If you are really interested in doing self-publishing, then this article is for you. Let me tell you some helpful tips on how to self-publish your first book: step-by-step tutorial.
Today's article has three points and you're going to want to stick around for the third point. It is a secret as to the one thing you can do with self-publishing, one of the steps that will guarantee you won't fail. So you're going to want to stick around and know that.
So what we're going to cover in today's article is how to self-publish your first book: step-by-step tutorial. So as an author and you've written your very first book and you've gone through the steps necessary to at least write the book. Then the question is what should you do with the book next?
That can be very confusing when it comes to self-publishing. At least you've decided that's the right route for you which I believe is the right route unless you have an infinite amount of money and no time. Then perhaps other routes might be a better option for you.
Otherwise, self-publishing is most likely the correct direction. But how should you go about self-publishing? You've heard many of the steps involved in it and it can be extremely confusing and frustrating when you're first getting started.
That is what we are going to hit in today's article. But first, you can get a copy of my free Self-Publishing Secrets Checklist. To make sure that you are not skipping any of the important points necessary to not only self-publish your book but also to market the book afterward.
Normally, I go into a story but the thing is in my personal story, there have been so many different things that I've learned about. Different steps and phases are involved in self-publishing your book. I decided today to do it a little bit differently.
And to show a diagram, this can be a little bit confusing so hold on and we'll take a closer look. The first thing I want you to see is in the phases of self-publishing these are the ones that I have come up with. This is the most strategic way to look at self-publishing.
To make sure you're doing the steps in the correct order with the correct tools and everything involved. So the first phase is the book creation phase. In this phase, we're going to figure out the niche we're going to write in.
We're going to write the book or pay somebody to write the book. We're going to order the cover we're going to edit the book and we're also going to write the description. Then comes the formatting phase where we are going to use Jutoh which you can find my affiliate link in the description of all of my Youtube videos.
It will help you make sure that the formatting is flawless every single time. So we're going through there and I should mention also with that book cover phase, I get my covers off of Fiverr and you can find my cover designer in my affiliate link in the description of my Youtube videos.
Vikiana is amazing, she does great work for the books that I've published, at least with the covers that she's built for me. Next comes the distribution. And we're going to distribute it through a whole series of channels.
We're doing both KDP Print and we're going to do ACX Audible. And we're going to put it out both through the Kindle version. They now allow EPUB versions which Jutoh, fortunately, can do all of these formats.
The other options are Smashwords for your eBooks, Ingram Spark for both your print and other paper books, and Lulu for your hardback books. This is the combination that I found is very powerful in getting as many sales as possible. Finally, it brings us into phase four which is our marketing phase.
Content Marketing Is A Must
In the marketing phase, there are many ways of doing this, one of them is getting Amazon book reviews. Building up with our audience, asking them to leave reviews in the book. Also in building an email list and another one is running paid ads, which is incredibly powerful.
I've personally shown my ads to 100 million people, that's right! Of the books that I have out there, 100 million people have looked at the covers of those books. So I have a bit of experience when it comes to understanding what it takes on the ad front to do it.
The other is setting up a website is another way of doing it. Building an email list, I can already comment. The final one would be content marketing.
You can check out my Content Marketing Course. I will tell you how to go about content marketing. Getting your book found by your readers by simply putting out content, sort of what I'm doing right now.
Check out this related article: How Can Content Marketing Help Me Sell Books?
Using the same steps except with your niche. Establishing yourself as an author, as credible and knowledgeable in those very areas that you do. I get excited about self-publishing, maybe you get excited about woodworking, puppy dog training, or something else.
One of the ways that we're going to find our readers to help us both review and buy our books is by putting content out. But how do you go about doing that? That's content marketing and that is another option you have available in your arsenal.
So those are a couple of the big ones. That also includes of course blogging your book so how to self-publish your first book: step-by-step tutorial? I hope we've gone through a few of those things.
But now let's hit the main three points, this is at a higher level than the phases. The steps that I already mentioned in the previous diagram. The first thing is you should be aware that you are going to make a lot of mistakes with each phase.
We just mentioned you are not going to get it perfect unless you're going to hit the lottery. You're not even going to see that many sales of your book. This is a shocker for so many self-publishers who imagine you're going to put your book on the market then it's just going to be so many sales.
How are you even going to handle the publicity and the money that's flowing in? But that just isn't the way that this game works, nobody does that now. You could get lucky if you optimize everything the first time and make no mistakes.
Well, I guess you could do that but you don't have an audience. Unless you do, if you do have an audience, well then you don't have to pay too much attention to some of these things. But even then, you would get stuff out of it.
The second thing is the goal is not perfect it is to move through the phases and end up with a book that is either "okay" or "good". I've been having a discussion with some people regarding this exact issue. I want my book to be perfect I need an excellent, amazing fantastic book.
Because after all, I should not publish anything onto the market until it's phenomenal. Because that's the way I'm going to make sales isn't that right? No, that is not right at all. The marketing probably is going to account for 90%-95% of how many sales you make.
Keeping It Simple
Your cover, the description, and how you market this book, are going to determine how many sales you're making, not the quality of the book. Later, it will determine the review stars, the reviews you get, and where you go further with that.
Whether you get repeat buyers from your customers, but as long as your book when you're first getting started is either good enough, then that is the key. Now, I was asked the question, "well what about rushing the book or getting it out there too fast?".
Just pushing garbage on the market. The fact is even if it will sell if the marketing is correct but you will get poor reviews, then it will lead you to not making that many sales. But even with poor reviews, you can make sales.
I remember it was 50 Shades Of Gray, having three or slightly under three stars and continuing to sell. So it isn't necessarily even the quality of the book. It's the idea of the market that's going to be out there.
The people and your readers getting in close contact with them and we're going as I mentioned in point one. You are going to make an awful lot of mistakes and if you're waiting for your book to get perfect, you're simply wasting time.
Because you're losing the time it would take you to get good at those phases and steps that I mentioned. Each time we go through the process, we will get better and better. The quality of what we are doing is going to continue to improve.
This is something you need to keep in mind. And moving on to our secret point of the day our third point and it is that you should keep it simple. Quit jumping ahead on the different steps, this is a secondary problem I've had.
The one side like we already mentioned was getting bogged down and stuck on one set of steps. Where you're wanting everything to be flawless on marketing or flawless on editing before we get the book out. So we have 4 phases and it's broken into 25 steps.
For those 25 steps that we just took a closer look at, we could see that if you started saying, "well I want to learn everything about all of them and be doing all of those steps at the same time". You're going to burn out.
You're going to maybe do an inferior job which would be the lower quality, not acceptable book and rushing it through. You can of course fix it later. But most people I see asking questions about all of the marketing and all of this stuff later on before they've even written their book this is a huge issue now.
There is one exception which is once you have that platform and you've done several books, well then it is very important that each book you're coming out with, you're already thinking about marketing. Before we've even started the book, we need to make sure there is a market out there that wants to buy your book.
Check out this related article: Self-Publishing Marketing Plan?
We're not going to gamble and just pick a random book and try to see what happens. This is a secret you're going to want to make sure that you keep in mind. Do not jump ahead but don't get bogged down in any of the steps that I've already mentioned.
These are just a few of them so here's my question for you, are you stuck at one of the phases of self-publishing?. If you are, I want to know. So write "Yes" if you have been stuck at one of them below in the comments.
And write "No" if you've never been stuck at them. Check out my other articles and videos for more answers to your self-publishing questions.