In part 1, I talked about finding beta readers and in part 2, I talked about having readers sign up and giving them resources, dates, and expectations. For this post, I wanted to talked about the nuts and bolts. It's nice to have readers and an informative email with links and stuff, but if you can't get your book to your beta readers, it's all for nothing! Scriviner I use Scriviner to write my books. If you haven't heard of it, you should check it out. I recently upgraded to Scriv3, and I love it! I probably only use about 10-15% of the features, but it's worth it to me because it breaks up the text into manageable bites. I like putting my chapters/scenes into folders, color coding them, and stamping them with draft type (eg. 1st, 2nd, etc). I'm also pretty much obsessed with composition mode! Compiling the Book Another spiffy advantage to using Scriviner is that it makes it really easy to compile your book. It looks scary, but it wasn't that bad. It helped that I found a really great video that walked me through everything I needed to do, but, honestly, it's about trial and error. I complied my book several times before I got it to look the way I wanted, and that's fine! It's a process, and that only took me a little longer because I had to take a little more time figuring out how to get the table of contents to look right. I recommend compiling the book twice. Make a mobi and epub. These are the two doc types that work best with most mobile and computer ebook apps. When you do the mobi, you will need to download Kindlegen. I don't know how this will work on a PC, but the Mac process was pretty straightforward.
I uploaded the mobi and epub (no PDF). I didn't know how to do a jpeg, so I don't have a cover on my ebook, but I figured for my purposes that was fine. I like that I can choose how many downloads and I could have more than one ebook floating out there. I chose some expiration dates, but I'm glad I can change them if I want. Evaluation of my process
I knew Scriviner was awesome, but I always told myself I'd "figure out" the compiling after I finished drafting and revising because I thought it would be really challenging to compile the book. I'm relieved that it didn't take that long and that it wasn't too difficult. Scriviner is designed by and for writers, so it makes sense that it would have the exact compiling options I needed. BookFunnel is really cheap! It cost me $20 a year for 500 downloads or something like that. That's plenty for my needs! The only problem I had with BookFunnel was that it seemed too easy. I uploaded my files, made my landing page, and got my link to share out in less than an hour. I thought I had messed up somewhere! But I didn't. The ebook option is great for beta readers because it saves on printing paper and buying binders (which is what I was planning to do originally) and allowed for mass sharing. It also allowed my readers to access the book anytime/anywhere. Concluding thoughts So there you have it! Sending out to beta readers is more than just saying, "hey, you, read this!" and throwing them an ebook. I guess it could be that way for some people, but I wanted the experience to be as rewarding as possible. In the future, I want to have thank you gifts for my beta readers. It might be cheesy, but I'd like to give bookmarks or (if I was rich enough) $5 gift cards to an indie bookstore or something like that. I invited all of my beta readers to subscribe to my blog because I thought they might enjoy reading more about my writing and publishing journey. Plus, all new subscribers get a behind-the-scenes excerpt. I wish I could do more! If you're one of my beta readers, thank you for reading my book! I really appreciate your support, encouragement, and eye for detail!
2 Comments
Lacey Ellsworth
8/22/2020 07:27:42 am
You did a good job supporting your betas with emails and the Google form to help us give feedback. This post is great information, too!. I knew nothing of funnels.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |