One of the first steps you need to do when you decide to publish a book is to go out and get yourself a PO Box. Why? One word: Security. Without a PO Box, you will be using your home address in places that it is easy for anyone to find. Do you want your readers to know exactly where you live? Would you want your Annie Wilkes to know where to find you? Probably not. (more…)
If you are self-publishing a book, you need to understand wholesale discounts and how it affects the amount of money you will make when you sell a book through retail channels. When I talk to authors about how to calculate their book’s profit they’re often a little lost when it comes to understanding wholesale discounts. In this self-publishing article, I will explain what a wholesale discount is, and how to calculate the amount of money you will make when you sell your book. (more…)
Many self-publishing authors form a business (publishing company) with its own name and publish their book under the publishing company’s name instead of their own. Here are five reasons that you may want to do this, and two reasons you may not want to:
There are only two reasons (in my opinion) why an author might decide not to create a publishing company to publish their book under. And they are big reasons!
To use a business name to publish under you must file a Doing Business As (DBA)* or form a Limited Liability Company (LLC). While there are other types of business structures, those are the two most common types for authors. Each of these means filling out forms and paying fees to your local government. A DBA is typically done at the county level and an LLC at the state level. The costs involve vary depending on where you live but can run into the hundreds of dollars. A DBA is not too difficult to set up, while an LLC is more complex and you might need to get someone to help you do it correctly, which will cost even more.
And these are not one-time costs. An LLC will need to pay an annual fee, while a DBA often stays in effect for numerous years, but does expire after some time (depending on where you registered).
So, is it necessary to create your own publishing company just to hide the fact that you self-published? Does anyone really care? No, not anymore. Self-publishing had a stigma in the past and authors were better off hiding that they self-published, but not so much now. Many authors are now embracing the fact that they are independent and self-published and proudly proclaim it to the world.
If you don’t want the hassle or are on a budget, you absolutely do not need to form a business to create that publishing company. Instead, just publish under your own legal name. That means that when you buy your ISBNs (if you are), you would put your own name down instead of a publishing company name. On the copyright page in your book, you do not need to put any “Published by” statement there at all. Just leave that off. There is no requirement for a publisher’s name to be included.
What is right for you? Well, that is for you to decide. There really isn’t a wrong or right answer here; think about your goals as an author and your budget, then make a choice. You should have this settled before you purchase any ISBNs or set up your accounts at IngramSpark, CreateSpace, or Amazon’s KDP platform, however. If you create a publishing company, you should be buying the ISBNs and setting up the accounts under its name.
* Some areas call a Doing Business As (DBA) a Trade Name or a Fictitious Name.
Do you want to learn more about how to create your own publishing company? Read my other post: Self-Publishing Short: Creating Your Own Publishing Company.
In Microsoft Word, section breaks are meant to divide your book into sections. In books, they are used between chapters and to divide the front-matter or back-matter pages. Section break should be placed after the title page, copyright page, dedication page, table of contents, chapter 1, chapter 2, and so on. These section breaks will create a page break between each of those sections.
But it is not just a page break. Section breaks also control the page numbers within the section, running heads, and whether the next section begins on the next page or next right hand (odd numbered) page. Let’s look at each of those.
Section breaks allow you to control the numbering in each section. This lets you have page #1 be the first page of Chapter One. It also makes it possible to use lower case roman numerals for page numbers (i, ii, iii, iv, etc.) on the front-matter, and Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) on the chapter pages.
Each section has a first page, even page, and odd page header. You can place different running head text in each one (or not have any). In a book, the first-page header should be left blank as this would be the chapter title page, the even page header often has the book title, and the odd page header the current chapter title or author name. when you use section breaks, you can have different running heads in each section. This is useful for having the current chapter title for the running head of a section. You can also choose to link the current sections running head with the previous section if you want them to be the same.
In a book, you often want to start the next section on the next right-side page (odd page). You would do this in Word by placing a Section Break: Odd Page before the chapter or section you want to start on the next odd numbered page, which will be a ride-side page. Word will then place a blank left-side page (if needed) before that next chapter to make certain that happens. Take note! Word will not display a blank left-side page in Normal view mode. This often confuses writers who don’t realize that that blank is there as they can’t see it. When you do a print preview, print, or create a PDF, Word will show the blank page. It is also reflected in the page numbering. You will notice that t seems that there is a missing page number. You might see a page 5, 6, 7, and then it goes to a new chapter which is shown as page 9. Where is page 8? It is a blank left-side page that Word is not showing you.
Here is how you place a section break.
You will then see a Section Break marker appear in your document (if you have show formatting marks turned on)
Once your book is divided into sections, you can control the page numbering with in. For example, let’s say you want Chapter One to start on page #1. Make sure your chapters are divided into sections then place your cursor in Chapter One.
By the way, if you are hiring someone to do your book layout, don’t worry about having to do any of these things with section breaks. Your formatter will handle all of that for you and is likely using Adobe InDesign, not Microsoft Word to format your book.
Questions? Post them in the comment section below.
If you are writing a nonfiction book, you may have a section in the back referencing source material, such as other books or magazine articles. These references should be formatted with hanging indents. That is, the first line is flush left, and the following lines are indented as shown below. (more…)