The use of InDesign & Photoshop is essential stewardship for DIY publishers
This morning I am reading an article by Marc Coker (the founder of Smashwords) about what’s coming in near future for authors and publishers. He has some very good things to say. Here’s a quote that is particularly relevant to us.
As a self published author, you’re the publisher. You’re running a business. The lifeblood of a business is profit, because profit generates cash. If you run out of cash, you go out of business. Since profit equals sales minus expenses, and sales are difficult to predict and often minimal, it’s important to minimize expenses. DIY as much as possible, especially when you’re starting out. Invest your sweat equity (your time and talent) first. If you can’t afford editing, barter for editing, and leverage beta readers. Once you start earning a profit, then carefully reinvest. Never borrow money to finance your ebook publishing adventure. Never spend money you need to pay the mortgage or to put bread on your table.
The majority of my readers are Christian authors writing as a ministry (and as a source of income). As one myself, I can say without hesitation that the Lord expects us to be wise—good stewards of the resources He gives us. This is why my strong recommendation is to invest in good tools. This is especially true for those of us who are producing non-fiction. The premier tool for publishing is InDesign, plus Photoshop to adjust the photos you use.
As the ebook market matures, much more will be expected of us as authors. Expenses for editing, formatting, and cover design can very quickly exhaust our resources. For the price of InDesign, plus a lot of effort to learn typography, graphic design, and publishing, you can make your publishing expenses disappear. It costs me $0.00 to publish a book, both print and ebook, at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the iBookstore, and Kobo. If you are building your author platform by publishing a half dozen books a year, paying for external publishing costs can quickly bankrupt you. Also, even if you are trying to do it yourself, the loss of sales because of reader-perceived quality issues will be an increasing problem as our DIY publishing industry matures.
I second that. With ID CS6, I’m impressed with how easy it is to export to ePub (for the iBookstore) and mobi (for Amazon). And the big plus is what that means for the print books I’ve created in older versions of InDesign, I can quick easily create digital versions. One text source, many format outputs is very nice, particularly when you need to revise.
The only remaining hassle is ‘everybody else’–meaning B&N, Diesel, Kobo etc, for which I use Smashwords. Unfortunately, even though Smashwords is sending many ebook retailers ePub files, they want the input as a Word .doc file. That means exporting from InDesign and a lot of reformatting. It also means I now have two text sources. Not good. Smashwords has mentioned perhaps allowing ePub input in the future, and, if that happens my life gets a lot easier. For now, I simply put the Smashwords version at the end of my workflow, to be done after all the others.
Those bothered by the stiff price of your first copy of InDesign might want to do a bit of research and then watch for older but upgradable copies places like eBay or Craigslist. Quite a few small business, in the zeal of the moment, pick up a copy of ID because someone tells them it’s “the best way to do brochures.” They discover ID’s hefty learning curve and don’t use it. Once it gets a version or two behind, they look for a quick way to unload it.
That’s where your research matters. Find out just how many version back Adobe is currently allowing for upgrades and make sure the person you’re buying for either hasn’t registered it (common) or can transfer the license to you. Also if the version is for a different platform (i.e. Windows v. OSX), check and see if Adobe allows a cross-platform upgrade. Last time I checked, they did. Find the right person at their customer service number and they can tell you that or Google for the right webpage.
This seems to be the current policy page:
http://www.adobe.com/products/indesign/buying-guide-upgrades.html
Notice that the special offer to upgrade from CS3 or CS4 ends on December 31, 2012.
Also take note that those linked to schools can get special pricing from Adobe and there are special outlets that give really good prices to non-profits. If my quick look is true, TechSoup Stock sells ID for $60 to qualifying non-profits:
http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/software/page10487.cfm
–Michael W. Perry, Hospital Gowns and Other Embarrassments (latest)
Excellent comments… I’d only add that PubIt for Nook and Kobo Writing Life does a lot to help spread the distribution. Lulu gets not only the iBookstore but also NookBooks. Conceptually, I like Smashwords a lot but the need for Word.docs is a killer time-wise. Plus, SW formatting restrictions make for a really ugly book.