Third Way Publishing

Thanks for the info, Mike.

Can't find the published E-books thread so I will ask this here. I may have missed that thread even though I went over the forums three times or it could be waaay down on the list of threads by now.

Anyway, I have four sets of stories I want to E-publish. Doing the covers might be a bit of a challenge. Does anyone have experience doing that on a Mac, they could talk me through it? With software that doesn't cost a bunch.

I don't recommend doing your own covers unless you know what you are doing, personally. Your cover is your first impression.

If you don't have much budget, maybe find a pre-made cover that fits? It's a cheaper way to get a professional looking cover.

I don't recommend doing your own covers unless you know what you are doing, personally. Your cover is your first impression.

If you don't have much budget, maybe find a pre-made cover that fits? It's a cheaper way to get a professional looking cover.

I plan to with novels but right now I'm learning the whole process by putting up sets of five stories. I don't want to spend even $40 for a cover for these though.

I might give the free side of Createspace a try. I can't think of who at the moment but someone or two had some good things to say about them.

Not for covers, I wouldn't. Their generic covers are pretty bad...

Look, if you aren't willing to invest any money, get some royalty-free stock images and slap up a cover. Sure, your stories probably won't sell much, but you're in the learning phase and can just replace the covers later if you want.

I've looked for stock photos, it's hard to find what I want and some are not as free as they declare.

Of course right now I'm not sure what I want. I did when I thought about doing single stories but not so much in a group. I may use the same cover for each and just change the title, I've noticed that some writers do that. I was hoping to see a galley of covers so I could pick one I thought would work. Maybe one I could change slightly and/or use different colors.

I may have found some pics for my western story but not the others.

A very small side note to the interesting discussion of POD above—

In my company, we use POD for galleys and very small, private projects (such as, say, 50 copies of a family memoir to be shared with said members of that family). There is a difference in quality between the POD book and what can be produced through a regular print run, be it web press or offset. They're not bad books, but there is a difference in paper, cover stock, the methods and security of the binding, etc.

If you're thinking about per-book prices, returns, and the like, it may be something worth taking into consideration—that a POD book might look/feel a little different than a paperback from a print run, and some people might notice the difference.

My Book is mostly revised. I just need one more real location and hopefully that will be taken of very soon. And no more revisions. I do however need someone to help find nitpicks and bad commas. I would rather not go to a pro copy editor they charge a lot.

Then someone to do a pro cover on this one. I have two site but I'm not sure if I like either one. Yeah, I looked over their samples.

My Book is mostly revised. I just need one more real location and hopefully that will be taken of very soon. And no more revisions. I do however need someone to help find nitpicks and bad commas. I would rather not go to a pro copy editor they charge a lot.

I recommend paying for a copy-editor. Even after extensive beta-readers, you'll still have a ton of errors in the manuscript. You can find a copy-editor to proof your manuscript for $250-500 depending on the size of the book. There are a ton out there. Ask around Kindle boards if you want names and websites. I would throw out Lucky Bat Books as a good source. I happen to know a few of the copy-editors there and they do a great job.

My Book is mostly revised. I just need one more real location and hopefully that will be taken of very soon. And no more revisions. I do however need someone to help find nitpicks and bad commas. I would rather not go to a pro copy editor they charge a lot.

I recommend paying for a copy-editor. Even after extensive beta-readers, you'll still have a ton of errors in the manuscript. You can find a copy-editor to proof your manuscript for $250-500 depending on the size of the book. There are a ton out there. Ask around Kindle boards if you want names and websites. I would throw out Lucky Bat Books as a good source. I happen to know a few of the copy-editors there and they do a great job.

Thanks the comments,

I thought that from the beginning but the copy editors I've seen charge more than that. From the size of the novel and how much they charge, $800 was the lowest price I've seen. One or two charged more if there were a ton of errors and mine would have a lot.

For that and the price of the cover--unless you know someone who can do a complete cover for less than $175 which is the cheapest I've seen-I would have to try Kickback to raise the funds. For both I figured on 1100 to 1500 dollars . Of if I found a copy editor for let's say $375 that would help a lot.

I sent in a note to two cover web sites but no response to either yet.

I will check out Lucky Bat.

I just did check them out, sounds good even though their charges for covers are at least what I've seen elsewhere.
But two things, one is they charge per hour for editing, but no where does it say how long the average book takes. Or even how long a thousand words usually takes. Nor how long the editing process takes. That may depend on how busy they are.

Second thing you may or may not know: I can't find the answer to this on Createspace either. Since they are an Amazon company are the POD books sold exclusively through Amazon?

Second thing you may or may not know: I can't find the answer to this on Createspace either. Since they are an Amazon company are the POD books sold exclusively through Amazon?

No, assuming you sign up for the Extended Distribution which costs $25 and is well worth it. Any vendor (including bookstores) can order from Createspace. I've had people buy my books at a B&N store through Createspace. Plus, the overseas markets use it as well.

Second thing you may or may not know: I can't find the answer to this on Createspace either. Since they are an Amazon company are the POD books sold exclusively through Amazon?

No, assuming you sign up for the Extended Distribution which costs $25 and is well worth it. Any vendor (including bookstores) can order from Createspace. I've had people buy my books at a B&N store through Createspace. Plus, the overseas markets use it as well.

Thank you.
Now for a cover. I think I can do the formatting myself but we shall see.
I have E-mails out to three Cover sites for more information but so far no response. Of course two were later on Friday so I may get theirs Monday. I think the third one had time to respond but I will hopefully see Monday about them too.

Pardon me this next but:

This is Frustrating. If I could have figured out the last bit of sizing for my cover I would have had four story sets up. Maybe gotten those requests for information in sooner too.