Having been into self-publishing for many years now, I have already tried different platforms all over the internet. Let me tell you the best places to self publish as well as some helpful tips to make self-publishing easier for you.
Today's question has three answers and you are going to want to stick around for the third answer. Because if you get this one thing wrong, you publish in the wrong place, you are going to completely fail at the whole self-publishing thing.
You are going to want to hear what exactly is this one mistake that most self-publishers make that results in an awful lot of loss here. So, the question that was sent in today was, what are the best places to self publish?
The person who is asking this is understanding that there are a lot of options available to self-publish. And if you choose the wrong one, you are going to end up losing. This is true when you are first getting started, you are an author who is writing a book or you are looking to make money on the internet.
You have your book and ready to put it out but we need to get it formatted and we need the cover. And each different site has its own set of rules that are going to be applied to where you are putting a book out.
You start listening to different people and they inform you of all of these different locations. Many different sites that we can put our book on. As a result, you start to feel overwhelmed with all of the choices available.
Check out this related article: Where To Self Publish eBooks?
So, which choice is the right choice for you? What type of book that you are looking to put out? Both in terms of what will not be too difficult for you to get published and at the same time will maximize the money that you can earn from your book and that is what we are going to discuss today.
But before we get into the answers, check out my absolutely free Self-Publishing Checklist. To make sure you are not making the mistakes that are so many self-publishers make. When it comes to getting your book onto the market and also getting the book to sell. So you are going to want to check out that checklist.
Now let's get into it, too many choices. The thing is when I first got started self-publishing, I wanted to maximize sales. That was the goal.
I had ideas I wanted to get into the world. So I wanted to get my book into as many hands, into as many people as possible. At the same time, I wanted to see how much money can be earned off of these very same ideas.
As we see money coming in, it motivates us to produce more books. If we see nothing coming in, we are just spending money on covers, formatting, and editing, and all of these other things, that would demotivate us. It causes us to not produce as many books as we might otherwise have produced.
This was a very key issue for me when it came to self-publishing. But the problem was when I began to see the options available, I quickly experience overload. There were just too many places that I could put my book.
In The State Of Overload
I started going through the list. Should I do this one or should I do that one? You hear people talking about all of the different options and you just don't know which one is right for you.
I did know that if you make the wrong choice, you are going to end up losing money. That was very clear but different people were disagreeing with each other. The problem is that it can cause us to do absolutely nothing.
But along came one of my managers who commented that when you are in a state of overload, you should simply think strategically. What is strategic for me is that you start with your goal.
If your goal is to reach as many readers as possible and to make as much money off of the books that you're putting onto the market, then need to make sure you choose the site that is going to maximize those earnings for you.
So I started making all of my decisions based upon the profit that I would earn from that decision. The interesting thing is the strategies change from time to time. So we need to modify what we are doing.
At one point for me, the max profit was going to be earned off of Kindle books which are paperback. Then it shifted over to audiobooks, I begin to make a lot more money than the paperbacks because of the bounties.
But then Amazon changes the rules on the bounties and that moved over to running ads that were triggering max sales. Then Ingram Spark came along and gave options for their print books. The strategies continue to change so we have to think strategically about which site and where we are putting our books.
So I started seeing my profit soar when targeting the best sites first. Each day when starting, one of the decisions that I make daily is where am I going to put the book out today?
Check out this related article: What Are The Best Self Publishing Platforms?
I only have so much time and I need to make sure it's going to get maximum profits based upon where I put the book onto the market today. That is one of the key issues that I have found out regardless of which site you choose.
You have things like the cover that you have to do, and the formatting of the book needs to be done correctly. It doesn't really matter which sites but you would want to use a tool that gives you the ability to also put it on to the different sites.
For example, when it comes to formatting, I use a program called Jutoh. It's a very very easy tool to make sure that your book is perfect no matter which site you're going to put it on.
That is just a little tip that I find very helpful. Using the correct tools so that we will have that flexibility that we are going to need when we're getting our books onto the market. So, what are the best places to self publish?
The first thing is you are going to want to start with Amazon in particular KDP which is Kindle Direct Publishing. The reason being it's free and you have a massive audience. All of the different places on Amazon are not really charging you anything.
So Amazon is one of the best places to self publish and you have no reason not to start there. I have too many students I'm in contact with regularly who are so focused on all of the different sites, all of the different platforms, the distribution channels, and the marketing. And they still don't have their book on KDP.
Highly Recommended Sites
This is the first thing you are going to do. We are going to get your book on KDP. No additional discussions until we move on through there.
That is something with my coaching clients, it's exactly one of the things that I push right from the beginning. I coach them right through step by step. If you are interested in my Coaching, you can check that out.
If you need help to make sure you are not making those mistakes. So, just pulling you along and moving through the different steps. That is something that I needed early on and I understand that many of my students also need the same thing.
But Amazon is the correct starting place and it is in fact one of the best places to self publish. Then we go to ACX which Amazon also owns, so it's for audiobooks. Ingram Spark for paperback and additional eBooks, Lulu for our hardbacks, and Smashwords for additional eBooks distribution.
Check out this related article: IngramSpark vs. Amazon KDP: Can You Publish on Both?
So we are pushing our books over the entire internet. These would be the sites that I would highly recommend that you consider. But Amazon KDP is the absolute first. If your book is not in the Kindle format and onto the market, then you should do absolutely nothing until that is in place.
The beauty of KDP is that we can change the book, we can fix the book, we can swap out the cover, and we can shift the name. We have complete flexibility over our book if it's done correctly like that.
The secret is to only do one thing at a time and Kindle is the correct place. I told you with the secret answer of the day that I was going to tell you what most people screw up. It is that you try to do so many things at the same time.
You get overwhelmed with the process and you never get your book onto the market. If you aren't making money on your book, you are not going to be motivated to continue putting it on to the different platforms. You are not going to figure out marketing, email list building, and running ads against your books.
All of these additional steps will fall by the wayside if you fail to even get your book onto the market. So do your self a favor and get the book onto the market through Kindle Direct Publishing.
Then we go to the next question. The next step that you should be taking would be KDP Print. Then we are going to do ads and get our audiobook done.
The audiobook by the way with ACX requires the Kindle version. So you definitely need to get that Kindle version out. I hope that made a little bit of sense to you on that one, I'm very passionate about that particular one.
So, do you agree that Amazon Kindle is the best starting point? If you agree, help me out here and write "Yes" below in the comments. If you disagree, that is you think Kindle is not a good way to go, then write "No" below in the comments.
It will help me know and I will be able to help others better find what exactly are the best places to self publish. Check out my other blogs and videos for more answers to your self-publishing questions.