The Pre-publishing Process for Self-publishers

1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to the pre publishing process for self-publish shares. My name is Neil Hogan and I'm a multi published in The author. I saw published my first book in 2014 and learned so much over the years. I wish I'd known the first time around. I designed this course for writers who have completed manuscript. During the process of creating a plan, successfully launched their book. I wanted to help writers maximize the visibility as well as share tips and best strategies to deliver in a book that sells. This course is based on a segment of a checklist that I created called the self-publishing checklist. This printable PDF comes free with this course and will be included in the project section. I will only be covering the portion titled Miscellaneous task list before completing the formatting and design task list. However, you are welcome and encouraged to use the entire PDF on your journey to self-publishing. It's noted that this checklist is intended to be used before moving onto the formatting and design. But that is entirely up to you. This is your journey. As a five times self-published author, I've found that completing these tasks before I began formatting and designing my interior and exterior, was a great way to maximize my time before the release date of my book. While the list seem short, there is so much to cover. So download the checklist to review the items on the list with me. If anything is unclear about the rest of the task list, please enroll my other publishing horses. Or you can email your questions to the address provided at the end of this course. This course was designed for new authors and indie authors looking for a better way to self-publish. This course is not for riders taking the traditional publishing route. Authors who have already mastered the self-publishing process. There are some things to consider and add to your to-do list to expedite preparing your manuscript for publishing, and prepare for launch. And the items we'll cover in this course will help you to do just that. In this course, we will learn about where you can sell your book and how to get started about ISBN and barcodes, pre-marketing strategies before having a finished product. Book blurbs and descriptions and author bios, as well as creating a book launch plan. 2. Where Should I Sell My Book?: Let's start with the first lecture in this course. Where should I sell my book? As a self-published author, you decide what retailers you would like to sell your book. And there are many different distribution options. You can choose one or all that are available to you, where you live and what countries you'd like to sell in can determine which platforms to publish through in what language is your book can also be translated into? The excited reality is that you decide where to meet your audience at. This course won't get into detail about each distributor because things are rapidly changing. I will reference platforms I know well to help you out, but as far as comparing platforms, I will leave that research up to you. I also will not share my personal preferences on where to publish your manuscript because it's important for you to do your own independent research before making any commitment based on what's currently happening within the company and the unique, unique needs of your book. I will have or provide as much direction as possible to help give you the peace of mind about what your options are. To give you some direction as to where to start your independent research. Here are a list of platforms to help you begin Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing, Google Books. Ingram sparks, Calvo drafted digital, Lulu, Forbes, Barnes and Nobles, Baker and Taylor books, book baby. And all of these are some of the largest retailers that you can self-publish through. Don't forget about getting your books into libraries as well. Those independent bookstores and whoever allows you to sell in brick-and-mortar stores. If you're feeling overwhelmed already, I will ease your mind in just a moment. I promise. But before beginning your research, it's important to assess the unique needs of your book and the unique goals you have set for your book. When I was in the process of choosing where I wanted my books sold my fifth time around, I created an Excel spreadsheet for myself to organize all the retailers that were available to me. This information was current in 2020 and could change by the time you take this course. Some platforms distribute to multiple retailers. And that was something I felt was important to know for the sake of time. For print books, I found that Kindle Direct Publishing, Ingram spark publishing book baby and Blurb would reach all the retailers I was looking to have my book released. It reads, he does a really good job of comparing all four of these companies. If you'd like to weigh your options. And I'll add the link to the comments section for you. They'll go into depth about costs and fees, user friendliness, quality and distribution, and to have maximum e-book distribution. The following companies covered all retailers where e books are sold. And those are Ingram spark drafted digital smash words and Google Books. If I'm missing any or things have changed, feel free to add a comment. Drafted digital is great because of its wide distribution. But keep in mind that the release date you set is only applicable to the sites that finished processing your book by that time. Hoopla, which is a library system where people can check out your e-book from an app on their phone and read for free. And yes, you still get paid by the pages they read often faces major delays