6 Essential Steps for Self-Publishers

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You worked very hard – maybe for years – to write this magnificent book and now you want to publish it, always in the hope to become a bestseller author. Take your time now and do it the professional way, like a traditional publisher. There are several important steps to go, no matter if you create an e-book or a traditional print book.
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1. Let it edit, edit and edit some more – by professionals.
2. Find a superb title for your book.
3. Create a brilliant cover image.
4. Write a splendid description for your back cover including blurbs.
5. Hire a professional book designer (or formating service for your e-book)
6. Get lots of reviewers
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1. Editing
If you ignore all other advice’s, don’t overlook this one: Hire professional copy AND content editors. Bad editing immediately mark you as an amateur and your book will not be taken seriously.
What you can do yourself before handing them your manuscript, is letting it run through a spell check and through a grammar program, such as Grammarly.com.  But then leave it to professionals to correct your spelling, grammar and punctuation, to make the writing consistent, which is critical to readers (and reviewers). A content editor will give you feedback beyond writing mechanics that will help you bring the best out of your story.
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2. Title
Find a title that matches the content of your book. Titles create expectations. Be sure your readers won’t be disappointed when they start reading your book. Have a look at this funny blog/book with it’s amazing new titles for books: Better Book Titles.
But seriously, this is the one you should use to find a good title:
Read also these tips on Joel Friedlander’s blog:
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3. Cover Design
Visit bookstores, your library, or go to the internet and research as many book cover designs as possible. You learn as much from badly designed books as from beautifully designed books.

Avoid centering all the text on your cover or title page, this looks pretty unprofessional. Right or left aligning creates much cleaner lines. Never use more than three different fonts on your cover, to not confuse your reader – this includes bold, italic or underline variations.

View your cover always in stamp-size image – this is the size it will appear on website catalogs. Use bold or complementary colors, but NEVER use a white or a very light background as background colors on online retail sites are almost always white. And white on white… you get it. Use light font on dark background for dramatic effects (novels, spiritual, etc.) and dark on light for easy readability (self-help, how-to, business books).
And don’t forget to design spine (also called dust rag) while you’re at it.  On bookstore shelves your potential customers only see this half-inch of your book before they pull it out to have a closer look at your book.
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4. Book Description and Blurbs
Potential readers shopping for books follow an age-old browsing routine. They check out the title, then flip the book over and look at the top of the back cover for a description of what’s inside and also for blurbs (pre-publishing reviews). That’s why it is important to write a crisp, enticing summary for your back cover and to have blurbs from professionals in your field or other writers in your genre. But what to do if you don’t know any?
These days, most authors have websites and contact forms so you can get in touch. If you enjoyed their work, consider sending them a short note to let them know. It does not only make their day, but it can help them sell more books, if you allow them to use your words in their “praise” section. When your manuscript is finished ask them to return your favor. Or if you have another author mentioned in your book, ask him or her to write a short blurb for your work.

Hopefully you have been smart and started marketing and networking long before you finished your book. Now you have enough contacts made who can be helpful with blurbs and reviews.
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5. Book Design
Reading e-books is sometimes very irritating. There have often formatting problems and line breaks, or odd symbols appear instead of letters, which interrupt the pure pleasure of reading seamlessly. It is sometimes so annoying for readers that they ask Amazon to refund them – and they will get their money back, which means you as an author loose out as well.
The same is true for print book publishers. As a self-publishing author, you need a layout artist who creates a beautiful and properly designed interior for your book. See what’s involved in book layout:
And the worst 5 mistakes in interior book lay-out here:
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6. Reviews
A book review is both a description and an evaluation of a book. Try to get as many blurbs and reviews before your book is even published. You don’t need only 5-star reviews, book reviews are very subjective. But you need lots of reviews. Try to get some of professional reviewers at newspapers and magazines too, to have some literary criticism in which your book is analyzed based on content, style, and merit.(hopefully) rather than on the basis of personal taste…
Never trust family and friends to give accurate feedback about your book. Family and friends don’t want to hurt your feelings; readers and reviewers generally are not as kind.
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Using these 6 essential steps in self-publishing will help you to present a professional book to your readers. A book that will command respect and shows you not only as a brilliant author but also as a professional publisher.
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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar

Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 780+ of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and to StumpleUpon.

Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing

http://on.fb.me/TvqDaK
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

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Hyper Smash

Pingate

 

Weakness of the 5 Big Publishers

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… and what you can do better as an author-publisher.

