How To Write A Book 10 Simple Steps To Self Publishing?

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There are 10 steps from idea to a book on sale: check there is a market, get the manuscript, get a cover, format it, export it, format the cover, upload, make an audiobook, set your prices and gather reviews. There is an 11th step, and it is the one that gets most first books finished: do not do everything at once.

How many steps are there to self-publish a book?

When I first started I thought there were about 150 steps. In reality there are maybe 500 to 700 steps if you count every detail of getting a book into all the different formats. I built a detailed checklist that my virtual assistants and I work from. Initially it was just me, until the books made enough money to pay for help.

But it doesn’t have to be complicated. Each time I did something, I learned a step I had been skipping, and the process broke down into easy steps that a 10-year-old could follow once a story is written. I wanted to help people make self-publishing easy because I found it tricky. I got a book on the market and made some sales, but not as many as I could have. Those books make a lot more money now because I optimized them with the steps below. A shorter overview is in What Are The Steps To Self Publish A Book?

What are the 10 steps?

1. Explore the book topic. Write on a topic where people already buy books. Don’t invent a niche that doesn’t exist. If you want to know whether there are fish in the river, see whether other people are already fishing there.
2. Get the manuscript. Write it yourself, aiming for a set number of words a day, or hire a ghostwriter on a freelance marketplace such as Upwork. If the topic is a profitable one you are not interested in, a ghostwriter keeps it a side hustle without eating your time. I could not afford that until my first book paid for it. Writing with a partner instead? Agree in writing how the royalties are split first, as I explain in how to self-publish a book with a co-author.
3. Get a cover. I made my own at first because I was on the cheap, and those sales were terrible compared with what happened when I swapped in a professional cover. Use a professional designer.
4. Format the manuscript. I recommend Atticus, which makes it easy to put the book into every format. See How To Format Your Book For Amazon KDP.
5. Export paper and ebook versions. Start with KDP Print and Kindle to get the book on the market, then add hardcover, IngramSpark and other ebook stores later with the same files. KDP accepts EPUB for ebooks and recommends validating the file with Kindle Previewer, so export EPUB and send it to Draft2Digital as well. Convert older Kindle files with How To Convert Kindle Books To EPUB?
6. Format the cover. Print covers can be challenging, but you get the hang of it. I use GIMP, which is free and works like Photoshop. KDP also has a free Cover Creator (KDP print formatting). Keep costs in mind at every step.
7. Upload. Do one platform at a time so you do not overload yourself.
8. Make the audiobook. Once the book is live on Amazon, you can produce an audio version through ACX with one of their narrators on a royalty split, or hire an experienced narrator on Upwork, which is what I have done.
9. Set the price. My rule of thumb: make at least $2 profit per ebook for one manuscript, and an extra $1 for each additional manuscript if you bundle (so $3 for two). For paperbacks, aim for $5 on the first book and an extra $1 for each additional manuscript. These are my own targets, not Amazon figures.
10. Gather reviews. Ask your readers and your email list. Do not swap reviews, or use virtual assistants who swap reviews with others. I have seen accounts threatened or banned for it.

What is the 11th step?

Don’t do everything at once. Set aside an amount of time per day. Start with step 1 at 5 minutes a day, which is what I started with, then move up to 30 minutes, and see if you can increase it from there. Move slowly through the steps and improve as you go. You’ll learn new things, and you may find steps that are better for you than mine. That is how you get your first book on the market.

How do I research the market in step 1?

Start your research before you write the book. My first book took months and had no major sales, because I did not understand marketing. Marketing doesn’t beat quality in the long run, but nobody reads a good book that nobody finds. Before writing, I would:

1. Find the keywords I will target.
2. Look at the covers of the best sellers in my category.
3. Read the reviews on the top books: what do readers like, and what do they complain about?
4. Read the tables of contents of competing books to see what they promise.

Your ideal readers have already told you what they want by buying competing books. If you write a puppy training book and a review complains that the top seller says nothing about a puppy that won’t sleep at night, put in a chapter on that. Fiction works the same way: you are meeting a need, such as boredom.

Why does accountability matter?

At one point I made no progress, so I hired an accountability coach to make sure I did five minutes a day. They didn’t need to know anything about self-publishing. They were someone I didn’t know, who would ask, “Have you done your five minutes today?” That made a huge difference, and finishing the book followed. Not hiring a coach was my number one mistake, and I still have a business coach today.

Choose someone who has done what you are trying to do and is still doing it. I have published 230 books. If it isn’t me, make it someone else, but find someone.

What have you found? I’d love to know if I missed any steps. Let me know in the comments, I respond to all of them.

Want every step written out? Download my free 12-step self-publishing checklist, which goes into more detail on each of these steps.

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