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Outsourcing My Halloween Paperback

A jack-o-lantern grinning maliciously.
Credit: Pixabay.com




Well, October is already here and before we know it Halloween will be here! That’s why I’ve decided to forget the formatting to the paperback version of my YA Halloween horror book, “The Boo Brothers”, and pass on that part of the project to someone else. I’m hiring a book designer.

I create stories. I do not design books. I have designed books before but that is not my primary skill or passion. I’m a teller of stories not a designer of their media. I’m a writer and an artist. My job is to write stories and illustrate them. So, besides writing the books, I’ll make the covers for them, and I’ll promote and market them since doing so involves storytelling of a sort. When you market and promote a book you need to describe the book whether in writing or in speech.

For the past two weeks, and I indicated this in the IWSG post on Wednesday, I have been struggling and getting really frustrated working with the book manuscript format for the paperback version of “The Boo Brothers”. After nearly formatting the whole manuscript, I’ve had to go back and reformat earlier parts of it at least twice within the last week. I had been taking on the job myself because I’ve always been afraid of the high prices book designers can charge customers. But platforms like Fiverr have freelancers who offer services for really good deals. So, I’m going to turn to a source such as that.

Before I was working the day job that I’ve been working for the last three years, I could afford the time to be a jack-o-lantern of all trades and so could afford to take on the role of book designer. But now I don’t have that time. So, for something as technical and as time consuming as formatting a book I have to pay someone else to do.

On top of this, I still want to do a giveaway for this Halloween. So I’m planning that as well and will keep you updated on it in the next post.

Fellow self-publishing writers, do you outsource any of your writing projects or do you handle everything yourself? What is the easiest technical or supporting task for your writing projects (e.g. book manuscript format, book marketing/promotion, shopping for book design services)?

Until next time . . .

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