Karen McQuestion is one of the most successful novelists to emerge from Amazon’s CreateSpace platform. To quote her bio:
“I’m the author of six books, including the novel, A Scattered Life
But these credentials are only part of her success story. For the writers whom McQuestion has helped (including me), McQuestion is a success because she generously shares self-publishing advice on her blog and in person. If you are a self-published novelist, or working toward that, consider subscribing to her blog or bookmarking it. Even though the blog is eponymously named McQuestionable Musings, Karen’s musings are unquestionably helpful. For example, I agree with McQuestion that for most novelists, Word is all you need for interior file formatting.* No need to use a more expensive, complex program for the text of the book unless you have several interior illustrations to lay out.
* “Interior file” is formatting-speak for the text itself, in between the book covers. For cover formatting, you might need to use some snazzier software (or CreateSpace’s free cover templates, but since you get what you pay for, their cover templates might not satisfy you).
For a glimpse into McQuestionable Musings, check out Karen’s hot-off-the-blogosphere article Publishing a Book Using CreateSpace.
You can read my own self-publishing and self-formatting articles by clicking here.
P.S. I thank my friend and fellow writer Cynthia Harrison for introducing me to Karen’s blog when I needed it most in the early autumn of 2010.
I have wanted to self-publish a novel (or novels) for so long but I keep getting distracted. Too many projects, too much reliance on the old model of publishing, which really I am past. My actions need to align with my beliefs. I feel strongly that very soon I will follow you and Karen into this territory.