Knowing how to self-publish can help you begin a great money-making career. You can write about any topic you choose to write on with non-fiction. In fiction writing, you can select a genre or even multiple genres.
Once you decide what you want to write, it’s imperative that you know the steps necessary to make it a reality. Otherwise, you can make newbie mistakes that will cost you time and money.
You don’t want to make mistakes that can negatively impact your self-publishing earning potential. Part of what you need to learn is strategic, while other parts are technical – and you’ll have some personal preference choices to make, too.
Day 1: Decide Whether You Want to Publish Fiction or Non-Fiction
While it can be tempting to want to try your hand at writing both fiction and non-fiction, you probably shouldn’t do both at the same time when you’re first starting out. You want to first learn about one area of writing and master that before you add any more to your plate.
Because there is a lot to learn, you could easily get overwhelmed if you’re not careful.
Fiction comes from your imagination or true events that you turn into fiction – such as you read a story about a dog making a thousand mile journey home and it inspires you to write a fictional account of an animal trek.
Non-fiction is writing based on true events, skills, knowledge or life experiences. If you’re a niche leader, you can write books that educate, inform or guide your audience in their journey.
Day 2: Come Up with a Pen Name If You Want To
To use a pen name or not is something that a lot of writers wonder about. There are good reasons to use one and good reasons not to use one. Sometimes writers choose a pen name because they don’t want others to know what they write.
Others choose a pen name to protect the privacy of their family members. If you use a pen name, just do a quick Internet search to make sure there are no other authors using the same name.
When selecting a pen name, if you don’t have anything in mind, you can use a name generator or a baby name book and choose a name that resonates with you. You can have one pen name for each genre or niche to set them apart.
Day 3: Purchase a Domain for Your Publishing
After you’ve decided what to write and whether or not to use a pen name, you’ll need to buy a domain for your publishing. You’ll want to do this whether you’re writing in fiction or non-fiction.
This will be your platform online or your Internet address. Some writers choose their name or pen name as their domain name. Others will use words like “science fiction author” or even the name of their book as their domain URL.
If you’re in non-fiction, you may already have a domain for your blog and business, so it’s okay to have an author page there. Or, you can have your pen name or niche topic in the domain too, such as motivational author or fitness author.
Day 4: Get a Hosting Account and Set Up an Author Blog
Whatever domain you choose, you need a hosting account for it. A hosting account is what keeps all your site’s files. Some of the many hosting sites you can find include ones like HostGator, JetHostPro and more.
You want to choose a budget friendly option, but you also want to be sure you pick one based on how good the support team is, the security of the hosting account and the performance.
Once you choose your hosting account, you’ll need to set up an author blog. A blog gives you visibility on a search engine. It also creates a home base for you to be able to connect and interact with your readers.
Plus, when you have a blog, you get to control the content. This allows you to quickly build a solid brand. You can discuss upcoming publications (which are nice for pre-orders), and more.
Day 5: Have Professional Graphics Created for Your Brand
Once you get your account set up, it’s time for the graphics. You don’t want to just download an image from a free photo site and slap it up on your author blog or your website.
You want your graphics to be visually appealing, but also to look professional. Something that’s uploaded without a lot of thought to it won’t be good for your brand. It also won’t draw viewers to your books.
You’ll want to pay to have professional graphics like headers made for your author site but also for your social media pages. For example, Facebook gives authors space at the top of their pages to place a header.
This is free landscape to use. You can have a header done that showcases your book or links to your life as a writer or niche leader. If you don’t know what you want, study the headers other writers have up for inspiration.
Day 6: Register Your Social Media Author Accounts
Your writing name, whether you use a pen name or not, needs to be snagged on all the social media sites. You need to do this even before you ever write a single sentence on your book idea because eventually, you will need and use these sites.
Even if you decide that you’re not going to use the site, you’ll still want to be the owner of your name on them. So head to all the big social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Goodreads and LinkedIn whether you write non-fiction or fiction.
Make sure you register those pages for your name. Go ahead and fill out your profile now, even if you don’t do anything else with the site temporarily. You can point visitors of your profile to your domain.
Day 7: Brainstorm the Outline of Your Book
Now it’s time to brainstorm the outline of your book. A book outline is just a format of information that’s basically a blueprint and is useful for your novel’s completion. There is no “right” way to outline your book.
It should be written in a way so that it has the information you need. You can use a method outline such as following the “beats” of a story if you’re writing fiction. For example, a story beat is the midpoint of the novel. A story beat is the catalyst.
