If you're just starting with self-publishing, you are most probably looking for ways to make it easier for you. Learn about the self publishing book layout that will help you sell your books more.
Today's question has three answers. The third answer is a secret as to which part of a book's layout will make you the most money if you get it right.
So let's get into it. The question that was sent in today was, what is the right self-publishing book layout? This is a question that many authors once you first have written your book, you want to know what do I need to do to get it in the right order?
The different parts of your book to make sure that it shows up correctly. Where everything is looking good, your readers will be happy. People will be more likely to even buy your books because it looks professional.
You won't be able to tell the difference between a traditionally published book and your book. So this is an outstanding question that many writers have when you're first getting started.
Before we get into the answers check out my free Self-Publishing Checklist that will help you make sure you don't forget any of the key steps to both making your book and also getting it to sell. You're definitely going to want to check that out.
So, what is the right self publishing book layout? Well, when I first got started, I noticed when I was going through many different books, the beginnings I would see many different elements. Sometimes they would be different orders.
Check out this related article: Can Self Published Books Win Awards?
For example, you'd have like a title page and then the person might throw an author's biography in there. Then we would have some copyright page with the ISBN codes and the year of publication and such. We might have a disclaimer and an introduction.
We might have a pre-log, recommendations from people who have read the book and recommend to be read. We would then get into the table of contents of the book. Some of these same elements might be right at the end as well.
Like a Thank You message, more information, an index, and appendix. There are all sorts of information that people included. So, when I first got started, I started including a lot of this irrelevant information like a biography.
Tell Your Readers What They Can Expect
It really does not impact whether people will buy your book or not. Also some of the information that I now would have put at the end of the book, I had it right at the beginning of the book. We'll discuss in today's secret answer why that is a bad idea?
If it's not necessary, it should not be at the beginning of the book. There is a reason but we'll hit that a little bit later. After I had managed to put the book together and get it in the correct order, I noticed the sales started to improve.
With each book, I modified it slightly to get even better results. So, what is the right self publishing book layout? If it's a Kindle book, I use a program called Jutoh to put together my book.
There you'll put in the cover but if it's a Kindle book, the cover will not be included at the beginning of the book. In addition to just being the cover that you upload to Amazon Kindle KDP, if it's a paperback book, you're going to create a PDF. It will not include your cover at the beginning.
So, when you're going to go straight to the title page which will have the author's name. Then we're going to have a page that's dedicated to your copyright page. Now, those can be combined. Though some authors want you to have them separate your title and your copyright page.
Check out this related article: How To Self Publish With Kindle?
You will have then the information about the publication year and the owner of the publishing company and things like that. So that will then come together. Those would be like either the first page or the second page of your entire book. So that's an important one to keep in mind.
The next that you're going to have is your table of contents. It is incredibly important because it's going to tell your readers what they can expect with your book as they're going along. So that's a very important point that you're going to want to have there as well.
Then after your table of contents, we're going to move on to your lead generation. That is where we are going to get readers who are interested in reading similar books to yours. Where they will simply be able to give your email address and they will get something for free.
It may be a chapter of your next book or maybe a sort of summary of the current book like a cheat sheet or some templates. There is a lot of reasons your readers will wish to use some sort of lead generation.
Table Of Contents Must Be Encouraging
Then our next point is we're going to go into the chapters, they come afterward. It'll break it down to the content of the book itself. Then we'll have a thank you page and after that, we'll have a disclaimer at the end.
So these are a little bit of the different steps. Now, the secret answer of today is that the lead magnet and the table of contents will earn you the most in the long run. The reason being is because people will do the look in the 'look inside the book' feature on Amazon and other websites.
It is to see what the first couple of pages of the book look like. Sometimes, it's up to 8% of the book and that means they're going to see your table of contents. That is why your table of contents should be encouraging them.
It should have lots of open loops like, "this secret to giving your pet the right food" or "these three things you definitely don't want to do when training your dog". These sorts of things, you should not give the answers away.
You should simply tease them into maybe purchasing the book. But only people who would be interested in the subject would buy it all. So, we're not really fooling anybody, we're delivering what we promise.
We're just doing it in a way that makes it more appealing to those individuals. So this is another point that we're definitely going to want to not lose attention on. Because when I started realizing this, you don't want to have your biography and lots of introductions and things like that.
You are going to want to go straight into these specific items because when they look into it, they'll be able to be like yes, this is a book that I want to read. This is a fantastic strategy you're going to want to do with your book.
So, what is the right self publishing book layout? What have you found? Have you found something that has made you earn more money than even I have earned off of the 170 books that I've published?
I would love to hear it. I respond to all comments that you leave below. Check out my other blogs and videos for more answers to your self-publishing questions.