How to Successfully Self-Publish 101
Self-publishing is a lot of work and can be quite expensive, but it's so much fun! If you're interested in getting your stories into the hands of readers but not sure where to start, then this post is for you.
There are four basic steps to self-publishing.
- Write a great series
- Pay for professional editing
- Hire a cover designer
- Learn how to advertise
This list comes from my experience as well as various online blogs and videos. I'll cover some great resources in a different post. For now, let's focus on an overview of these, each of which I've found to be vital in my success.
1. First and foremost, you need a great story that can be written into a series. It's unlikely that you'll make a profit from a single book. But with multiple books, then you stand a good chance of making some money—provided your story is awesome. Even if you have a series, no one will read it if it's not good. So, make your stories great and tailor them to your audience as much as you can.
2. No one wants to read hundreds of pages filled with bad grammar. And no, your best friend isn't as good as a professional editor (unless of course, your friend is a professional editor). I have a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry. I've written a lot, but when it comes to full length novels, I won't skip my editor. She takes my decent grammar and makes it nearly perfect. And readers want perfect.
Pony up the dough and hire a good editor. It's worth every penny.
3. Your cover is probably the first thing a potential reader will use when deciding whether or not to purchase your product. If it's bad or even mediocre, it'll certainly be the last. if the cover puts them off, they won't bother opening the pages to see how incredible your story is.
Case in point, my first novel didn't really take off until I had a great cover. My wife and I are halfway decent with Photoshop, so we made the cover for my first book. Then I had the fortunate opportunity to talk with big-time indie author Shayne Silvers who looked at my cover and was kind enough to tell me to get a new one—a professional one. Using Shayne's advice, I hired Deranged Doctor Design. I think the results speak for themselves.
4. You must learn how to advertise—Facebook, Amazon, Bookbub, etc. People won't find your book through a keyword search on Amazon. Okay, maybe a couple will, but I'm guessing you, like me, want more than a couple of people to read your book.
I read blog posts, watched online videos, and then bit the bullet and paid for Mark Dawson's Facebook Ads for Authors online course. I'm so glad I did. You can learn a lot online for free, but at the end of the day, seeing exactly how successful self-published authors advertise makes all the difference.
Finally, you have to experiment. Getting just the right ad copy and image is tricky. Trial and error is your friend. Again, this costs money, but there's no other way to do it.
That pretty much sums it up. There's a lot of details in each of those bullets and I hope to cover all of it in other posts.
Leave your questions in the comments below, or just let me know if you found this helpful.
