Before you hit the publish button on your next book, make sure that you have nailed down these 5 important tips to remember before you self-publish your book!
Before you hit that publish button, it’s important to take some time to ensure that your book or manuscript is 100% ready to publish. Often, the excitement of publishing your next book can force you to skip a few very important steps in the process. While you may think, ‘I’ll just go back and do them later,’ the problem is it’s often too late. One negative review at the start of your book, and it may never recover. It’s not all bad news! By reading and following 5 important tips to remember before you self-publish your book, you’ll be much more prepared.
All that excitement will soon turn to disappointment if someone leaves a negative review on your book. It’s hard to turn back the hands of time, and you can’t avoid the differences in people’s tastes, but you can take a little time before you release your book to ensure you do everything possible to get the best review possible.
Before you publish your next book, make sure that you have read through this checklist of 5 important tips to remember before you self-publish!
- Ensure That Your Manuscript Is Perfect! – Remember this: ‘Close enough isn’t good enough’ when it comes to publishing books. The cost of an editor and proofreader may seem like a cost that’s too high, but readers can be brutal when it comes to picking up spelling, grammar, and structure errors in any book, especially self-published books. There are some great programs online like Pro Writing Aid, Hemmingway, and Grammarly, but to truly get the best out of your manuscript, you should always go with a professional editor. Editing can be anywhere from basic copy editing to structure, style, and character development. The more times your book is read, the more things you’ll notice and the fewer mistakes you’ll miss.
- Don’t Design Your Own Covers – Unless you’re a professional in Photoshop or a graphic design whiz, always get a professional to design your cover. While the temptation is always there to save a few dollars, your cover is not the place to do it! We can’t stress this enough. The first thing any prospective buyer is going to see is your cover. You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars, but you may be surprised to learn that $100 will get you a pretty impressive high-quality book cover. It’s one of the most important tips we have included in 5 important tips to remember before you self-publish your book.
- Professional Formatting Is Gold – When it comes to formatting, there are thousands of different tutorials available online on how to format your manuscript, but if you want to stand shoulder to shoulder with professionally published books, spend a few dollars on getting your book formatted by a professional. Before you take your book to the formatter, it’s important to ensure that your book has been professionally edited and proofread, you have all your internal information ready, and any pictures and illustrations are high-quality and ready to be included. Changing things after your book is formatted can be an expensive lesson to learn.
- Build Your Website and Social Media Personas – You may not know this, but websites and social media are one of the biggest time drains for new authors. The website will cost you the most money; social media will take the most time. You want to create all your social media accounts and your website before you hit the publish button. This is also a great time to think about whether you’ll be publishing under your own name or a pen name. Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, and Goodreads will all take a long time to set up. Always use high-quality images and choose a profile picture that represents who you are and looks professional. Try to push your theme or branding across all platforms so that your brand flows across different platforms and makes you recognizable.
- Write Your Book Description and Choose Your Keywords & Categories – Writing your book description may not seem important, but after someone sees your cover, the next thing they’ll do is read your book description. You want to make it long enough to cover the important aspects of your book without your description turning into a novel of its own. Include an introduction, the main highlights of your book, and a call to action inviting people to read your book. When it comes time to publish, you’re going to need to publish your book on sites like Smashwords, Amazon, Kindle, Createspace, iBooks, and Ingram Spark. Research your keywords and categories before you publish, and you’ll know how to write your book description to fit into the categories you’re trying to sell in.
5 Important Tips To Remember Before You Self-Publish Your Book – Conclusion
We hope you enjoyed this article on 5 Important Tips To Remember Before You Self-Publish Your Book!
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At Indie Publishing Group, we’re proud to assist Canadian and North American authors in self-publishing their work. If you are in the process of writing a book and need any assistance with paperback or ebook formatting, cover design, professional editing, or uploading to self-publishing sites such as Amazon KDP and Ingram Spark, please don’t hesitate to reach out and contact us.
Our experienced and professional self-publishing team is standing by to assist you with your self-publishing dreams.
