by Gale Leach

This article follows two earlier posts published on the Writers in the Storm blog:

• Charting Your Course: How should you publish?
• Charting Your Course #2: Self-Publishing in 2025

Together, these posts explore the pros and cons of self-publishing, examine today’s self-publishing landscape, and conclude with the practical steps for self-publishing your book(s).

Much of this article had been written when I happened upon “The big self-publishing checklist” by Rob Fitzpatrick, posted in March. Fitzpatrick explains masterfully what I’d hoped to share with you. I thought about suggesting you read his article and leave it at that, but I won’t; you’ll find good information here. Instead, I ask you to read this post and refer to the Fitzpatrick article for additional information.

Follow the Workflow

The first graphic in Fitzpatrick’s article shows his overview of the process for both ebooks and print.

Correlate the information shown in Fitzpatrick's article with the steps listed below. My numbered steps refer to those in my timeline.

1. Final Manuscript

Self-edit your manuscript using any/all available tools/software. If needed, hire someone to do a developmental edit. Follow all other edits with a line/copy edit. Edits can be pricey, but good edits are worth the money. Readers abhor typos and errors.

2. Ebook, Print, or Both

• Decide whether you will publish an ebook, a print book, or both. If you are launching both an ebook and paperback, you can create the full wrap cover for the book and then use the front cover for the e-book.
• Many independent authors publish both ebook and print. Ebooks are easier to create, provide easy global reach, and have higher margins; print books provide perceived credibility and higher revenues. If you plan on selling at events, print is necessary.

Genre–Format Correlation

Note: Many more genres exist, and the list grows as they cross over each other, blending romance with paranormal or horror with romance, as examples. It’s important to be as specific as possible with your genre choices on the KDP metadata list, as they determine where your book will be categorized, helping readers locate it.

Choose a Trim Size

100-150 pages: choose 5.5” x 8.5”

150 or more pages: choose 6” x 9”

• Your genre should suggest which trim size and look of the cover might be most appropriate (see the table above). You should choose an appropriate trim size even if you only have an ebook—it will display correctly on Amazon along with the other books in your genre.
• If print, choose the trim size (physical dimensions of the book). Trim size refers to the book dimensions in inches. Most authors choose 6” x 9” because it costs less to print than  smaller sizes. With fewer pages, pick 5.5” x 8.5” to create a good-looking book that’s not too thin (KDP requires your book to have a spine label). Determine the approximate number of pages based on typical word count/page for that size.
• An 80,000-word manuscript usually produces a book around 300–330 pages, depending on trim size and layout elements. If you have many graphics or photos, the page count could be much more. Amazon’s Printing Costs & Royalty Calculator will help you make the most sensible choice.

3. Cover Design

Most people recommend you hire a skilled cover designer. You can use many programs to create cover artwork, but I strongly recommend that you take advantage of the knowledge a skilled cover designer can offer. Their cover might cost from $100 to $500, depending on complexity. Look at other covers in your genre for help with design. You don’t want to copy their covers, but neither do you want to stray too far from what readers expect.

The cover is your most important marketing tool. Readers should recognize the genre immediately. Start designing your cover as soon as your title is certain. For a full-wrap cover, use a template downloaded from KDP (absolute spine width must wait until page count is final). Get an ISBN and apply it (as an ISBN-13 barcode) to the lower right corner of the back cover. Add your metadata to the back print cover at the top left and to the copyright page of the interior.

Fitzpatrick says to start designing the front (ebook) cover and extend it to wrap around the spine and to the back for print. I’ve always done this the other way around, making a complete wrap cover and then selecting only the front image (in the trim size) for the ebook. Do whatever works best for you.

ISBN, Metadata, Pricing, Keywords

ISBN

• You can buy ISBNs from the official source in the United States: Bowker. Purchasing an ISBN means you'll be your own publisher and the owner of a unique number that can never be republished. If you choose to produce your publication in multiple formats (e.g., hardcover and paperback), each will need its own ISBN. The same rule applies if your publication is an updated version of a previous edition.
• The same ISBN you purchased separately can sometimes be used with multiple companies. For example, you can use your own ISBN with an upload to KDP and again to D2D. The recommendation is that you upload to KDP first (without choosing Expanded Distribution—it will conflict with IngramSpark), then upload to IngramSpark to handle widespread distribution. It’s best to upload to both KDP and IngramSpark prior to your publication date to help avoid conflicts.
• If you get the free ISBN from KDP, D2D, or IngramSpark, the ISBN belongs to them and cannot be used anywhere else.

Metadata

Metadata identifies and describes your book to retailers (e.g., title, author, keywords, subject). Good metadata helps retailers bring your book to the right readers. An ISBN is necessary for print books but not ebooks. Fitzpatrick’s description of the other elements is worth a look (see below and his Section 5).

Title

Shorter titles are usually better than long ones. Also, think about where the book’s name will fall in the alphabet: if it begins with “Z,” the book will appear in lists after all the other titles.

Description

Besides having a fine cover design, you need a great book description. Writing the description is the hardest thing you’ll do after writing the book. Be sure your description is excellent, as it will lure your potential reader to learn more and buy. Check the internet for information on how to create a great book description. Reedsy has good information on writing a book description that sells.

