Steven Saus of Alliterationink on Epublishing

Today, I welcome Steven Saus.  When I put out my short stories, Annals of the Immortyls, I'd never self-published anything before.  I had great help with editing and proofreading from some writers in my crit group, one of whom edits professionally, but I had not the first idea of how to go about formatting a book to make it into an ebook.  Enter Steven Saus, a writer I'd met through sci fi conventions.  He'd started a company that helps authors to convert their works into ebooks.  I asked Steven here today, to tell you a little about his company.

Steven Saus on Alliterationink

“I want to make an eBook,” Slartibartfast (not his real name) tells me. “That’s what you do, right?”

“Yes, I --”

He breaks in: “So here’s my idea. It’ll change the world, it will. First, there’s this guy...”

The specifics of the idea are interchangeable. It quickly becomes apparent that Slartibartfast doesn’t have a book that needs to be converted. He hasn’t written a book yet.

It’s the newest wrinkle on “Hey, you’re an author, you should totally write this idea I had” that you’ve probably heard before. (Honestly, you’ve probably done it before - I know I have.) And in some ways, those of us who are participating in the “digital revolution” are probably encouraging it.

You know the slogans and catchphrases (along with the failed attempts at each): Digital revolution. Vertically integrated publishing. e-Revolution. And so on.

And they’re not wrong. There’s money to be made out there. But in convincing authors that they’re able to make money without a gigantic support network, we’ve given the impression that it’s simple or automatic.

At Origins, I was on a panel with Bryan Young, Tracy Chowdhury, and R.T. Kaelin. All of us - all of us - agreed that when an author takes on the publishing aspects of the business, that it’s not a shortcut. As Tracy said: “I think it took just as long, and maybe more work publishing it myself than if I’d sent it off to a publisher.”

So you already know the difference between Slartibartfast’s “I have this idea for a book you could write” and writing a good book. There’s just as much of a difference between “I have this book you could publish” and (successfully) publishing your own book, either digitally or in print.

Both writing and publishing can be fascinating, fulfilling, and even a lot of fun.

But doing it well isn’t easy. And that’s okay.

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Steven Saus

Steven Saus injects people with radioactive material for a living, but only to serve the forces of good. He is an author with multiple story credits in markets online and off, including “So You Want to Make an eBook?”. He is also the force behind Alliteration Ink, a small publisher whose titles include “Net Impact” by Donald J. Bingle, the Crimson Pact series of anthologies edited by Paul Genesse, and “Eighth Day Genesis: A Worldbuilding Codex” edited by Sabrina Klein. You can find him at stevensaus.com and alliterationink.com.



Link for Bryan: http://www.bigshinyrobot.com
Link for Tracy: http://worldofshandahar.com/index.html
Link for RT: http://www.rtkaelin.com/
Link for eBook: http://alliterationink.com/store.html#ebook
Link for Net Impact: http://netimpact.alliterationink.com/
Link for Crimson Pact: http://thecrimsonpact.com
Link for 8th day: http://8thday.alliterationink.com

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