Indie Publishing: My Tools

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✍️ Drafting

• My number one choice is good old paper and pen. I think no distractions, corrections, notifications, and social media is a boon when we're writing. I think our creative inner child is too easily put off by noise when it needs quiet, and our tendency to self-judge rears up when we see other people's perfect social-media lives (or the illusion of perfect lives.)

  • For hand-writing, I think there's nothing smoother than a fountain pen. It might look a little pretentious, but it's truly a low-friction option and my hand doesn't tire the way it can with other pens. I'm annoyed at slow-starting gloppy ballpoints and smeary gel pens. If you want to dabble without commitment, Pilot Varsity pens are a "disposable" option (though refillable, with effort) and for a step above that, the Pilot Metro line which comes in a variety of styles and still uses inexpensive cartridge refills. Or fall down the rabbit hole, get converters and bottled inks, and surrender your soul as I have.

  • Good paper is a must. I actually like the junky cheap "notes" journals I usually find in the clearance rack at my local office big-box store, provided the paper is smooth and takes ink well (see above.) I don't believe in spending a lot on a fancy notebook, because then feels too precious to write in. For absolute never-fails excellent paper, Clairefontaine notebooks are my personal paper Kryptonite. To make the notebooks less dear, I like to put my name inside them often with the free return-address labels that charities always bombard us with at the holidays. Now that the notebook is "ruined" in some way, it becomes OK to write in. I know this is weird.

  • Whether I'm going into a piece in planning, pantsing, or plantsing mode, I do like the tactile pleasure of index cards for jotting down each scene and laying them out on a table. I buy heavyweight ones for the pen-friendliness and just so they hold up. Index cards and a pen are also great for carrying around for the inevitable ideas that spring up at inconvenient times.

🛠️ Authoring

• In a pinch, I'll use whatever I have at hand: the notes app in my phone if something comes up while I'm out walking a dog, or a small notebook I have for scratch ideas. In the end, though, everything lands in Scrivener for the Mac. I've had a license forever, since it was offered at 50% for NaNoWriMo participants. No AI integrations, no online requirement, a lifetime ownership. I keep discovering new corners of the tool that I didn't know were there, and it's now become essential for both organizing my drafts in the digital equivalent of the index cards, but also holding all the notes, random image grabs from the Internet I've used for inspiration, scans of my handwritten pages that I need to transcribe (see above), and everything else that goes into "the project." Yes, it could be done with folders and organization, but the top-level view of the whole project is a lifesaver. And best part for me is that it's extremely nerd-compatible for output (see below)

• Backups are essential, and cloud backups are my current go-to. I know this is risky, because "the cloud is just someone else's computer." I do have physical backups on hand, but it's awfully easy to upload and also email myself backup copies over time.

🎨 Covers and Formatting

• Compatible with my low-to-no-budget operations, I've used both the Photoshop-like GIMP software (totally free) and the Illustrator-like Inkscape software (also free) for cover art and illustrations. I'm leaning more towards Inkscape, because there's inevitably tweaking and adjusting that needs to be done, often weeks or months later, and treating the art as layers of shapes is easier for me to manipulate than layers of pixels. I'm not an artist by any means, but so far, these tools are good enough. Learning curves are steep, support is largely look-it-up-yourself and YouTube videos.

• Depending on the type of book and distributor, the cover art will need to be a JPEG or high-quality PDF. For print, there's a downloadable template that the PDF must obey. You must know your page count before finalizing print cover art. This is also why I work ebooks first, because "cover art" is just a single image, not a front + spine + back cover that fits to certain measurements.

• Amazon and Ingram both offer downloadable templates specific to your project for your cover art or artist. You must follow their guidelines, especially regarding text placement and allowed/disallowed areas for text. Print-on-demand is imperfect and everything needs to be laid out with the flexibility of around one-eighth inch on the edges and folds.

• Scrivener is capable of outputting many different formats with its "Compile" mode, which essentially takes all the contents of a specific folder and assembles them into a single document, optionally placing frontmatter and backmatter folders at the start and end. I'm a career nerd, so I save to an intermediate format called Markdown which is like regular text, with a few extra characters in or around it to describe what the text is (versus how it should appear.) "Semantic tagging" if you want a fancy term for it, but Markdown is exactly the source I need.

• I output two Markdown files:

• • One for the ebook, which puts some materials in the backmatter, like the copyright page

  • One for the paperback, which places items in their expected place (e.g., copyright in the frontmatter)

My goal is to have one master file for all formats, and simple pipelines to run off new copies. When I find a typo (and I do, often) I want to regenerate the ebook and print versions with minimal pain.

• With Markdown files made, I use pandoc (free again) to either go directly to an .epub file for ebooks, or to a PDF file for print via LaTeX (free as well, see a theme?) There's a lot of supporting stuff going on in here, too:

  • For ebooks/.epub generation, I have CSS files (style sheets) to define how the final look should be. So far I have copied these from book to book, and make small changes, if any. This took a lot of trial and error, and reading up on W3Schools to learn.

  • For print/.pdf files, I use the LaTeX memoir class (from CTAN) and through a lot of trial and error, have been learning how to override some of the macros, or write my own. I am perfectly happy to let this format handle all the complexities of page geometry, widows/orphans, headers, folio (page) numbering, and so on.

