This may not be the last time you see that title. In fact, I highly doubt it’s the last time. I get asked that question…a lot. I don’t mind, usually. I have knowledge, people want it, and I’m there in front of them. I also get asked if I mind talking to a friend that’s a writer but has no idea how to publish a book.
I feel as if I’ve already written this post a thousand times, but I’m going to do it again, because it’s the one thing I’m asked over and over…can I pick your brain? Of course, you may.
I’m often asked several questions after I give my permission to have my brain picked. I’ll try to address some of them below.
Where Do I Publish?
It seems like a simple question, but it’s not. It leads me to my answer, in the form of a question. Do you want to find a publisher or publish it yourself? I know nothing about agents or finding publishers. I have no answers for you there other than to avoid those that ask you for money and those that promise you the moon but have very super-fine print in their contracts. I do, however, know a ton about self-publishing which is also called indie publishing. That’s what I’m focusing on.
Where do you publish? This depends on how many books you have, whether you want to be tied to a 90-day commitment with the obvious choice or publish to a wider audience. My personal choice is to go with Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, hereafter known as KDP.
If you only have one book, I’d say look at KDP. Try their Kindle Select Program program for 90 days, (be sure to uncheck the automatically renew button or you’ll be tied in for another 90 days without even realizing it). When you enroll in the Kindle Select Program you make your book available to their Kindle Unlimited program. The Kindle Unlimited program allows people to borrow your book when they enroll monthly for whatever they charge in your country, and you get paid a certain amount of money for each page read. This gets complicated and I’m not going to answer questions about it because even I don’t know all the answers to how Amazon decide what we’ll get paid or what exactly is a page read. I recommend the program if you have a large catalog of books or can market your books well.
If you want to publish your manuscript to more than one outlet at a time I’ll discuss that later in this post.
KDP can be explored here. Here you can find information about publishing ebooks as well as paperback copies of your book.
If you want to save yourself some hassle I would advise at least uploading and exporting your manuscript on Reedsy, found here before you even look at publishing. That is my invite link and I might get some kind of credit if you use that link, but that’s not why I use them. I use them because they provide me with .mobi, .epub, and pdf copies of my manuscript. These are the file versions you’ll need to publish your book. There’s also a built-in editing tool which I find useful. Your work will still need an editor but it definitely helps to catch a lot of errors. You’ll need at least one of these file types to publish your book.
Reedsy also allows you to create custom PDF versions of your manuscript to use in print publishing. They have pre-designed and custom sizes if you should want a print version of your book. I use them for every one of my books now because it’s simple to use and I’ve never had a manuscript rejected for problems by Amazon since I started using them. **A NOTE: You will need a book cover that is designed for your manuscript dimensions to make print copies of your book. This is a separate file from your manuscript file. Of course, the same goes for your ebook version but print anything is far more complicated to upload and get approved.
Then there’s Draft2Digital. You can find them here. Again, that is an affiliate link and I may benefit in some way from you using that link. With Draft2Digital you can create whatever file version of your book is needed to publish such as a .mobi file. I do NOT recommend using a PDF file or sending one to readers. It’s easily pirated. All files are easily pirated these days but PDF versions all but beg to be pirated from what I’ve seen over the years.
With Draft2Digital you can publish your book ‘wide’. Wide means you aren’t tied to one outlet, or exclusive to a program such as the Kindle Select Program which enrolls your book in Kindle Unlimited. You can publish your book with Apple, Google Play, Nook, and many other outlets, including libraries.
If you want to have hardback or paperback copies of your book look into IngramSpark. I don’t know a lot about them as I’ve never used them, but everyone I’ve talked to says they’re good. They also do ebooks now, I see.
How Do I Publish?
I’ve touched on this briefly so far but I’ll try to explain it better now.
- You need a manuscript. Edit the manuscript, the best you can. I can tell you a book with no editing, with no proofreading, and that hasn’t been formatted properly will not only get you bad reviews, it may get your book pulled from the outlet you choose. Once you’ve got the book edited, however you manage to have it edited, you need to turn it into a file that your outlet can use. The manuscript needs to be turned into a .mobi or .epub file, in other words.
- Find a book cover. If you are not a graphic artist with experience in creating book covers I’d suggest finding a pro. It will be worth it in the end. You might not think that book cover is important but it is. Readers want to know what you are selling, not what your vacation pictures look like, what kind of puppy you have, or how beautiful your kids are. They want to know what is in the book. If you have to save up to hire a pro or buy a premade cover from a pro, then do so. There are some great artists out there that will be happy to work with you. I promise. Look them up on Facebook. There are thousands.
- Do NOT go to Fiver and buy whatever you see first without checking out the artist to ensure they’re using images that have been licensed for that use and that they aren’t recycling images they paid for once and are using over and over or images they’ve outright stolen. (This can be its own post really and applies even to artists you might find on Facebook or elsewhere.)
- Do not use ‘free for commercial use’ or copyright free images. That will come back to bite you too.
- Even the font on your cover can be a problem. Some fonts that you can install have to be licensed for use. And use is determined by the artist, not you.
- Once you have a cover and a file, you need a description/blurb. These are hard. Look at your genre, look at other blurbs in that genre (the same can be said for cover images), rewrite it, study how to write blurbs, and when you’ve got something that entices the reader without giving too much away, proceed to the next step.
- Open the site for the outlet you’ve chosen.
- Follow their instructions.
- Once everything is done, you’ve chosen what price your book will be and agreed to the terms and conditions, you sit and wait for a link to your brand new book-baby.
- Once you have a link, you have to market. You can’t just sit there staring at your link wondering why your book is still sitting there with no buys or page reads. Nobody knows about it at this point. As for marketing? That’s not my area of expertise but I’ll have some basic tips in my next post. Stay tuned for that.
A Few Last Words of Advice
Publishing is a minefield with no red flags to point out where you shouldn’t step. My number one piece of advice is: use the Internet. It’s a tool. Use whatever search engine you use and search out answers. I’m not an expert, by any means, but when it comes to publishing I know this much: I don’t know enough. I never will because publishing evolves, changing into something totally different than it was 10 years ago. You have to find the right fit for you and it’s okay to ask questions every now and then.
Do not assume something, seriously. Someone has done that before you and paid the price for it. If the phrase “well, I just assumed…” is about to pass your thoughts or your lips, stop. Use your biggest tool, your Internet, and read or watch videos. Find the answer and save yourself some grief. Do not step on the mine. You don’t have to.