despite giving you a tentative date. It could take over a year to process. You can't promise when books will launch on every single platform for this reason, all you can do is hope for the best. The earlier you can upload your project, the faster it can be processed and guaranteed on that platform, your readers may want to access your work upon its release date. Here's some questions to ask yourself when deciding where you want your books to be sold. One, what formats and my publishing in print, e-book or both. Some platforms only support ebooks at this time too. Is this a print-on-demand company? Print on demand means that they only print your book when someone has purchased it. This means there's no excess inventory lying around we sold it helps save the planet. And it means you are not financially responsible for inventory that does not sell. Three, What country does this distributor sell? Two years ago I had a friend who lived in the Netherlands who could not order a copy of my book from Amazon. I realize them the importance of knowing where my book was sold. For. What retailers Does this company distribute my books tube drafted digital, e.g. is a one-stop shop for many retailers. Once you upload there, your book is automatically also uploaded to other retailers where books are sold. Knowing this allows you to save time and energy on uploading your manuscripts and signing up for accounts with different distributors. And five, does this company allow me to sell my book with other retailers? If you're using ISBN and barcode supplied by Kindle Direct Publishing, e.g. you are limiting your distribution to only Amazon. Question six, what will my royalties fee? Know the percentage of money you will be earning per book sale. This helps you to set realistic goals and decide if that distributor is taking too much of your sales for your liking. Number seven, when and how will I receive my royalty payments? Research the payout schedule, and the method in which you'll receive those payments. If it's quarterly like it is in most places, it will allow you to set quarterly sales goals and check on those payments when they're due. Number eight, does this platform. Certain pricing rules or rules for running sales. Some platforms don't allow you to price your books below a certain price point and regulate when and for how long you can run a sale on your book. How often can you make your bug-free or put it on sale? Our sales a percentage off, or can you change the dollar amount? Speaking of sales, it's important to do your research on book pricing based on your word count, genre, format, and competitor pricing. Some platforms will give us suggested pricing for you, but you get the final say. You don't have to determine the price for your book until you finalize it for upload. But it helps to have an idea of how much you want to charge for your book to help create realistic sales goals. Question number ten, what do I need to do in order to publish my book on this platform? Some distributors have different requirements to publish with them. Read the instructions and agreements carefully. This will help you to determine if you should outsource the task or if they have requirements you're interested in even satisfying. Number 11. Is it free to upload my book? Not all self-publishing companies are free. Paid doesn't equate to better. But if it's not free, this will be an added expense to your publishing budget. Do you want to invest to publish or do you want to utilize the free platforms? 12, what happens if I want to unpublished my book? Know Your Rights. Don't sign your book over without understanding the process. Read your agreements carefully. 13. Who is the owner of my book once it's published. Did you know that when you are using free ISBN, you're not the owner of your manuscript. Is it important for you to own your book? If you're using your own ISBN, which we'll talk about later in this course. Are you now a co-owner of your book on that platform? Know Your Rights. 14. How long is turnaround time for publishing? When I published my novel color theory, I set up my e-book on draft a digital because it covered all the retailers that I wanted my e-book sold in. Over a year later, my book still hasn't been published on two of the platforms that are available through drafted digital simply because they are so behind, because there are so many books waiting to be published. This is out of my control, but it's not common either. So it's something just to keep in mind if you're marketing a particular retailer, be prepared for those rare cases. And 15, does this platform requires special file types to approve my manuscript? There's a paid platform I had issues with in the past. During the pandemic, I took advantage of their free publishing offering. The file that I used for KT, P, and D to D would not work for this particular platform. I elected not to publish through this company to avoid the hassle of having to have my file reformat it, my format or couldn't figure out how to fix the file and I wasn't sure if it would be uploaded by my release date. I just gave up on it. I know that's a lot of food for thought. But if there are any other questions that you've asked yourself during this decision-making process that you still need answered, feel free to drop them in the comment section of this lecture and I'll answer them as soon as I can. Once you know where you'd like to publish your book, you can begin signing up for accounts for these distributors. Set up your profiles now and review the requirements so that there's no surprises later. You'll need to complete your tax paperwork and input your royalty payment information. You can also add your bio at this time. This way all you'll have to do is add your book blurb and description. Upload your cover and book file for final approval later. 