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Large traditional publishers have relationships with book stores and book chains. They have publicists working for them to promote their books and editors to polish the final products. They have established relationships with their customers over many years or even decades. They submit books to all the major book awards. Imagine trying to research, compile, address, and pay for 200 give-away books and shipping just to put them in the hands of jurors. And I’m sure there are a lot more things that they do to get books to the readers.
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To learn where they miss the boat is to gain access to a market segment and marketing ideas that you might have overlooked.
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1. New York Publishers Don’t Think Outside the Mainstream
Publishers have particular criteria they look for in a successful book; the first is mainstream appeal, which is understandable since they have to appeal to a larger bookstore-driven market. If you have a book that is outside the mainstream, this is actually good news, unless you’re trying to find a major house to pick you up. The idea here is to understand that traditional publishing dominates the mainstream, but it’s the niches that tend to do very well. You’ll see these books in places like book clubs or the Writer’s Digest book collection and smaller, niche publishing houses.
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2. New York Publishers Don’t Do Consumer Research
Yes, often publishers do not do consumer research. How do publishers know what to publish? They tend to rely on bookstores to direct their attention, as well as trends. What does this mean for you? If you have access to consumer data, you are light years ahead of the big six. Sometimes just having a mailing list on your website or even having a website where you interact with your consumer is sufficient. If you have access to this data and you are publishing mainstream, you are a very valuable writer to any publisher out there. Having access to this data is crucial for most of us and seen as a bonus when a publisher is considering a manuscript.
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3. New York Publishers Don’t Publish to Niche Markets
Niche markets have no appeal to publishers and ironically, that’s where the trend of successful authors is headed: into the niches. Niches can be powerful but New York publishers stay away from them. Their entire model is set up to cater to mainstream product, so to slot some obscure, niche work in there would never work.
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4. New York Publishers Don’t Sell Direct to Consumers
Publishers don’t sell from their websites; many have tried and failed. Why? Because the publisher isn’t the brand, the author is. This is starting to change in some areas as publishers seek to bypass Amazon and gather their share of the consumer market. Most consumers don’t really identify with a publisher as much as they do an author or a trusted online shopping portal like Amazon or BN.com.
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5. New York Publishers Only Promote Their Authors to the Top 30 Media Markets
When publishers develop marketing plans for their books, they don’t look at markets that aren’t in the top 30.  Knowing the landscape and marketplace will position you for success and you likely won’t get caught off guard by a stumbling block or situation that could have been avoided. Know your market – the more you do, the faster you will succeed!
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Excerpts, re-blogged from “The Book Marketing Expert newsletter,” a free eZine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. http://www.amarketingexpert.com

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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar

Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 750 of them : )  if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing

http://on.fb.me/TvqDaK
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

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Hyper Smash

Pingates

 

As an Author-Publisher You Are Not Alone

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It’s an adventure for sure … and you never wanted to become an entrepreneur! You just wanted to write. Publishing and marketing are almost scary tasks for you. It seems, as if you have to learn a complete new profession. The writing is finished, yet there are so many new challenges approaching:

• proofreading and editing
• cover design and ebook formatting
• uploading to all online retailers
• choosing a print form and get a layouter
• getting articles published about you and your book

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And more questions are coming up:

• why do I have to market my book, even it is on Amazon?
• what on earth is a “platform”?
• why should I create a brand as author?
• why and how should I create a blog/website?
• why do I have to be on these social media sites?
• why join several reader forums?

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So, how can you make self-publishing and book marketing an enjoyable journey, how can you learn it all, without even studying economy, marketing, e-publishing etc ?
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Take advantage of our professional help to learn:

• how you can establish a brand as a writer
• the publishing and retail possibilities
• all the pre-publishing book marketing steps
• blogging & automatic posting of your articles to Twitter, FB, Google+, Goodreads…
• how to make lots of reader contacts on several social media sites
• researching your possible competition & popularity of genres/positioning
• how to identify your target readers & plan your blog content & marketing strategies
• how to get lots of readers & reviewers

… and the list goes on and on
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Would you learn to drive a car or fly a plane without instructor?
Compare learning to be a successful author-publisher to getting a drivers licence or learning a new language or to fly an airplane: It is frightening first, but once you have learned it – with a professional instructor on your site – and you gain self-confidence, it becomes sheer pleasure. Would you learn to drive a car, learn a new language or fly a plane without instructor?

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Everything you accomplished in life makes you proud and is fun doing! So will be author-publishing and book marketing.
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“Nobody ever made money writing a book – only by selling it”
If you want to get help and valuable support, for less than $1/per day: Sign up now for an individual Book Marketing online seminar & coaching, customized to YOUR book and your needs. Get practical support to market your book almost for free. Get all the details: www.111Publishing.com/seminar

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