a favour of equal value back in return. If you have friends with blogs, youtube accounts, a twitter following, etc., or friends who are events managers or who do art shows or play in bands, or something like that, ask if you could write a guest post there, if they would post something about you, if you could be their support act. If you get a favour, remember to offer a favour of equal value in return. Make sure the links to your book website do work, and make sure the description is current, and is awesome.
Five: Don’t be afraid to ask for help, admit mistakes, and change your strategy if something doesn’t work. Keep re-inventing yourself. Like David Bowie. If it worked for him…
Six : About the book itself. There are several self-publishing websites out there. You write a book, format it into the correct size for a book (for example: 6×9″, the standard size of a paperback — for this, enter the page setup menu in your word processing programme, usually found in either the “file” or “layout” tab), turn the whole thing into a PDF, and upload it to the website. They will then print and bind it.
PLEASE DO MAKE SURE you have checked on every single page that the typesetting is correct. You’re not a typesetter, but you will need to make sure of these basic things at least :
- The sizes of your margins. Best way to do this is to take a book out of your book shelf at home and measure with a ruler how many inches or centimeter margin the book has, and copy that format.
- there shouldn’t be any paragraphs beginning at the very bottom of a page, or ending at the very top. If possible.
- the font should be a decent type and size.
Seven: About the book cover. You will need to upload a book cover to your self-publishing site. The cover should be beautiful, and you might consider hiring a professional to design your cover. People really do judge a book by its cover. Your book deserves a gorgeous cover. Don’t let yourself down. If you can’t get a designer, do it yourself by keeping it super simple. Look at lots of books on your book shelf and try to do something very simple. Simple and eye-catching. Sometimes you don’t need much at all to achieve this.
Eight: You may NOT skimp on a good editor. Friends and family, even if they are well-qualified, sometimes might want to make you feel good rather than tell you what they didn’t like. But that’s doing you a disservice. Conversely, you might risk destroying a friendship, or losing faith in your book, because of disagreements with your friend about it. Get a professional in. They’ll be business-like, and it will do your book a lot of good.
You don’t need to follow every suggestion an editor makes, but you do need to know which parts of your book you should have another look at, to make sure you are definitely happy with them. Think of the mean and nasty readers, and of people who will hate your book. You don’t want to give them ammunition.
Budget in enough time to process the editorial suggestions. You might encounter a bit of writer’s block if the editor comes back with too many negative points or if, simply, you are exhausted and over-sensitive because you have just handed in the fruit of many years of work to a stranger and they’ve fired it back to you two days later with lots of criticisms you were not expecting. Give yourself time and space to go through all the editorial suggestions.
When that’s done, you’ll either go back to the editor for a round two, or you’ll be OK with it and hand it to someone able and willing to do a thorough spell-check and grammar and style check. And possibly even a fact-check.
And then… Voila!
Nine: About budgeting your time and money for a self-published book. A crowdfunding campaign might be a neat idea — for the cover design and the editor, for instance. This is what I did, anyhow. And do what I didn’t do : budget in the teeniest bit of marketing money, too, or more, if possible. So you can print business cards, or organize a launch event, or stage some kind of mad publicity stunt, or have a few free copies to give away to well-chosen individuals — whatever suits you, your work, and your personality.
Ten: About selling your book. You should take part in as many readings as you can. Many small book shops that organize readings, and you can go in and talk to them, ask if they would let you have a reading– either with just yourself or with a couple of other writers. Bring ->
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