3. ISBNS and Barcodes: We just covered how to decide who to distribute to some steps to getting started. Next up, there is an important part of your self-publishing decision process. And that's if you want to purchase your own official ISBN and barcodes. You might be wondering, what's an ISBN. Isbn stands for International Standard Book Number, and that is the unique identifier for books and book products such as audio books. That number specifies the format, addition, and publisher. It stores at all in the books in print Database for publishers, retailers and libraries worldwide. In essence, ISBN helps your book get discovered by people who you might not reach on your own because it opens new ways for your book to be seen by book buyers and libraries. If an ISBN is obtained from a source other than the official ISBN agency, it will not identify your book accurately. This can cause issues in the publishing industry supply chain. Purchasing an official ISBN is not a self publication requirement. But over the years, I've learned a lot about publishing without highly recommend it. However, it's ultimately your decision. Books in print is consulted by publishers, retailers, and libraries around the world when searching for tidal information. The ISBN conveys no legal or copyright protection. However, the use of ISBN for publication is prescribed by law in some countries. Some countries that book will be charged higher tax if it does not have an ISBN. They are the global standard for book identification. Most self-publishing platforms offer free ISBN is to publish under an exchange for owning the rights of your book, not you. Let me explain that. When you use the free ISBN is provided by your distributor, they become the publisher and now own the rights to your book. If that's not enough of a reason for you to buy an official ISBN. Know that you have options. The pros and cons to purchasing your own ISBN can be found right on their website. For starters, and ISBN improves the likelihood your book will be found in purchased. An ISBN links to essential information about your book. Isbn also enables more efficient marketing and distribution of your title. Most retailers do require ISBN and the correct use of IS VMs allow different product forums and additions of your book, whether printed or digital, to be differentiated clearly ensuring that customers receive the version that they require. Isbn is help you to collect and analyze book sale data and it ensures your books information will be stored in the books in print Database. All books need one. So whether you buy it from the official backer website or it's assigned by whoever you self-publish through is ultimately your choice. It's the way retailer is fine your book, so they can put it in their online in brick-and-mortar stores. When you purchase an official ISBN, it gives you full ownership over your own title. And the best part of self-publishing his ownership. I understand that ISP ends can be pricey, especially when you're on a budget. I'll admit that's what deterred me the first four times around. Yes. Four times I handed ownership of my title to Amazon kVp, honestly, straight out of college, I didn't have the money to purchase multiply SVMs and buying a single ISBN felt like a waste of money. I didn't budget for an ISBN and therefore I didn't have the funds for it. I also didn't see the value in it the first time around. Something I didn't know about ISBN is until purchasing my own is that you need one ISBN for each addition and format of your book. So if you have an e-book, audio book, and paperback version of the same book, you'll need three ISBN. This identifies each variation of the book properly so customers can select which version they're purchasing and sellers sent out the correct product. This is more so a retail buyer concern, but that's why you can't just have one. This is also where you have to think ahead. Isbn is never expire, but they also are registered to you. Are you planning to publish again in his lifetime? Are you planning on publishing more than one format? Do you think you'll do additional additions in the future? If so, you may want to purchase multiple ISBN. The more you buy, the cheaper it is. Purchasing them doesn't obligate you to use them at all. They don't belong to a book until you assign it to one. But it's a way to save money in the future. If you already know, you'll use them. To purchase your ISBN. You first have to set up an account with Docker. All ISBN is that you purchase will be added to your account immediately after purchase. It's not really something you have to do well in advance. On their site. It lists the best value bys if you need help deciding at the time of this recording currently the best value is to purchase ten IS VMs for $295. For some people, that's a car payment. I get it. It's expensive for a smaller publishing budget, but inexpensive knowing you own full rights over your book and we'll save money in the future for publications. A single ISBN is $125. Anybody can see it's not worth it, but if it's what you can afford it the moment and you never plan to publish again. It is the best value. After the ten ISBN is bundle, it goes up to 100, which will run your $575. That will be my next purchase. One other because it just makes sense with my publishing goals. They say if you're publishing for a more books, it's a good idea to purchase the hundred after 100,000, which costs $1,500, which for most indie authors, is not worth the investment. Others thinking about becoming an independent or small publisher may consider this option, however, you also have the