Your outline can be written in linear form such as dividing into chapters and under each chapter heading, you write down what needs to happen. These happenings are what gets turned into scenes in your book.
For non-fiction, write down what information you’re trying to impart to readers. Break that information up into sections or parts like 1-4 or even longer if you prefer, then under each section you’ll have chapters.
A non-fiction book can also be divided by topics under any one given subject. Like finance would have topics such as “creating a budget” or “getting out of debt.” The outline will help you make progress without having to go back and include things you forgot.
Day 8: Begin Writing a Chapter a Day
If you look at it as a whole, writing a book can seem like a huge, time consuming task. Which is why you should only focus on writing one chapter a day. It’s a lot easier that way.
A chapter doesn’t have to be something that’s long. It depends on the type of book you’re writing. For example, middle grade or young adult fiction novels can be as few as two typed pages or about four handwritten ones.
There’s no right or wrong answer for how long a chapter should or shouldn’t be. Make a commitment to complete one chapter a day. This momentum will drive you forward and you’ll complete the book a lot faster than you thought you could.
Day 9: Have an Editor Go Over Your Work
It doesn’t matter how well you write. You can’t catch all your mistakes. While no one is perfect, readers do expect a book to be as error free as possible. One that contains a lot of typos, grammatical mistakes or information that’s not factual will disappoint readers.
Hire an editor. There are different types of editing. You may need more than one depending on your writing skills. One of these edit types is developmental editing. With this editing, your editor reads the book and gives an overview on things that need to be fixed.
For example, you might have issues with the plot. Or you might have a character that comes across as unlikeable. Next is copyediting. This is when an editor corrects your grammar and sentence structure.
For example, he or she will see if you’re switching between tenses as you write. Proofreading is another type of editing. This is also sometimes known as line editing. Here, an editor carefully goes over each sentence in the manuscript looking for things like periods outside of quotation marks or mistakes such as you said a character has blue eyes but later say they’re brown.
For non-fiction, you may also need to hire a fact check editor. This person will ensure that any facts you mention in the book are correct. Other than that, you want your work free of spelling errors, typos and grammar issues.
Day 10: Sign Up for an Amazon Author Account
This is the day that you want to sign up for an Amazon author account. It’s easy to do. You just have to go to author.amazon.com and it’s free to create an account. This is the area you’ll use to upload your books.
It’s important that you have this account because doing so can place all your books together so that when a reader sees one, they’ll also see the others in the series or anything else you might have published.
You’re going to want to have a nice author picture to upload. You also want to create a good About section. Here, you’ll be able to link to your author website as well as your social media sites.
Day 11: Have a Professional Cover Made for Your First Book
Your books cover is what makes the first impression on a potential reader. It can also make the book stand out among other books within the same genre. You want it to stand out in a good way.
That’s why you want to make sure the cover is one that’s professional. Book cover artists know what’s expected from the genre. For example, he or she wouldn’t create a happy book cover for a book that’s marketed for the horror genre.
If money is an issue, then you can buy a premade cover and it’ll be a little less expensive. But you shouldn’t try to create your own cover unless you have experience in graphic design.
If you’re using free images for your book cover, make sure you have commercial use rights to use it. You can find affordable non-fiction book cover creators on sites like Fiverr where you can see previous work they’ve done for other niche marketers.
Day 12: Create a Blurb for Your Book Listing
Many new writers mistakenly think that a book blurb is like a summary. It’s not. A blurb should be short and contain only enough information to hook the reader and make them want to buy the book.
It should follow genre expectations, which you can study by researching similar books on Amazon or other platforms. The blurb should mention only the main characters, not every character, and show what the book’s conflict is about.
Even non-fiction books have book blurbs. These typically show the reader what the tone and style of the book is, and hits on their most pressing pain points to make them feel as if the author “gets” them.
Day 13: Join Author Groups to Help You Succeed
By Day 13, you’ll want to join author groups. These are groups that can help you succeed as a writer. You’ll be able to network with other authors. You’ll also find inspiration and opportunities such as collaborations.
You can also expand your writing knowledge because you’ll learn about things like having your book show up in also-boughts (which is where your book is shown whenever someone is considering buying another author’s book that is similar to yours). You’ll learn about keyword usage and market expectations.
Groups like 20Booksto50k are good for new authors and so is KBoards, which is a Kindle forum. To find groups that you think will be a fit for you, you can look by searching Facebook.
It can be helpful to search according to what you write such as Mystery & Thriller or Romance Writers. You can also find niche groups for non-fiction self-publishing authors, too.
