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Has anyone researched self-publishing? My dd is inspired to write some more short stories and we thought she could maybe put 3-5 in a book and publish it online. Maybe in a Kindle format? Just wondering if anyone has had any experience with this. And, if so, what do you do about professional "editing"....??? Or, graphics? Dd has really caught "the bug" for writing and I'd love to help her find a forum/audience for it. And, of course, the internet helps w/ that. Meanwhile, I also want to protect her from the "wider world" or criticism at such a tender age. So, is there a homeschooling-type forum out there for aspiring writers to share their work?

 

Some things I know a bit about: Lulu, Amazon (may let you publish there?), Blogs.

 

THANK YOU!!!

Dana :grouphug:

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My daughter just published a Kindle book this weekend: Banished. We are also publishing her book as a paperback through CreateSpace (which is owned by Amazon, and is generally less expensive than Lulu), but we're not giving out the link until we have a chance to check our proof copy.

 

She has published earlier stories on her blog: Kitten's Purring.

 

So far, all the comments on her blog have been nice. Wordpress.com blogs are super easy to use, and they have lots of nice features.

 

I warned her that she might get nasty reviews on the book (since Amazon is more exposed to the wide internet than her little blog is), but she really wanted to give it a try.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Has anyone researched self-publishing? My dd is inspired to write some more short stories and we thought she could maybe put 3-5 in a book and publish it online. Maybe in a Kindle format? Just wondering if anyone has had any experience with this. And, if so, what do you do about professional "editing"....??? Or, graphics? Dd has really caught "the bug" for writing and I'd love to help her find a forum/audience for it. And, of course, the internet helps w/ that. Meanwhile, I also want to protect her from the "wider world" or criticism at such a tender age. So, is there a homeschooling-type forum out there for aspiring writers to share their work?

 

Some things I know a bit about: Lulu, Amazon (may let you publish there?), Blogs.

 

THANK YOU!!!

Dana

 

I didn't have time to answer your questions the other day, and I only have a few minutes now, but...

 

Editing: On the cheap, get friends who are willing to criticize. Ask them to read the manuscript and mark every place where they get bored or confused or just don't like it. If they can tell you why they don't like it, that's good, but sometimes readers don't know what's wrong. It's just a feeling they have, so it's the writer's job to figure out what is the problem. Also have your friends mark any typos they happen to notice.

 

Next, go into your room and read the book out loud to yourself. You'll notice lots of mistakes that way. If you're brave enough, have someone else read it out loud to you, and you'll notice even more.

 

If you have a Kindle, you can use"Send to Kindle" to load the document on your e-reader, which gives you another way to review it, The more different ways you look at the book, the more things you will find to fix.

 

Finally, find someone who is good at English to give it a good proofread before you publish. Another homeschool mom, maybe someone with an English degree? Bake her something really, really nice as a "Thank you!"

 

Publishing: Lulu is more expensive than CreateSpace, and CreateSpace automatically gets you listed on Amazon. Smashwords is also good, for ebooks. Both of those places offer lots of free help (advice articles or a free Smashwords book) on formatting.

 

Generally, keep your formatting as simple as you can. Look at the books on your shelf or in the library, and do things the same way they do.

 

We got our cover picture from flickr using the "Creative Commons Attribution" search, so we could use it for free as long as we give the photographer credit. We listed him on our copyright page and gave his flickr link and also his blog.

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Guest brooming

There's also a good option to explore Apple's iBookstore. Though limited to iPad users, it has a lot of interactive features (there are ton's of children educational book, as well). I think that's how a book will look like in several years.

I've published a free book on memory training (bit.ly/MoLJFz) and currently working on a full version.

Ask your friend for help with editing and finding mistakes. As for publishing, if you want to go on Amazon/B&N, use Smashwords!

 

Best luck!

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