Hey everybody! It’s your favorite self-published author ( who should be writing her second book but decided to blog, yay). Anyway, as I was writing, I thought, “Hmm, it seems easier now since I understand what to do.” So I decided I should write about everything I wish I’d knew before publishing my first book. I hope this can help someone else struggling to be a self-published author or be a piece of information for someone curious about the process of publishing your own book. Hope you guys enjoy it!
Confidence comes from being prepared.
-John Wooden
Timing
When writing a book, I believe you need to have skills in time management. From my little experience, this goes a long way. For my first book, I did not have any set-out plan for my book. I believe you should plan out how long you want to write, edit, and publish the book. To better put it, have deadlines for each part of the book creation process.
I still struggle with this, but I am getting better (I think). Still, I feel when you have deadlines and a period (i.e 1-2 years to have everything completed) your book and self-publishing process can go smoother. Also, consider when you want to publish. Whether at the beginning of the year, middle, or end of it. Research when other books from your genre publish their work as well. I feel that doing this for my second book and continuing it for my first is helping me greatly.
Editing
I think this is the hardest and longest process of the entire book. You should consider hiring freelancers or contacting someone you know who does this process professionally to help you. My first advice is to have at least three or more people edit your book. I would not go above five to six, but it is all up to you as the author.
I suggest having people who are well skilled in editing, reading, and/or reviewing books. Find out details of formatting your book as it may vary depending on where you publish it. The design of the outside of the book ( and your book blurb) should be handled by a professional. In total, I spent roughly around $400 on editing, formatting, and design for my first book.
Pricing:
The cost of everything (marketing the book, editing it, so on and so forth it) depends on how much you want to spend. If you are willing, you could go with a publisher and have them do all this work for you. Just know it can cost roughly $1,000 to $5,000 to get that done. I do not have that much money they spend, so I decided to self-publish my book. It gives me control over every step in the book creation process.
I’ve roughly spent less than $1,000 to get everything together. Now, that may seem a lot, but there are some things I could have done myself. Like the design of the book cover and editing. I wanted to design my book cover at first, but I really had no inspiration on what I wanted for my book cover. I do feel like it was a worthy cause, of course, this as well can be pricey depending on who you want to create your book cover, which can range from $100 to $800.
Marketing
This is the part I struggle with the most and part I’m still growing and learning about. Marketing is such a huge tool and a must for wanting to sell your book. I’ve learned that having social media (something I didn’t have until I published my book) is something of a need if you’re a self-published author. I would suggest making social media before your book is finished or published.
There are many ways to market your book, whether free or paid. I do think that you have to put some money into marketing. Either hire someone to do it, which I have done but wasn’t as progressive as I thought it would be or just do the work yourself (making an email list, social media, ads, etc.). If you want to get your name out there and profit off your book, you must have a good marketing campaign.
Thanks for reading, and remember:
Live, Love, and Laugh.