Day 14: Learn How to Get a Bookbub Deal
Getting a Bookbub deal isn’t hard as long as you know what the site is looking for. To get your book accepted, you can’t offer it at full price. It has to be free or have a steep discount.
The number of good reviews you have on your book do matter. Books with a handful of reviews are more likely to get rejected than one that has 50 or more. Some things that are helpful is having your book on multiple platforms.
Bookbub is looking for books that aren’t just on Amazon. You need to have a good cover that fits the genre. When you’re ready to try for the deal, you need to apply at least a month prior to when you need it.
Day 15: Study Paid Facebook Ads
On day 15, you need to start studying paid Facebook ads. Using these ads can get your book in front of a wider audience and you can specifically target who sees the ad. There are specific times to use these ads.
Use them when you’re releasing a new book to help boost visibility. If you have a sale going on, use an ad. If you’re offering a loss leader such as making the first book in the series free, you’ll want to use an ad.
What you lose by giving your books away, you stand to gain back when readers buy the rest in the series or your other books. You can study how to correctly use paid Facebook ads through information found in your author groups, by reading tutorials like what are offered on YouTube or by taking a course through someone who is an expert such as Mark Dawson.
You can also use a book as a lead magnet, offering it free in order to just build your niche as a leader. You can’t think about the money imbalance right then – you have to think about the return you’ll get later when you promote your products or others’ products as an affiliate.
Day 16: Learn Amazon AMS Ads
Like Facebook ads, Amazon ads can help you boost your book sales. But you need to know how to use them. Learning how can give you a strategy to use to have your book show up as relevant in searches so that it gets the awareness that it needs to sell well.
To start, you’ll need to create an account. Once you create your account, you can use things like keywords to target readers. You’ll be able to put in specific search terms. Then your book will appear through the keywords, genres or also-boughts.
Day 17: Start Teasing Your Audience on BookTok
TikTok has something called BookTok which is used for the promotion of books. These are short videos about things relating to books and you can follow the trends. For example, you can create skits about your characters or you can share writing advice.
You can talk about your to-be-read pile of books – fiction or non-fiction. Doing this can tease the audience into wanting to know more about you and your book and lead to sales. It can also help to build your followers. Used correctly, it can even make a book go viral.
Day 18: Begin Building a Presence on Goodreads
Goodreads is a platform where books and readers connect. But authors can use it to help promote their books. You can create an account on the site by filling out an author page, including your bio.
Once you get it set up, you can then gain followers. Your books, along with reviews can be listed. But you can also advertise on the site to get your book in front of readers. You can host book giveaways and interact with readers. You can also add your author website to your Goodreads author account.
Day 19: Format Your Book on Vellum
Many retailers want an ePub file of your manuscript and not a document. While you can use free converters, the end result is usually messy and unprofessional looking. You can use Vellum to generate ePubs that are easy to upload.
All you have to do is import the document into Vellum and choose your style, like different chapter headings, etc. When you upload an ePub file to a retailer, it has to be validated to ensure it will display correctly on devices.
If it’s not validated, the retailer won’t accept the file. Vellum creates ePubs that perfectly validate against all the major retailers. This is a tool used for Mac laptops, and it’s easy to learn once you get started.
Day 20: Give Out ARCs to Set Yourself Up for Reviews
You can manually send out ARCs (advanced reader copies) to your readers but then you’ll have to track who you gave ARCs to, who posted reviews, and where they posted reviews to.
This can leave you spending hours just tracking where your reviews are coming from. But there are services like StoryOrigin that allow you to send out ARCs easily and the service tracks if the reviewers are posting reviews as they said they would.
You can also approve or disapprove reviewers. This can be helpful if you have a reviewer that consistently low stars your book. Some people do this to sabotage other authors.
Day 21: Decide Whether You Want to Publish Exclusively on Amazon
When it comes to publishing, some authors choose to join the Kindle Unlimited program. In this program, readers can borrow your digital book and you get credited for their page reads.
The advantage of this is that Amazon then promotes your books, which can lead to a lot of exposure and money for you. However, Amazon requires that books in Kindle Unlimited stay exclusive to their platform.
This means you can’t repost your stories or chapters, even excerpts, to your website, newsletter, or social media sites. If you do, then Amazon may completely close your account.
To self-publish using KU, you just need an Author Central account and follow the prompts to create your author page. You can then select your book price and upload the book.
Day 22: Get Set Up on IngramSpark and Publish
any authors love using IngramSpark because it’s a great way to get their book in front of a lot of readers. Any author that has been self-publishing for a while can tell you that the biggest hurdle is finding new readers.
