Are you self-publishing? Right now I'm in the midst of running a self-publishing workshop. I'm waiting (waiting!) to see if a 'PDF' file I made for free with Draft 2 Digital will work if I put it through Ingram Spark.
If not, I will encourage the writers in my class to use Blurb.com as a low-cost formatting option for their titles.
In my hunting around for information, I came across this amazing checklist for self-publishers, by Ellie Marnie. 
Read it here.
How good is it?
It's excellent.

Ellie's awesome list includes these stages:
1. Write the book
2. Beta the book
3 Edit the book
4 Copyedit the book
5 Get a cover
6 Buy ISBNs
7 Typeset/ layout the book
8 Proof the book
9 Convert your book to ebook and print
10 Publish the book
11 Market and promote

For all these steps, there are a few more personal steps self-publishers need.

1 Come up with an author name/publishing name. (or use your real name.)
2 Get an ABN in your name or your publishing name. You don't have to register for GST, and if you're not registered, you don't charge it.
3 Consider registering a publishing business name (but not a company, as that is much more expensive and arduous.)
4 Join Paypal.com to get paid from various online retailers (except Amazon)
5 Consider joining Payoneer to receive payments from Amazon outside Australia, to reduce bank fees and international transfer fees. Otherwise all your Amazon sales will be paid into your bank account (better than the way they used to pay with cheques at least) but you'll lose at least 5% in bank fees.
6 Get your other tax details ready so that you can be ready to supply your Tax File Number when you set up with many of these retailers. (They will accept an Australian TFN instead of a USA ITIN)

Too easy, right?

It was one of those spur of the moment things, that came about after a chat with other author friends who love attending book launches and author events. But, being human, we're really good on hearing about them AFTER the event. Damn that FOMO!
Turns out there wasn't any central place for all the events to be listed. Some are organised by bookstores, some by libraries, some by the authors at their local cafe and some by The YA Room. Bits and pieces everywhere! 
So I rolled up my sleeves and got down to it, and I'm finding so much stuff! So many events, launches, talks, workshops. It's all happening. Click on the MG & YA Book Launches Etc page and join in. Newsletters go out every Tuesday afternoon. 
Best get cracking with newsletter #5 then!
​

Massively exciting news. The Girl and The Ghost won its category!
I will crash down to earth later this afternoon when I help my son with his maths homework. But right now I'm floating on air. 
Self-published, self-edited, young adult. WOW! 

OK folks, it's August, and on the 18th the Romance Writers of Australia will announce the winners of the Romantic Book of the Year.
The Girl and The Ghost is a finalist. This continues to blow my mind.

• It's self-published, as are half the finalists across all four categories. (Go self-pubbers!)
• It's Young Adult - reasonably unusual.
• It's self-edited - yeah, that's right. I worked out how to become objective about my own writing. Take that ADHD brain!
• It's a gorgeous story. Seriously. It's swoony and sweet and set right here in Melbourne.

Click Here and grab The Girl and The Ghost now.
​Please and thank you.
And if you're interested in *how* I edited my own romance novel,
​then Click Here and learn how to do it for yourself.

Everyone with a reasoably completed manuscript is welcome, including keen teens. I really will teach you the next step - in fact, there are many steps - and it's gonna be great.

This awesome guide book is a real winner. I took postcards with details about the book and how to buy it, to the #DIYBookFest in Richmond this past weekend. The most common reaction I received from other authors was they'd love it in paperback.
But, you see, it's packed to the gills with links. Linkety linky links. Links that work magnificently in the digital world, but in print, not so much.
But, I can just imagine how much librarians across the country would LOVE a paperback of this book - which they could hand over to eager locals who turn up to donate their memoirs.
Because . . .  I'm hearing horror stories my friends. A friend who works at The State Library said they get people wanting to donate their magazines. They may have every single copy of Australian Geographic from issue 1, and believe it's worth keeping. But The State Library already has them. All of them. They don't need doubles.
Also, people turn up with their memoirs or their memoir thinly disguised as fiction and donate them to the library. But . . . it might not be the sort of thing The State Library would normally stock. No, not even for a local. And so, when that local turns up a few weeks later to check the catalogues, they're naturally upset that their book isn't in there.
So I know, deep in my heart, librarians are actually going to want this in paperback. Even more, perhaps, than the locals self-publishing books are going to want to read it and accept the truth that things need to be done in a certain order. 
I feel good about this decision. I think librarians will thank me, even if some self-published authors won't!
​

Bizarre things go on inside my head. I mean, I'm a writer, so that's already cause for alarm, neuro wise. And I have ADHD. Right now I'm laughing along to a Hannah Gadsby and typing this and learning about 'back matter' in ebooks and also something called Amazon Affiliates.
And reformatting 1916-ish so I can update it.
And I coulnd't find the right word file with the latest version of 1916-ish, could I? No, because I'm disorganised to the point of needing an intervention. Which meant finding a file that was almost good enough but somehow all the italics were gone and I have to go in and put set words into italics.
And then I started reading the story again.
Because . . . it's a really cool book and I really do love it.
In 1916-ish, the main character, Ingrid, also has ADHD.
I didn't know she had ADHD when I started writing her story. It was something that didn't make itself clear until several drafts in. And it was something that made so much sense to Ingrid and how she saw the world.
And . . .
Around this time, my son (who'd already been diagnosed a few years earlier with Autism) was properly diagnosed with ADHD. 
"But hang on," I said to the paediatrician, "Everything that qualifies him with ADHD is the same as all the stuff I did at his age."
She looked at me and nodded, with a reassuring, "Mmm-hmm".
So here we are.
Back to reformatting and learning stuff. Reading 1916-ish again has reminded me how much I learned about myself writing that. You can't tell me authors don't put themselves into their books. Sure, they're not an autobiography, but there's always a little of ourselves in them.

I'm pretty sure I screwed this up, because ADHD. But I may have also done it the right way. Who knows? Life is an adventure.

The Lending Rights mail came today! Huzzah lovely money for me based on the number of my books on the shelves in Australian libraries. This is always a lovely bonus each year, but it's such a slow turnaround I have to remind myself it's basically a report from two years earlier. All the work I did last year (and continue to do this year) to get my newer books out there won't be reflected until next year. Or even later. It's like that old shampoo commercial where the model said, 'It won't happen overnight, but it will happen.'
And it *is* happening. 
What frippery should I splurge my hard-earned on, folks? Oh, silly me, I know what I'll spend it on . . . MORE BOOKS!

Lots of things are happening and it's a little bit brilliant.
My seventh book, The Girl & The Ghost, is a RuBY finalist. What is the RuBY? It's the Romantic Book of the Year. The winners will be announced at the RWA national conference in August.