option to purchase ISBN is with barcodes. The current packages are listed below. I did not purchase barcodes from my books for barcodes help with automated sales and inventory tracking. If you're selling a lot of books directly, all self-publishing platforms will provide you with a free barcode that doesn't impact your ownership if you skip purchasing your own barcode, by the way, it's a matter of preference, ease of sale. You have to decide on your distribution wants, and needs before making this decision on what you'd like to purchase and in what quantity or if at all. My first four books were published with a side ISBN is from Katie peek. At some point, I plan to republish with the ISBN Zai purchased in order to reclaim the full rights to my books and tie them under the publishing company, I started to expand and control my distribution. You can do this too. But I didn't know these things when I first started publishing. And sometimes if you know better, you do better. Some things to note about ISBN is they cannot be re-used. If you have a book, take it down, rebrand and republish it, you cannot reuse the same ISBN for the new edition. It is tied to that version of the book forever, and it cannot be assigned to a new book. If you're purchasing ISBN, you enter the numbers to your online account when it asks for the ISBN and barcode, make sure to keep note of which ISBN is are already used to cut down on confusion or mistake. The rule at the time of this recording with Katie P is that if the ISBN is assigned to you by them, your books cannot be sold anywhere else aligned. You can of course, sell your print books on your own with your personal author copies. But they are claiming ownership over your retail distribution online if you don't care, and you only want to sell on Amazon anyway. Well, that's fine too. But it's important to know this information before making that commitment. In this section, we covered what ISBN are and their purpose. Good reasons to purchase an ISBN, where to purchase ISBN and the different packages, as well as other general information about them. Next up, we're moving into pre-marketing strategies. 4. Pre-launch Marketing Strategies: Pre-launch marketing strategies six months before you release date. If not sooner, it's a good idea to come up with some strategies to sell your book. Do some research on ways to build hype and attention around your book based on current trends, your intended audience, and what tools are available to you and within your budget, when you choose to get started on marketing is up to you. But the more time you have to reach potential readers, the better. There are so many ways to bring attention to your boats. Here are a few ways I have used in the past and other indie authors have done to bring attention to their upcoming work. Utilizing your website. Many authors dedicate the homepage of their website to their upcoming book, or even create a separate page to advertise it on their website. If you have the budget and want to go the extra mile, you can purchase the URL for your book title. Think about how movies have official sites and direct people to that page for more information. Another thing is allowing for pre-orders. Just be sure whatever you promised to deliver on. Engage your audience by doing fun surveys, quizzes, polls, and questionnaires on social media. Some fun Serbia ideas can ask questions you're seriously interested in, and you can enter their names into the drawing for a chance to win a free book. You can make character quizzes to see which character they are most like. This give readers a chance to connect and wonder about the character that they are aligned with. You can set up poles on your social media to pick people's brains. And they can also align with the themes in your story. Or B, what would you do like scenario? This helps you to connect with your target audience and helps you to better understand your readers. Seek out any promotional opportunities that come your way. Just to name a few ideas, you can be a guest on someone show, attend irrelevant gathering where you can talk about your book. Ask people with a large following connected to your audience to share something about your mother. All of these are good ways to get you and your book noticed. You can host a book chat with beta readers. If you asked for permission to record, you can use clips from the conversation as promotional tools. Adding information about your book into your bio or taglines on social media can help bring attention to your work when people visit your page, sometimes people will follow you on social media on the strength that you are a writer. Also, if this is your first book, it helps for people to know what you're up to. Building or engaging with an existing community is essential. Introverts, I know you're cringing and I am guilty of staying in my own little community. But you have to put yourself out there. If you want to create a community of readers, you need to lead them to you. There are strong reading communities are online. Do your research, figure out what local reading and book events are happening in your area and go hang out, get to know people and share the word about your book. Get visual aids that support your book. These can be mood boards, quotes, internal and external book visuals, book trailers, or images that are relevant to the topic or theme of your book. To draw readers in. A visual is worth 1,000 words. Get an e-mail lists going, start collecting email addresses to send out updates about your book. You can even include special offerings and contests for people who are a part of your e-mail list. Or to get people to just sign up. Log about it. If you haven't an existing blog, who is better to write about your book that you, people still read blog posts. And this can work as an advertisement to people who want to know more about you and your book. In this lecture, I had the pleasure of presenting to you pre-launch marketing strategies and ten strategies that have worked to market books. There are many things you can do before your book is even ready for printing to help spread the word about your self-published creation. The bottom line is pre-launch marketing strategies or how you plan to tell people about your book before the release date. Do your research, make a list and plan ahead. 