10 step to publish your books

Have you decided to self publish your book manuscript? But, still wondering how to self publish. First, congratulations! You’re reading the right article to learn how to self publsh a book. Secondly, the new millemium is a good time to self publish. In fact, you are not alone. Experts agree there’s a self publishing revolution going on. According to Bowker, Self-publishers monitored by the company are growing at a rate of over ten percent per year. CreateSpace led the field, with about 34,000 new titles in 2010. Lulu was in second place with 11,000, followed by Xlibris at 10,700 and AuthorHouse with 8,500 (about 64,000 titles as a group). In 2009, the top five self-publishers, which also included PublishAmerica, accounted for 57,500 new titles. Remember that self-publishers do not use ISBNs for all of their books, so the ISBN-less books are not included in the totals.

Nevertheless, according to the statistics above more and more people are choosing self publishing as the preferred option. So, to help you confirm your decision I present an overview of the basic steps to self publish your book:

1. Decide how you want to legally set up your publishing activities. No, I’m not about to give you legal advice. I recommend you visit with a lawyer or an accountant for advice on how to setup your legal entity. I do encourage you to create a seperate legal entity for your publishing. If you already own a company, and you plan to publish only your work you might consider setting up a publishing division. Otherwise, you need to setup a self publishing company.

Consider carefully how you name your company. If you are publishing only in one niche, you may choose a name related to your topic. But if you think you may want to publish on different topics in the future, choose a more general name. You can always create imprints that are more specific to the book or books’ topic. For example, my main publishing name is Butterfly Press but I have several imprints like Family Heritage Books, iWIN Books, Inner Court Publishing and others.

2. Buy ISBN number or ISBN Block of Numbers.Let’s be clear, without an ISBN number you are not considered the publisher. Your book is non-existent to the book buyers and sellers system. In the U.S. there is only one place to get them and that’s Bowker Identifier Services – Bowker.com or isbn.org. The minimum order of ten is a good place to start. Unless, you already know you will create lots of books and information products. Then you can invest in their block of 100.

3. Set Up Easy Distribution: CreateSpace and Amazon.com are affordable places to start distributing your book. There are many places you can make your book available for sale, including online and offline. If you are just getting started consider signing up for a free account with CreateSpace, who is owned by Amazon.com. According to authors, their quality used to be so off, most could only suggest printing proofs for test markets. In recent months and a couple of years, I can confirmed they have dramatically improved. See my case studies to prove it; I was pleasantly suprised, given the reports I heard previously. Or if you already have your book setup to print elsewhere, think about joining the Amazon Advantagehttps://advantage.amazon.com program to sell your book directly through Amazon.com.

4. Do Research; Create a Content Outline and Develop a TOC: According to what kind of book, you are doing you will most likely need to do research. I say it like that because in my BookWritingCourse.com I encourage the students to start with their existing body of knowledge. Then, if you find you are lacking in substantial material for any chapter you can do research to fill it in. In your research, get all the books, magazine articles available on your topic. This can add up quickly if you are purchasing your research materials, so consider your local library. Don’t forget the Internet. Check your sources carefully but do use the Inernet. The better the search results become from engines like Google.com, the more we simply draw a list of resources and visit each one.  After gathering your material, existing information and research, do a content outline. Then develop your table of contents.

5. Write Your Book Fast: Successful authors use a program or a simple writing plan to get their book written fast. Like any other discipline, you plan to fail if you don’t plan. I recommend my book, ‘Write Your Best Book Now which outlines a seven step program to get your book written quickly. If you need more time, the 100 Days To A Book writing course and membership is the one for you. It has twelve easy lessons, exercises and a growing mini-library of bonus lessons that take you by the hand and walk you through the steps of writing a book. Also, if your talent strengths are not in writing or you don’t have time  you can hire a ghostwriter. The ghostwriter essentially writes the book for you and you get to put your name and information on it.

