6 Tips to Help Self-publish Your Queer Stories

Every author dreams of seeing their books on bookstore shelves. We want to walk into Chapters and casually pull our novel out from between Nalo Hopkinson and Raziel Reid.

And while the publishing landscape is growing more inclusive (what agent ISN’T looking for #ownvoices stories these days?), the fact is that major publishers are still gate-keepers, and the stories they choose to tell are a small fraction of the stories readers want to see.

That’s why more and more authors are turning to self-publishing.

Niche properties in particular often do a lot better online than their more generic counterparts. Small communities are hungry for stories that feature themselves, and hashtags and targeted blogs make it easy for readers to find the content they’re craving. If you’re considering turning to self-publishing, here are a few things you should keep in mind.

1. Polish That Manuscript!

There is a huge amount of content available, and as soon as readers put money down for something, they get picky. It’s fine for your Wattpad story to be rife with typos, but your book needs to be professionally edited. Expect to pay anywhere from $100-$1000 for editing, depending on whether you just want proofreading, or whether you want more in-depth content editing that will help you with story beats and characters. You can save money by enlisting free beta readers to help you with early-stage editing. Don’t expect them to hunt for typos for you, but they can be great at finding plot holes or character motivations that don’t work. You can hunt for beta-readers through Facebook groups (just type 'beta reader' into the search bar and you'll find a huge number of groups) or even among your friends.

2. Get a Great Cover

The saying may implore you not to judge a book by its cover, but we all do! It’s worth it to pay a cover artist to create a book cover for you. Make sure you research your genre. A romance book will need a very different style cover than a personal memoir or a crime novel.

3. Write A Lot

Readers often assume that the more books you’ve published, the more legitimate you are. So it might be hard to self-publish that great manuscript you’ve been carefully tending for 10 years and get a lot of eyes on it. Don’t give up! Keep putting books out. You may be surprised when your fourth or fifth book starts selling, and then your back catalogue will often take off too.

4. Beware Vanity Presses

There are a lot of companies out there who will charge you to self-publish your book. They do your cover design, editing, and get you an ISBN. These services cost between $5,000-$15,000. It isn’t worth it!! The only benefit is having a one-stop-shop.

To self-publish my book, Havoc & Happiness, I started by getting a free ISBN from LIbrary and Archives Canada. Then it was time to format my document! I started with a Word document. Once it was fully edited, I saved it as a PDF and uploaded that to Amazon's KPD Dashboard, which automatically converts it to a .mobi file for ebooks and printing. But I also wanted copies that I could give away as Advanced Reader's Copies (ARCs). That meant I needed to format the Word doc again. A friend helped me turn the Word document into an .epub and .mobi file using Calibre, which is a free program that I highly recommend. I also uploaded that .epub to Kobo and Google Play. After that, I had to format the Word document one more time, for print. I wanted to print a few copies with my local printer, to support local business and avoid shipping fees from Amazon.

5. Master Marketing

The hardest part of self-publishing is that you have to be your own marketer. But even for traditionally-published authors, this is increasingly true. Get active on social media. Don’t be afraid to self-promote. And use hashtags like #queer and #ownvoices to reach your audience. Everything you can do to get your name out there helps. Don’t forget to advertise, too. Amazon and Facebook ads are both great ways to promote your books.

6. Don’t Forget Kobo

Amazon dominates the self-publishing marketplace, but in Canada 25% of ebooks are sold through Kobo. Listing your book for sale there is free, and they take a smaller percentage of your sales than Amazon does.

Self-publishing is a great option for authors at every stage of their careers. It’s a lot of hard work, and requires some investment up-front, but it gives you ultimate control over your work, and avoids gatekeepers in traditional institutions.

Wren Handman is a novelist and screenwriter from Vancouver, Canada. She writes a wide range of stories, from science fiction (Wire Wings) to YA contemporary paranormal (In Restless Dreams). All of her stories are connected by one thing: the magical blended with the everyday…probably because she secretly wishes magic was real. Wren can be found on Facebook and Twitter, and one www.wrenhandman.com

Photo by Robert Anasch on Unsplash