5. Blook Blurbs and Descriptions, and Author Bios: Now onto book blurbs, descriptions and author bios. When I was a kid, I practically lived in the library. I picked out books the old fashioned way that reading the blurbs on the back or on the inside of the book jacket for hardcover, book blurbs are not required for your book to be published. But think about yourself as a consumer. You buy something without knowing what it is. Likely not. You look at the packaging to see if it's something that you want or need. Book jackets work like your books packaging. And as an indie author, you want to give your readers more of a reason to pick up your book if it's right for that. As the author of the book, we tend to think we're the best person to write the blur. Sometimes that's not always the case. Sometimes we tend to give too much away or don't give enough. We think it's interesting because we know what our book is about. Here are some suggested ways about going about the writing of your blur. If you write it, have your beta readers critique the blurb afterward. If you don't have beta readers, then ask people what they think about the blur. Does it make them want to know more about the book? Is it intriguing to them? Is it giving too much away? You can pay someone else to write the board as well. There are people who write book blurbs, we're living. Let them do their job, right? A blurb and have a professional edit and or critique. It is also very important. All things in writing, you need to have your blur professionally edited, right? Or have several blurbs written and take a poll about which floor of his best. Listen to your audience. Blurbs and book descriptions are slightly different. On KT P e.g. they will ask for both as you set up the book for publishing, the blurred for fiction is going to sound more informal. And it's telling a story, whereas the description is going to sound more formal and direct. All the things you did for your blurb, you can do for the book description. Just keep in mind that the blurb goes on the book and the description can be viewed on a retail website. The description is also going to be longer and more detailed in the blurb most times. Another important thing to include as the author bio, that's your About Me piece. What would you like readers to know about you? Other bio should be brief and engaging. I encourage you to read all their files from best-selling writers and your genre to see what they have in common. Bias can include anything you want them to. There are no industry standards, but riders tend to include their current city and irrelevant awards and recognitions, a line about their personal life and something they enjoy. Other bio should also be critiqued and edited. They don't have to be on your book cover, but should be included in your profile upon uploading your book. In this section, we covered book blurbs and descriptions and author bios. 6. Book Launch Plan: Book launch plans. They say if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. I'm naturally a planner. I love a good to-do lists. I love a solid plan. So this is something that came naturally to me each time I set out to publish a book for you. Maybe you're used to right, innovate with uncertainty, but not having a plan for how to sell your book is not wise. You should be creating a plan for your book launch as early as possible. About launch plan is a roadmap for all the things you plan to do up until launch day. My suggestion is to map this out on a calendar. Your book launch plan includes everything it takes to prepare your book for publishing, market your book, and to prepare yourself for the big day once you've completed a manuscript. Book launches do not have to be extravagant, but they do need to be planned for. Some things may not go as planned. But once your book is published, the clock begins ticking in the first 90 days after that are crucial. This plan begins the day you launch and should be mapped out for the next 30 days at least, but preferably the next 90. No one's book launch plan is going to look exactly the same, but there will be some major similarity. 7. Conclusion: I truly hope that this horse has built up your competence, giving you insight you needed help. Do you take the guesswork out of a lot of things and streamline the self-publishing process for you. This journey won't be easy, but with the right tools, it will help you check everything off your list and do things right the first time. It's been a pleasure taking you through the checklist and it's been an honor to share my knowledge with you. I hope you learned a lot in this course that you can take on your publishing journey. Thank you for your time. If you enjoyed this course, please leave a positive review to allow other students to know how powerful this information be, your journey to becoming an author. And if you'd like to stay connected, please follow me on Instagram. We're saved my e-mail address, novel writing for beginners@gmail.com. I'd love to chat with you about your projects and help out in any way that I can. Next time, my name is Neil Hogan, Happy publishing.