My path thus far on my indie publishing journey has been…interesting, shall we say.
May 29, 2014: Consulted with a local small business expert. Conducted a search for an appropriate business name ($39.00). Registered the business name GreenWords Media ($40.00) Both fees are one-time.
June 2, 2014: Registered with CISS: Canadian ISBN Service System. Then I learned that I don’t need an ISBN to publish an e-book with Amazon. They assign an ASIN. I will still need this service when I’m ready for the paperback.
June 3, 2014: Bought How to Format Your Novel for Kindle, Nook, the iBookstore, Smashwords, and CreateSpace…in One Afternoon (for Mac) by Ed Ditto. This is THE book to get IF you are on a Mac and use Scrivener. If not, go buy a different book, but I’m not sure which one. I worked through this book with Majai’s Fury for 8 hours before getting the compile features set up the way I wanted in Scrivener. Most of that is a one-time set-up. I’ll be publishing often enough I shouldn’t forget what I need to know. (Fingers crossed!)
June 4, 2014: Got my EIN (Employee Identification Number), required to inform the IRS that Canada has a tax treaty with the USA. With this number, the IRS knows not to tax my income because I will be paying taxes on it in Canada. This post by Catherine Howard, Non-US Self-Publisher? Tax Issues Don’t Need to be Taxing helped immensely in knowing how to make this phone call to the IRS. It was as easy and painfree as they said. 8 minutes after the call began, I had my number.
June 4, 2014: Consulted with my bank about setting up an account for incoming funds. She advised me not to set up a business account but to use my own name, if possible, and save the flat monthly fee.
June 5, 2014: Created a merchant account at Kindle Direct Publishing. Beat my head against bureaucratic walls. Am stuck here for now, even with the step-by-step screen shot post at EIN for Amazon, with a message in to the KDP Help Center. The book is uploaded, along with the cover, and is ready to be published any minute.
Hopefully this will be straightened out shortly. I’ll update this post with details when I figure out what I did wrong!
Update #1 (3 hours later): I phoned the IRS and the lady said my EIN was still showing on her screen as “pending.” She advised me to wait a week or two and see if it resolved itself. So, that effectively removes “publish Majai’s Fury” from this week’s to-do list, as well as next week’s. So be it.
Once you get the ISBNs, you should add one to your KDP version. It’s for searching purposes. You need one for paperback and one for ebook. Then if people search for the ISBN of the ebook, all the various locations will come up.
Yay for getting this far though :).
Thanks! One step at a time, and this one will not be completed right away. No point in stewing over what I apparently cannot help.
Here’s the thing about Indie. It’s all about the long haul. So yeah, you’ve got the right attitude. Just do it as it comes, build your portfolio, and keep striving.