6. Give Your Book The Gift Of Editing, Proofreading. Whether you write your book yourself or you hire a ghostwriter, you will need  to hire an editor. Also, realize editing is not the same as proofreading. In simple terms, editing a book manuscript is sometimes called copy editing and proofreading is exactly that reading a proof. Professional editors will review your manuscript and give you suggested corrections for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and consistency. Editors usually charge by the hour or by word count. For example, Butterfly Press’s editing services $175 anything up to 10,000 words and .0175 per word for anything above 10,000. http://butterflypress.net/manuscript-editing/

As any experienced publishing professional knows, the process of developing a manuscript into a published book is not entirely foolproof. Even manuscripts that have undergone an editorial evaluation can have the occasional remaining error. For even the best copy editor in the business or the most attentive author can inadvertently overlook or create a few mistakes. In fact, for this reason, traditional publishers usually proofread a manuscript twice. This final edit is highly recommended.

7. Seal the Sale with Passion Points. Every part of your book should work toward creating a compelling message. Every part should be designed to be a sales tool. Develop each point to continue to convince your potential customer or reader to purchase or keep reading. There are twenty-one points inside and outside your book you can infuse with your excitement and passion for your topic. These passion points include your book’s introduction, table of contents, back cover, front cover and more.

For example, one passion point is your book’s thesis. Write your book’s central thought or main point into a one sentence thesis. This one sentence thesis proclaims the general mission of your book. It will help crystallize your message. If you want your readers to keep reading to the end, write tightly focused copy. Make every sentence and every chapter support your thesis statement. Better yet, if you’re writing your book fast (Write Your Best Book Now – Book Writing Program) using the question-answer method the thesis is the main solution your book offers.

8. Create Great Cover Design. Have you seen the sign, “We Buy Ugly Houses!” Based on the company’s popularity, it works for them. But it doesn’t work in the book business. Ugly book covers get overlooked. Well designed book covers sell! If you are interested in the 10 Worst Mistakes Indie Publishers Make In DIY Cover Design, click here.

75% of 300 booksellers reviewed (half from independent bookstores and half from chains) recognized the look and design of the book cover as the most important part. They agreed the jacket is prime real estate for promoting a book. On that note, your book cover design has great importance. Spend some time learning how to write sales copy for your back cover. Overall, the design and lack of sales copy (persuasive lanuage) can cause your book marketing campaign to fail or succeed. So, I encourage you to invest in your book cover.

9. Remember The Interior Design, Layout & Fonts: Don’t forget about the interior of your book. I’ve seen many indie authors and indie publishers alike do well on the cover and drop the ball with the inside of their book. Some self published books end up with a great wall of text, an opposing mix of fonts or sloppy layout that becomes a distraction to their readers. That is, if their readers decide to keep reading. If it’s too distracting or off putting, your reader may put your book down and never pick it up again. The interior design of your book should complement the cover design. For example, a sports dude kind of book would not match a whimsical layout and font choice.

10. Consider Printing, Pricing, Proofing. After you’ve gotten started and selling at least one hundred books or more, you should consider graduating to a printer that offers offset printing. If you print more than 1000 books at one time, the price will drop considerably. For easy distribution purposes, you can still send the books to Amazon.com Advantage and BN.com to be sold.

For example, the book that you are paying $3.85 each at CreateSpace to print when printed 5,000 books at a time could go down as low as $2 each. When you print 10,000 at a time, it may drop to $1. Yes, the same book that you sell for $9.99 to $14.99. The more you print at one time and the fewer pages, the more the cost drops.

It’s important to remember, all printers are not apples. In other words, they may do an awesome job with printing general items but don’t specialize in printing books. Therefore, their book printing may not be satisfactory.

Don’t price your book out of your book’s market range. This can get detailed; but at least do a simple market analysis. Go to Amazon.com and find some similar books to yours and see what they are charging for theirs. According to your book’s size and page count you can set your book right in the middle. If you have the confidence, your book’s package is competitive and your book’s content backs you up, you can even charge the higher end price.

Set a standard with proofreading your proof. If you’ve made a costly mistake yet, I won’t have to say much about this one. But if this is your first self published book, go the extra mile and order a physical book to proofread before you put in your first print order. Some printers like Lightning Source, it is mandatory to order a proof on your first book.

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