BISAC Categories

All sites ask that you choose categories within which your book fits. For a book about teaching children to play chess, you might choose “Games & Activities/Chess” and “Juvenile Nonfiction/Games & Activities/Board Games,” among others.

Keywords

Keywords are phrases readers might type into search engines when looking for books. Amazon allows seven keyword phrases to help readers discover your work. These can be single words or many words, as you wish—for example, “pickleball” and “advanced pickleball strategy.” For my first children’s book, I chose “adventure,” “animals,” “caterpillar,” “friends,” “courage,” and “family.” I then added “Charlotte’s Web, believing that children who liked that book might also like mine.

4. Interior Design—Ebooks

Interior design is the process of attractively arranging text and images, if any, on a page in order to create a pleasant reading experience. The cover attracts buyers; the interior design keeps them reading through consistency, readability, good use of white space, and a visual style that matches the genre.

For an Ebook

 If your book is mostly text, an ebook should be simple to format and lay out. The goal with ebooks is to keep things simple. They must look good on so many different devices—that means you should not format your text in elaborate ways. Look at other ebooks you like and emulate what they do. If your ebook has many graphics, it would be wise to find help.

Most platforms accept Word documents and can convert them automatically to EPUB, the standard ebook format. (MOBI, the older Kindle format, has largely been phased out in favor of EPUB, and PDF is not recommended.)

If you have images or designs, you will still need to work on the layout, which can be complicated. I suggest getting help with this.

Ensure your file is clean: consistent chapter headings, proper scene breaks, no manual tabs or extra spaces, and a linked table of contents where appropriate. Keep your ebook file neutral; nothing fancy. Fitzpatrick writes more about this in his Section 3.1.

After upload, ebooks typically appear on Amazon within 24–72 hours.

Ebook Pricing Strategy

Typical debut pricing ranges:

Ebook novel: $2.99 – $4.99
Ebook nonfiction: $5.99 – $9.99

Print Books

Good interior design can be difficult for the uninitiated. You can do a good job of layout/design using Microsoft Word, but it wasn’t created for this type of work, and it’s tough to make it behave. Page layout programs have a learning curve (a week or more) and aren’t free, but the money is a good investment if you plan on writing more books. The alternative is to hire a designer to do the job. You can find great designers at fiverr.com and reedsy.com. Fitzpatrick speaks to this in his Section 2.1, “Layout complexity and DIY vs. delegation”:

At its simplest, interior layout means taking your manuscript and formatting it with the proper page size, margins, page breaks, page numbers, and a title page. However, there’s a lot of fiddly detail to get right.

In general, interior layout goes one of two ways:

1. For prose-heavy books that are able to be prepared with the DIY tools of either Vellum or Atticus, it's trivially easy and should be done yourself
   1. For design-heavy books that require custom page layouts, it's extremely tedious and will probably involve a freelancer

Fitzpatrick suggests using Atticus (Windows) or Vellum (Mac) for DIY interior layouts because these programs are simpler and less costly than the big name in the business, InDesign. I’ve long used other powerful and less-expensive alternatives to Adobe’s tools made by Affinity.

About Affinity

However, while researching this article, I learned that Affinity was acquired by Canva in 2024 and subsequently made its entire professional creative suite (Photo, Designer, Publisher) FREE on Mac, Windows, and iPad as of October 30, 2025. Despite initial user fears regarding potential subscription models, Canva has committed to keeping the software as a high-quality, non-subscription, and perpetual-license-based product. Affinity is now a single product comprising software for professional page layout, graphic design, and photo editing. The most amazing thing is that these programs really are FREE. Read more at Affinity.studio.

Of course, I must say that Adobe’s InDesign is by far the best layout program on the market. If you plan to write more than one book, it might be a wise investment.

Specifications. Make your margins no smaller than 0.75 inches, use running headers, and set page numbers in the center or outside of all pages except the first few.

If these DIY options don’t work for you, I’ve had good luck hiring freelancers from Fiverr; other authors have said they liked using Reedsy. Both groups offer services covering the gamut of everything you might need.

Proofreading

Ebooks: Use Kindle Previewer. This app, available for Windows PC and Macintosh, allows you to visualize your ebook on many different platforms.

Print Books: Reviewers have traditionally proofread PDF files at this point, but Fitzpatrick argues that it is hard to track notes in the PDF file, so errors often persist. He suggests proofing the document file in its native state and transitioning to PDF when ready to upload (see his section 2.2).

To Be Continued . . .

I wrote too much for a single blog post—the rest will follow soon. I hope this much has been helpful and that you’ll let me know in the comments.

Reference:

Fitzpatrick, Rob. “The big self-publishing checklist.” Useful Books, March 4, 2025.
https://www.usefulbooks.com/learn/self-publishing-checklist

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About Gale

Writing The Art of Pickleball in 2005 launched Gale Leach’s career as an award-winning author. From 2011 to 2020, she also managed her own company, Two Cats Press, which published the works of six Arizona authors, including seven of her own fantasy adventure novels for children and teens. Currently, she’s at work on a fantasy trilogy involving magic, technology, multiple worlds, and creatures you only thought were mythological.

Gale and her hero husband live in Arizona, accompanied by two cats and a bearded dragon. Gale’s interests outside of writing include singing, playing music, genealogy, reading, crafting, and many types of puzzles and games. You can connect with Gale on social media or her website.

Top Image created by Gale Leach using ChatGPT.