Do you want to self-publish your book and are looking for a couple of recommendations from professionals in the sector so that your book has a better chance of success? In this article we will reveal four self-publishing tips to help you in the process of publishing your book.
Publishing a book on your own is, without a doubt, a complicated process. Especially if you want your book to sell successfully and, with a little luck, become a recognized author. Self-publishing is still a relatively new phenomenon in the literary world. That’s why we want to help you with some recommendations that will help you succeed with your book even before publishing it. The facilities we have today allow the materialization of very promising innovative ideas and approaches for self-publishing.
4 Tips for Self-Publishing a Book
We’ve compiled some of our favorite self-publishing tips so you can succeed with your self-published book. They may seem strange or even disruptive at first, but they have enough potential to get you closer to your goals as an author. Our four unexpected self-publishing tips are:
1. Give away your work
That? Giving away something you’ve worked so hard on for so long, without getting anything in return? We know, it’s frustrating, but bear with us. As a new self-published author, you’ll be under most people’s radars at first. Unless you’re already famous or have been doing an amazing marketing campaign beforehand, that is. We don’t want to discourage you, but generating the level of interest to reach the maximum number of people is going to be difficult or expensive, or both.
Therefore, word of mouth marketing is something that you should take into account. After all, free giveaways are what landed Andy Weir’s “The Martian” on the New York Times bestseller list.
Plus, most readers are always looking to discover new books to include on their reading lists. If these books come from the personal recommendation of a trusted friend or family member, rest assured that your book will succeed more quickly.
In short, you need to build a core of fans who are willing to take on part of the marketing strategy you propose.
This is where your giveaway comes into play. If there’s one thing people love more than a good story, it’s free stuff. So why don’t you combine the two and gain some fans?
Furthermore, the most practical way to give your book as a gift today is to turn it into an e-book. An eBook, being a digital file, does not entail printing or shipping costs. Giving an eBook as a gift will not cost you any money. and since there are no printing or shipping costs involved, you won’t be losing money.
Find a like-minded community
It may also be effective to develop a strategy around your “gift.” Proactivity is necessary here. For example, don’t just put your book on your website, you should also advertise the opportunity to download it for free through your social networks. Searching for other online communities that might be interested is a good idea.
Ask yourself if your book is similar in theme and genre to other popular content; whether it be another book, a movie, or even a video game. Next, look for places where fans of this content gather. A social bookmarking and news aggregator website where users can add text, images, videos or links.
Once you’ve identified interesting communities, join them, pitch your book, and explain why you’re there. You can take the opportunity to ask them to make a donation if they like your book, or simply to spread the word. Be participatory and maintain contact with your community of readers, this way you will get more and more people interested in your work. The last step is to let reading your book do the rest.
2. Start promoting your book before you finish it
As we mentioned above, building your own audience is one of the hardest things about being a self-published author. Awareness is your most valuable resource. Therefore, recruiting your own army of fans from the first moment is extremely important. It may seem a little strange to promote something you haven’t finished yet, but it can really help you start finding success once your book is published.
Whether your goal is to pre-publish a series of selected chapters, reveal your book cover, create a book trailer, or engage in some other type of marketing activity, it’s important that you establish a clear timeline that sticks to your goal., whatever it is.
For example, people may see an ad or post promoting your book and be interested, but if they don’t know when it will be available, it won’t help.
This approach can seem quite daunting since it means setting a deadline and sticking to it, but it can also be a good way to increase your motivation and productivity. Obviously, if you know for a fact that your writing routine is chaotic, then this approach may not be appropriate for you. However, we recommend taking a look at our marketing guide for authors, because at some point you will have to start promoting your work.
If you need financing, you also need marketing
If you think you can’t meet deadlines due to professional commitments or money issues, then it might be a good idea to consider crowdfunding your book. Of course, this will also require marketing, as you have to convince strangers to support you in something that might not turn out well. Your job is to convince them. Something that will definitely help you is to provide writing drafts to potential crowd funders so they can get an idea of your work. Therefore, a very long-term strategy might be to publish your first book for free, and see if you can secure a large enough fan base that you can fund your second book. However,
3. Start locally
We live in the globalized information age, so you may find the idea of starting your writing career by limiting yourself to promoting and selling your book only in your local community strange. Why focus only on small communities if each of us has the entire world at our fingertips thanks to the Internet?
Well, with the internet you can make noise. Noisy. But once again, we’re back to the uncomfortable truth that when it comes to getting people to notice and listen to you online, the odds are against you that you’ll succeed the first time. But however, if you were to approach a local newspaper, bookstore or online community to organize a review or signing, for example, your chances would increase exponentially.
Despite the Internet, most people are still very interested in their local community. We see it all the time; People always feel more affinity for small local businesses, for buying locally produced products, for organizing neighborhood events, etc.
Use this interest and try to direct it towards your book. If you are successful, then you will have a solid base of knowledge to work from.
4. Organize a presentation event for your book
Many authors entering the world of self-publishing for the first time resist this proposition, believing that book releases are the exclusive domain of literary superstars like Stephen King or JK Rowling. However, this does not have to be like this. Don’t expect to have a mass of fans camping at the place where you will present your book or for someone to tattoo your name, but don’t underestimate the potential of a well-organized literary presentation event.
Starting locally, finding a good presentation location, and writing an enticing invitation can help you get solid sales and loyal customers willing to spread the word about your book.
Once you’ve found a place to host the event (whether it’s a bookstore, a café, or a friend’s place), invite friends, family, the local press, and anyone else you’re interested in having around. One of our users even got the mayor of his city to attend the launch of his own book.
If you’re looking for professional book writing and tips on how to get started, you can read our article on how to organize a book launch event. Or if you want to do it virtually, we also have an article about how to organize an online book presentation.
In addition to the potential sales and marketing benefits that you can achieve at an event like this, we also firmly believe that the motivational factor should not be overlooked. The morale boost of having the most important people in your life together to celebrate the publication of your book (no small accomplishment!) may be just what you need to launch your writing career.
Get your book out there!
In this article, we have tried to broaden your horizons around self-publishing by suggesting some tips that may seem counterproductive for many self-published authors. Thinking differently is the key to being a successful self-published author. We can’t compete with authors backed by big publishers, so being creative is the only way to start closing that gap.
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