That’s where a platform like IngramSpark can be helpful. IngramSpark is what’s known as a distributor so they can help you get your book in places such as libraries. Another plus is if you publish a print book, bookstores are more likely to stock the book upon your request than if you just use Amazon.
Day 23: Consider Using D2D for Publishing
D2D is Draft to Digital and it’s an online publishing service that allows you to publish your book on multiple retailers with just a few clicks. If you choose to publish without this service, then you have to log into each author dashboard and upload the manuscript yourself across multiple channels.
If you want to later change the price of your book, then you have to go into each separate retailer. But with D2D, you just have one dashboard. However, D2D takes 10% of your author royalties for this service.
Day 24: Look at Smashwords for Self-Publishing
For years, Smashwords has been one of the go-to platforms for authors to use for self-publishing. You just upload your manuscript according to the site directions. Many writers liked it because the site wasn’t as restrictive when it came to certain genres.
However, it was recently acquired by D2D and while the current plan is to leave it operational, authors can expect to see changes in the coming months. One of these key changes will be improved reporting and a better dashboard.
Day 25: Get Set Up on Apple and Google Play for Publishing
Next, you want to make sure that you get set up on Apple. You will apply through the Apple Connect program. Like other retailers, they will ask you for basic information including your banking information, tax information and your DBA license if you’ll be publishing under a pen name.
Once your account is approved, you can add your books to the Apple store. You can also set up pre-orders through the store if you want to. Pre-orders build buzz about upcoming books and Apple Books is one of the retailers that doesn’t require you to submit the entire manuscript before putting up a pre-order.
To get started on Google Play, you’ll need a Google account. You’re more likely to get approved faster if you use an existing account. Like Apple, you’ll have to enter the same information.
When you upload a book to Google Play, they want the complete book and cover. If you try to use a placeholder manuscript, they will cancel your account.
Day 26: Set Up Your Account on Nook and Publish
Barnes & Noble is the retailer behind the popular reading device, the Nook. This means that they already have a built-in audience of millions of readers, and you want to tap into that by publishing on their platform.
Getting approved on this platform does take longer than some of the other platforms. However, if you apply two to three weeks before you plan to release your book, then you should be fine.
It’s easy to set up an account, but their platform is not available in all countries. If you’re an author living in one of these non-serviced countries, you can use D2D to get on Barnes & Noble.
Day 27: Set Up a Kobo Account and Publish
Kobo is a great platform for connecting with Canadian readers. Like Barnes & Noble, they have their own reading device which means access to millions of readers in Canada.
This widens your reach and allows you to get more exposure. Kobo is a popular bookseller, but they do really well when it comes to boxsets and collections. So if you want to bundle several of your books together, this is an ideal platform to use.
Day 28: Consider Adding Audiobooks to Your Sales
You want your book to earn across multiple formats so you have several income streams. Additionally, there are some readers who won’t pick up a book or use an e-reader, but they will listen to books on audio.
You can use a service like audible.com to get started. The important thing for many audio listeners is that you choose a narrator that sounds clear and professional or who would speak like your main character.
If you’re writing nonfiction, you want to have a speaker who clearly enunciates the terms you use. Otherwise, the listening experience is too distracting. If you’re writing fiction, you want a narrator who sounds like the dialect where your character is from.
Day 29: Prepare and Tease Your Next Upcoming Release
Every time you write a book, you should be selling the next book in the current book you’re writing. In fiction, this means you would introduce the characters who’ll appear in the next book in a way that’s interesting and hooks the reader.
Because they want to know more about that character’s story, they’ll buy the second book. In nonfiction, you’ll point readers to the second book by introducing a new problem they need help to solve or information they need to have.
For example, if you have one book that deals with weight loss help, you might be able to point readers to your next book, which covers maintaining the weight loss or fitness advice.
Day 30: Launch a Pre-Order on Amazon for Your Next Book
Pre-orders are important because they allow you to gauge audience interest in your upcoming book and schedule promotional activities and advertising in advance. For example, if you plan to run Facebook ads on release day, then you’ll want a pre-order page so that Facebook can approve your content.
Without this, you might end up stuck in the review process for days or weeks. To launch a pre-order, you upload your book to Amazon or other retailers and select a future publication date.
From there, many retailers will tell you how far in advance you must submit the final manuscript. If a pre-order is part of a series, it can spur interest in your backlist so you end up making more money.
Becoming a self-published author requires you to carefully learn many tasks and steps, but it’s beneficial for you compared to the grueling process of traditional publishing, where you had to first get accepted by an agent, then by a publisher – a process which could take years, and leave you without much control over your books.