript
Whatever self-publisher you use, they'll provide you with a template file in which to place your story. This template automatically calculates things like page margins, image centering, etc, and so ensures your text will fit cleanly on the page. Your story will be printable no matter what. When you format your story, your job is to make it pretty.
If you're lazy and/or rich, you can get this professionally done on Upwork for about $100. Feel free to PM me if you want recommendations for a contractor, but there's a large and well-established industry for formatting raw text. If you can afford it, I recommend this, as it guarantees a clean and professional looking result.
Otherwise, if you want to do it yourself, everything you need can be done with standard software. Microsoft Word and/or Adobe PDF Editor are perfectly adequate. Guides like this one go into detail about the best way to make your book look professional, but you can probably get a similar experience by taking any book off your shelf and opening it up. Font selection, layout, etc are standardized across publishers, so you don't need to do anything fancy. Just take your favorate book off the shelf, crack it open, and try to get your manuscript to look like that.
Step 4: Cover Art and Chapter Art
Once you have a draft of your manuscript, it's time to think about art. Chapter art is optional, but note that if you plan to use it, you must do your chapter art before your cover art. This is because your chapter art may alter the thickness of the book, which will alter the dimensions required for your cover art.
Either way, you'll need to find an artist. If you have a friend who is willing to do the art for free, great. Otherwise, you should budget between $50 and $100 for a good cover image, and $20-50 per piece of chapter art. I paid $60 for the cover art above, but I think the artist undercharged me. It should probably have cost more.
When looking for an artist, be sure to approach multiple artists. It's great to have a first pick, but the artist you want may charge unreasonably high rates, or they may not take commissions at all. I recommend approaching 3-5 artists, getting a quote from each one, and picking the one you like best. DeviantArt is a great place to find multiple talented pony artists.
If you do decide to go with chapter art, remember that it is very important the image blend with the page behind it. That means you need to consider:
- Did I select cream or white for the color of the paper? Cream is easier to blend with, hence why it's the default.
- Do I want it to stand out as a sharp picture or "melt" into the paper?
- Did I pay extra to have the interior of the book printed in color, or will the images be black and white?
You can see an example of some of my chapter art below. Here, I selected cream paper, had the artist "fade" the edges so it melts into the paper, and I printed in black and white to keep costs down.
Once you've finished formatting your manuscript, including any chapter art you may be using, your self-publisher will be able to generate a template file for your cover art. Be sure to give this file to the artist doing your cover art so they know how to lay out the image.
If you don't want cover art, or cannot find an artist you can afford, it is also acceptable to have a hardcover book with no book jacket. This gives your book a more "classic" look, with the title embossed on the cover in foil letters.
Step 5: Test Printing and Corrections
Finally, with your manuscript formatted and your art complete, you want to print a test copy to see how it all looks. Different self-publishers charge different rates for this, but Lulu typically charges about $6 for a paperback test copy, and $15-25 for a hardcover test copy depending on what options you selected.
Once you get your test copy, you should carefully read through it in detail with a red pen, highlighting any issues you encounter. This is your absolute last chance to make corrections before you spend money on the bulk order, so take great care.
If you make any changes, be sure to order a second test copy. Because seemingly small changes can actually induce large printing or formatting errors, you should never assume the book is done until you're actually holding a test copy that looks the way you want it to look. Once that milestone is crossed, go ahead and order your print run. Try to order the entire print run at once -- most self-publishers charge less per copy the more you order.
And, that's it! If you're a lazy bum who does nothing yourself, this entire process will cost $200-300 and take 2-3 weeks. If you're more frugal and do a lot of it yourself, this can be done for under $50, and might take closer to a month.
I want to do more blog posts to help people get ready for the Bronycon Bookstore, so everyone let me know if you have any questions! This event is going to be a blast, and I can't wait to see all my favorite authors there.
Ok, I give. How do we do pre-orders?
4966201
You gonna be at the next Bronycon?
4966203 Yeah, I'm trying to get The Lazy Dragon setup for printing with Harwick. The problem is I'm a Lazy Human.
4966205
Then I will save you a copy!
If you're publishing through Lulu, we can order a copy direct from them, if you make that option available, right? 'Cause I'm pretty sure I'm not going to make it to BronyCon.
4966213
Correct. I won't make that available until after BC though, and some other writers may decide to be BC exclusive.
4966219
Ah, good! I'd really like a copy.
I've been thinking about a "special edition" for BronyCon.
Oh man, I'm psyched. I was on the fence about going to BronyCon but the bookstore sounds too good to miss. Are you still planning to do a printing of Siren Song?
4966239
Absolutely! Probably in hardcover depending on price. It is totally worth hardcover but I want to make sure it's affordable for everyone who wants a copy.
I really want to do this, but I haven’t got a handle on step one even...
Woot!
I don't have a story to book, but thanks for helping people with this!
Looks at cover art
Wait, did you actually finish that series? I remember talking to you about it at BC 2016 and expressing my frustration at the lack of the concluding chapter given how much I had enjoyed those leading up to it. Thank you by the way for telling me what it was going to be. If you have finally written it down, I would love to finally see it.
Oh, this will be incredibly useful. Thank you very much for it.
This is a great resource. Thank you!
I'm super late to reading up on this, but quick question: Is there a generally accepted minimum story length to make it worth printing it at all?
Edit: One more thing, now that I'm reading through the templates on Lulu's site. How does one go about getting an ISBN? Or do we even need one for this purpose?
5041282
You don't need an ISBN, and while there is no hard-and-fast rule, I would say 50 pages is a reasonable minimum for a soft-cover book.