This is one of the major questions asked by writers who are just getting started self-publishing. Find out the answers to those doubts you have in your mind and learn how to self publish successfully.
Today's question has three answers and the third answer is a secret. It will tell you exactly how you can prevent yourself from falling like so many other aspiring self-publishers have.
The question that was sent into me today was, how to self publish successfully? Now, this is an excellent question for a person who's just starting getting self-publishing or you've been doing it but been failing.
You want to know what are the key elements to doing it successfully. And that is what we're going to explore today.
But before we get right into it, check out my free Self-Publishing Checklist. It will help you make sure you succeed at self-publishing. So how do you self publish successfully?
Well, from my own story, when I first started self-publishing, I can say I did not do it successfully. That is to say, I was breaking a lot of the rules that are key to succeeding at self-publishing.
There were a few elements that I did have in place. One of them that I picked up early was the idea of what they call butt in the chair which means sit down and write every single day.
I was pushing for a thousand words a day and I was able to get out a thousand words and sometimes even
more. One of the things I discovered was that when you start getting the writing, you're able to keep writing.
It's easier, the hard part is to just get started in the day. Waiting for inspiration is a terrible idea since you don't simply have any inspiration.
And so you're going to want to push through that and keep going anyways. The other thing I didn't realize was that taking courses. And getting coaching would be at all beneficial to me.
I could just figure it out myself and that was a key to not succeeding. It was the key to failure. I also had reached a point where my sales were so few that I was considering giving up.
Maybe try something like Cryptocurrency or I think I was looking at the Mexican peso trading as a possible alternative option. Just as a way to say is it possible to make money online?
I had tried with self-publishing and I made a couple of thousand dollars but nothing particularly special. And that was when I discovered that yes learning was key to doing this.
And learning from people who had already done it and succeeded in self-publishing was even more important than anything else. At least with regards to my own story.
The Seinfield Method
So, how to self publish successfully? The first answer is that you need to make progress every day. That was something I found out.
If you simply are putting it, creating a thousand words a day or setting a certain amount of time like 5 or 20 minutes a day to a particular task that you're trying to achieve with regards to self-publishing or for any skill, this is key to making progress
And it does not have any days which is also known as the Seinfeld Method. It is where you create a chain of progress from day to day and make sure that you don't break the chain. Each day you put an 'X' and it creates this long chain.
I would say you don't even break it for holidays unless you don't have your computer with you. In those exceptions, then I say it's okay to break it. But otherwise, bring your computer with you and continue to make progress every single day.
That is a key thing, those who stay in the game and keep producing regularly tend to win the game. So it's a matter because the more you do something the better you get at it.
That brings us into number two and this was my problem, you need to be continually learning and implementing what you learn. A lot of people will think that they can just figure it all out themselves.
I thought this for a while even though I was listening to some people. I wasn't taking courses at the time and I didn't understand the value of taking self-publishing courses at making progress.
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That was a huge mistake on my part. So you should be continually learning and growing. The second point which is even more important, it brings us back to implementing what you learn. Because this is the second trap of self-publishing and not doing it successfully.
It is always learning but never doing, not executing. And those who execute often they become the winners. This combination brings us back to point number one again which is that you're continually steadily pounding away.
But you're using a percentage of your time and it shouldn't be 90 or 100 of your time. I would say maybe using 20% to 50% of your time learning new skills and new tricks with regards to self-publishing.
Taking those tricks and back to number one again implementing those into the self-publishing work that you're doing. And then seeing what the results are and making changes as you go.
So implementing what you discover works for you continually. Ideally, if you're in a group you can comment on the other people. Like below in a Youtube video, you can ask questions.
I can tell you from my 170 books that I've published exactly what I've learned. And how I can help save you some time with regards to your self-publishing.
Compete Against Yourself
Now let's go to the secret answer of the day and this is the most important. I'll be honest, number one and number two was deadly important. Number two was the one I was failing on but number three is the big one that sinks a lot of people's ships.
It is that you should only compare yourself with yourself. We simply should not be looking at what other people are doing and the progress they're making. And how many books they're selling to help us to determine what we should be doing.
We should be listening to those people who are making that progress. Asking "what are they doing differently than what we're doing?". And see if we can improve on what we're doing.
So that we would also equally be able to make the level that they're doing. But not necessarily comparing our performance to theirs but rather saying, if you do what they're doing maybe you could improve your performance compared to yourself.
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You only should compete against yourself and not on a day-to-day basis either. It should be month-to-month. Looking month over month, year over year this is exactly how we do it.
So that we say "what am I doing that can continue to improve my sales?". So, for example, like yesterday I was looking at my ads and noticing my new tricks and strategies with regards to ads.
Since Amazon ad platform is continually changing, finding new strategies and implementing them in my ads, I see a huge spike in the number of sales of books with regards to the ads that I'm now running across all of the books.
So I see how that's working, and I see that my sales are better than they were in the previous months. That tells me I'm on the right track and that I need to keep doing that.
But if my sales have gone down after this or my profits rather, then maybe I need to change the ad strategy to increase the sales that I'm making and increase the profits that are coming in.
So we're continually learning and we only compare ourselves with ourselves. And number two, do not come up with large goals. Like "I want to make $50,000 a month or something".
You should rather say "I want to increase the number of sales I'm making" and "I want to put in more time each day". For example, make your goals oriented, effort-nature goals as opposed to results-based goals.
That is "what can I learn?", "How can I learn faster?", "How can I implement what I'm learning?", "How much more work can I do daily without burning myself out to succeed?". You see, so how to self publish successfully?
What have you found? Have you found some tricks that I haven't found? Maybe you could let me know below in the comments.
I respond to every single comment so just let me know below. And check out my other blogs and videos for more self-publishing answers to questions that you have.