All of a Sudden, I Became a Publisher

How a book festival gave me the nudge into small press publication

I’m at the stage in life where “You either piss on the pot or get off” applies more each day. I’ve got queries out there, and I’ve got rejections. That’s the game. But two weeks ago, at the Sacramento Annual Book Festival, something shifted.

I walked past rows of authors sitting behind their tables — books stacked, bookmarks fanned out, QR codes ready to scan. And for the first time, I didn’t just admire them. I pictured myself there. My books. My table. My readers stopping by to see if what I write resonates with them.

I met with four small presses that day. Three of them genuinely liked my pitch and encouraged me to submit. I left with a stack of books, a fistful of business cards, and a kind of cautious optimism.

On Sunday, I researched their submission processes. That’s when reality hit: long backlogs, slow turnarounds, and the possibility that if they did get to my manuscript, it wouldn’t be until September or November based on their submission forms. I’m too impatient for that, and I’m too far along for that.

But those conversations taught me something important — what a small press would actually do with my book once it was in their hands.

First, they’d read it to see if it was a good match. (It is.)
Second, they’d handle editing, cover design, revisions, and the blurb.
Third, they’d move it into distribution: ISBN, Amazon, Ingram Spark, Draft2Digital.
Fourth, they’d push marketing: social media, ARC reviews, author presence, bookstore outreach, library visits, open mics, readings, signings.

And as I listened to all of that, I realized something simple and obvious:

I can do those things myself.

Not because I’m trying to be a one‑person publishing empire, but because I’m already doing the work. I’ve already built the skills. And I’m tired of waiting for someone else’s timeline to validate my momentum. Of course, not everyone is in my position, but what I found was that outside of time and patience, it is genuinely possible for someone to follow along and not only self‑publish but also become a small press and curate your own aesthetic or brand of stories from like‑minded storytellers.

This idea didn’t happen overnight, and I did not want to self‑publish, lest my ego get the best of me and I start believing my own hype.

I was curious about what it would take and whether there would be efficiencies discovered along the way. I did have four titles I wanted out there, and I was not going to wait on someone else’s approval or schedule.

I came into this knowing one thing: Don’t get sucked into the Amazon ecosystem. What did that mean? I read similar things online, and the reasons were plenty depending on what matters most to you personally. Me? I wanted eBooks everywhere and physical copies everywhere — this is my ego.

So, who are the players in those spaces?

IngramSpark — Global reach, libraries, major retailers (online and offline), small bookshops, and print‑to‑order. I should note that IngramSpark leaves little margin for independent bookshops, so consignment (where you buy copies at your author price and split the retail profits at a percentage) is financially beneficial to both parties. Although, you could also get the same deal with Amazon Author Copies depending on the price difference and delivery time.

Draft2Digital — The eBook distribution behemoth. Their physical books are powered by IngramSpark with limited options, so while you could do physical copies, you are limited in the level of control you have versus using one for physical and D2D for digital.

Kindle Direct Publishing — The last item on the list for physical and digital copies within the Amazon ecosystem. There is also KDP Select, which locks you into an exclusive agreement for 60 days, where you cannot sell your eBooks anywhere else. The benefit is that you get a larger share of the pie because it is coming from a pooled amount. The negative aspect is that you cannot sell any digital copies anywhere else — not even your own website. I’m not messing with Amazon attorneys.

There is a prerequisite decision to make before you get to this stage: the ISBN number. Yes, there are free ISBNs provided by Draft2Digital, IngramSpark, and Amazon (ASIN for Kindle eBooks).

Here’s the deciding factor: Do you want to own your books?

Let me reframe that: Do you want full control over the rights, metadata, and imprint associated with your books?

If you don’t purchase your own ISBN, then the distributor becomes the publisher of record, and your book is published under their imprint—not yours. You still own your copyright, but you do not control the publishing identity of the book. It’s similar to being a contractor who wrote a book for the company whose imprint appears on the ISBN.

Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer.

This is where I decided to become a publisher.

It just so happens that my publishing company also publishes my books along with anthologies, once I create an open call for submissions. It’s going to be cool assembling a team of editors, readers, and staff. I digress.

Copyright. Can’t forget copyright. I used to think just writing “copyright YYYY” was good enough — and it is — sort of. If you want to be able to pursue legal pathways to protect from infringement, it’s best to register an official copyright, which I did through the U.S. Copyright Office.

When you decide to grab your own ISBN, whether you self‑publish or choose to publish under someone else’s imprint, it changes how you move forward. If you use someone else’s imprint, you’re splitting royalties, and hopefully the split is favorable. For me, it means my publishing company owns the rights to my book, and I get a decent cut and flexibility with what I can do with my work with respect to rights. More on this later.

I chose to purchase 10 ISBN numbers from Bowker. One title can have these attributes: eBook, paperback, hardcover, and audiobook. Depending on what mediums you want to make available to your readers, you could get away with as little as one ISBN, but you only control that specific medium, not the others, with the free ISBN from Amazon, Ingram, or D2D.

The math for my use case is eBook, paperback, and audiobook, so 3 formats × two books = 6 ISBN numbers. I haven’t decided whether the audiobook is something I’ll do or if I’ll roll it into a podcast. At the moment, only 8 ISBNs are in use (4 titles in eBook and paperback format).

At this stage, each title should be assigned to an ISBN number, because we’ll need that when we list our books on the three different platforms.

Before you hit the distribution platforms, you should have a front cover for the eBooks and the front, spine, and back cover (one image/PDF) for paperback and hardcover. If you have a designer — cool. If not, Canva worked decently, but I ended up using Affinity V3 because I was already an owner of V2. The hardest part of uploading the cover specifications from Ingram and Amazon was that Canva messed up the resolution with every upload. With any other graphic editing program, it was fine. So, the lesson here is to use the PDF templates or PSD file with a solid editor. The rest was easy, including the export: CMYK PDF PRINT READY.

You’ll need .jpg formats of the front cover and either .png or .jpg for the whole cover, as well as the exported .pdf of the whole cover. Each platform uses different formats/standards.

I used Atticus for the book matter formatting. One key thing to remember is pinning certain pages on the right side (title, dedication, preface, ToC, chapters, etc.) and pinning the copyright on the left side. This will mean there are blank pages on the left, but no matter — consistency and adherence to the book standard that readers expect is important. Because Atticus is web‑only, I’ve had some issues when using the PWA on my desktop and getting sync issues when connected to the web. I did download a desktop app from another company, but I don’t want to be tied to Windows, since I’m in a Linux environment most of my day.

Two things to upload: the inside matter (text) and the covers. Then you wait. And wait.

Draft2Digital has a one‑page site for each title that can contain all of the links to all of the stores in all available formats via Books2Read.com. Here is my author profile, which contains links to two of four books out now. I like this feature because I can’t be bothered to keep inventory of URLs.

Don’t forget to order your printed proofs from Amazon and IngramSpark.

Once you have some storefront presence, it’s time to get those ARC reviews posted to them. You’ll need the URLs from Books2Read for your reviewers. I’m using BookSirens because they’re legit and have an ecosystem of people who like to review in specific genres. Plus, they’re vetted, and you can choose to filter some out by a number of criteria.

Then you wait. Unless you have a built‑in base of readers or followers, your book will be invisible until you get some credible reviews to support the friends‑and‑family purchases and get those sites to rank you higher. There are also newsletter list swaps and group promotions you can be a part of.

This has been a high‑level overview of how I stumbled into the publishing business.
Next time, I’ll go into details — costs, time, effort, etc.

Send me questions on what you’d like to know or comment if there is something I overlooked.

Thanks for taking a walk with me to the peripheral edge.

—Daniel