How to Self- Publish Your Book
Are you wanting to publish your book and have no clue where to start? We are here to help walk you through the steps of self-publishing your book. Self-publishing can seem overwhelming when you first begin, however Formax can help you throughout the process.
Here are 9 steps to get your book from idea to print.
Know your Genre
It is very important for you to know what genre you will be writing for. You want to write your book to ensure that it fits inside your market or genre. Your book should fit into one particular genre so that when you market your book later on it will be a lot easier. You can choose to write a children's book, romance novel, non-fiction story, or even a science fiction book. There are many genres to choose from when writing a book, just make sure you choose one to focus on.
Outline Your book
Regardless of the genre you will want to outline your book. You need to draw out your pages and include different plot points on each page so you can see the book from beginning to end. This step often involves starting with the end in mind and working backward. If you know how your story is going to end, you can work backwards to get to the middle and then the beginning. If you know how many pages you want your book to be, it will be much easier for you to plan how much or how little content goes on each book page. This will also be important if you plan to include images in your book to know where they will be along with the written content.
Write The Story
This does not have to be done in any particular order. You can start at the beginning, middle or end of your story. It is very important to get your first draft done with the bare minimum and know it can all be fixed later on during the editing stages. Getting your ideas from your head onto paper is a crucial step to becoming a self-published author.
Build a Marketing Plan
It is very healthy for a writer to step away from their work for a little bit to brainstorm different marketing techniques. This will give you time to think of additions to your book or edits you may want to make. When thinking about marketing know that different genres get marketed differently. You will want to research other books in your genre and see what works best for them while following trends to stay up to date with the market. You can decide if you want to blog, make youtube videos, create a website and even engage with your audience on social media. You will want to start your marketing as soon as possible as it will make marketing after the book is published much easier.
Edit Your Book
This step will be the most time consuming and probably the most important. You will first want to do self-edits to make sure your story is readable and fix any mistakes you see or add/delete anything necessary. We recommend the COPS and ARMS strategy. COPS stands for Capitalization, Order, Punctuation, Spelling. This will help you to edit the grammatical parts of your story. ARMS stands for add, remove, move, substitute. This will help you edit the flow of your story. When you are done self-editing, you will work with a critique partner to get feedback on your story. If you choose you can then move on to professional editing services to complete your story. There are all different types of editing services out there to assist you with your book publishing needs.
Cover Design & Formatting
This can be a very expensive step if you hire someone professionally, however you can do it yourself as well. People judge a book by its cover even if they say they don't. You can find free online tutorials and websites to help you design your cover as well as format your book. Formatting and cover design can be tricky and time consuming, so if you don't have the time or skills consider hiring a professional to take care of it for you.
Pre-publishing and Marketing
The creation of your book is mostly done. You may still be working on editing, formatting, and cover design but your book is almost A BOOK! This step is where you will begin to market the release of your book. You can plan a book launch, open house, video, or something else. The possibilities are endless when it comes to launching your book. You will want to being growing a following early on so that when your book is published there are people who are ready to read it.
Publish Your Book
To publish your book you will need to have your book in a print ready pdf to send in to the publishers. You will need to know the size of your book, the type of paper, type of cover, type of lamination, page count and several other specs. You will need to get all your files ready from cover to inside pages and send them over to the publisher. Then, you sit back and wait for your beautiful book to arrive.
Market Your Book
Now it is time to market your new book. You can do this by growing your author platform, build your social media following, or even use paid ads to market your new book. The goal is to ensure that you are constantly talking about your books to get more people to purchase and read your book. Many people market their books by creating videos on social media where they read a snippet or just talk about their book. Book reviews are also another great way to help market your book.
As you can see you too can self-publish your own book with a little help. If you have a custom-printed book project , get in touch with Formax Printing.
Just give us a call at 866-367-6221. Or, if you already know your specs, click hereto access our easy quote request form. As always, we look forward to working with you!
Take care! Rick