All the source files I'm using for formatting—minus the text itself, of course–are available on my GitHub, organized per book. This is as much about me having a place to document it as it is a place to hopefully lift others up as well.

• With an .epub file, I use Sigil (free here) to make sure the generated files are correct. An ebook is many files packaged together, and there are many guidelines to what files may contain, how they are named, etc.. Sigil knows these and handles it. I am using epub3, exclusively. Once upon a time I think I shipped epub2, but technology has moved on.

• My PDF file from LaTeX is fine as-is, and that's good. Any changes I need to make to the PDF or the epub I do back in the original tool. The very last thing I want is a typo fix in one edition and not the other... mainly because I will forget about it. Always change the original and re-flow the formatting.

For me, this pipeline is:

Scrivener → Markdown → Pandoc → [epub → Sigil] or [LaTex → PDF] → Distributor

🚚 Distributors

When you first sign up with a distributor, you must give them payment information, namely:

• Your tax information, e.g., social security number, legal name, address in the U.S.

• A bank account where royalties can be placed, and most require a checking account (again, the in U.S.)

• There may be identity validation now: physical ID, phone number checks, email validation

I set up a dedicated email and new accounts just for my publishing activities. This may have been overkill, but since I'd already made the web site (this one) I tied everything together through the same accounts.

The upload process is not fast. The actually files go into place quickly, but there's a "validation" that takes place, which could be a few hours to a few days, and longer if you're a brand new user of the system. I assume there's an AI checker, some minimal content scans, etc.. going on.

Patience is required every step of the way. If the site says it will take 36-48 hours, then they are not kidding. Almost all distributors ask that you perform a validation on the content before approving, meaning seeing the book on screen and flipping through it virtually. Don't rush that step either.

For ebooks, I have accounts on/upload to:

• Amazon KDP - being very aware of scams

• Google books

• Barnes & Noble Press - also being aware of the numerous scams using their name

• Lulu.com

• Draft2Digital - an aggregator who distributes to multiple smaller sources, including Overdrive for potential US library borrowing

  • Unlike the others, this is no longer free: $20 to signup, $12 annual fee unless you reach $100 in sales in a year on their platform. I think this is reasonable for the convenience and blogged about the policy change in 2026.

  • They distribute to Apple Books, which I have heard is an absolute nightmare. Worth $1/month to me just for that.

  • Also, they have an ebook checker as part of the upload, which is very rigorous. I actually upload to them first, to make sure the file is good, and then push to the others.

  • Also owns "Books2Read" which allows you to collect links to certain small retailers in one place, and provides some limited data tracking. I use these links on the site's books page.

For print, I have accounts on/upload to:

• Amazon KDP

  • And I always order at least one print proof. It's another few days and another few dollars, but it's the only way to check all the measuring decisions, especially gutter, and other choices, like the cover texture (glossy/matte/"soft"). Worth the cost and time.

• Ingram Spark - same caveat about scams here, they are regularly cloned by fraudulent sites

  • Ingram's customer service is nearly non-existent as I write this, and their interface is "clunky" to put it kindly. 

  • This is the backing service for bookstores, including Barnes & Noble and worldwide. They are the way a print title is distributed to anyone who can't or won't buy from Amazon.

  • You can bypass some of the pain by using Draft2Digital for print (who use IS underneath), or Barnes & Noble. I decided to go direct with them/go right to the source.

🎲 Miscellaneous

• I did buy my own ISBNs for use on my print books. I wanted to keep them associated with my name and the "Puzzled Rhino Press" brand. All distributors will happily give you an ISBN of their own to use for free, with the caveat that the ISBN is obviously associated with them, e.g. the book will be published by Amazon.

  • In the United States, Bowker is the only place to buy them. I bought a block of ten, walking the line between paying a lot per number, and having too many numbers. You do not need to buy a bar code. Distributors will do this for you. The ISBN will be the bar code, either yours if you supply it, or theirs if you don't.

  • I do not burn ISBNs for ebooks. In that case, I let the distributor just handle it. Amazon and Google especially barely show the ISBN on their ebook stores.

• Imprint is worth filling in, and the main reason Puzzled Rhino Press exists in the first place: to have something to put into that field and in my ISBN records. "Who is the publisher" is the imprint. I didn't want my name in there. I like puzzles. I like rhinos. It was an easy choice.

• If you want some good writing advice/craft books I have a small but growing shelf of inspirational/educational books that I refer to:

  • Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott [Amazon] - my favorite of the bunch, not only because it turned me on to the utility of index cards, but because of the fabulous Shitty First Drafts essay in its pages which is like a boost-me-up playlist for my author brain when I'm feeling whiny and awful

  • On Writing by Stephen King [Amazon] - part memoir, part advocacy for clear, descriptive writing, and another frequent re-read

  • Steering the Craft by Ursula K LeGuin [Amazon] - moving from craft book to exercise book

  • Writing down the Bones [Amazon] and Wild Mind [Amazon] by Natalie Goldberg - again leaning more towards the practicum aspect of a craft book, with exercises and philosophy: her books make my inner creative kid feel courageous