Today is the third post in my Self-Publishing blog series. If you missed the first two posts find them here and here. Today’s post is the first part of three discussions on what to pay for and what to do for yourself.

How to Choose What’s Right pt. 1

AKA: What to do for yourself and what to pay for?

ISBN numbers- free or paid? For ebook only people, this is irrelevant since ebooks have ASIN numbers rather than ISBN numbers. However, if you do a hard copy of your book, you will need to have an ISBN number. Createspace (Amazon’s affiliate for self-publishing your hard copies) offers a free Createspace assigned ISBN. This is personally what I have used for each of mine. You can also choose Createspace’s $10 Custom ISBN option which allows you to use your imprint name. If you want to have yourself listed as the publisher rather than Createspace, the $10 option would be the way to go.

Cover Design I had someone else do my covers. When I first started publishing, I knew NOTHING about graphic design and was more than willing to pay someone else to do it. Especially since the person I chose was very reasonable and inexpensive. If you are good at graphic design and finding the cover art, feel free to do your own covers. I’ll probably stick with my cover designer at least for now. As promised, I am also going to give a list of people I suggest. Not all of these people are cheap, but they are all very good.

Perry Elisabeth Design-Perry did the book covers for all of my novels and I’m excited to work with her on the cover for Lily of the Valley in August.

Kendra’s Kovers-Kendra worked with me on the covers for my three novellas. She had fair prices and put up with my pickiness.

Victorine Lieske-Victorine is a NY Times Bestselling author who recently went Indie and has done some amazing work with book covers.

Valerie Howard– (ebooks only) Valerie plans to do ebook covers at least for the summer and does a great job.

I hope this blog post has been helpful to you. If you are an author, what have you done for ISBN numbers and book covers? Do you have any tips for the readers?

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Previous Topics: June 2–Self-Publishing: My Journey

• Indie vs. Traditional
• Why I Chose the Indie Route

June 9–Self-Publishing: How to get started.

• What are the first steps?
• FAQs

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Upcoming Topics: June 23-Self-Publishing: How to Choose what’s right pt. 2

• Editing and Proofreading
  • What is the difference between the two? (with resources for each)
  • Should you do it all yourself or pay for help?
• Marketing Tips

June 30-Self-Publishing: How to Choose What’s Right? pt. 3

• Formatting: Guest Post from Penoaks Publishing