The Self-Publishing Journey: Blank Page to Best Seller in Six Months
We did it! From firming up the concept of The Elegant Lay Reader to the launch on Amazon, it was precisely six months! I had a lot of help, from a coaching program, from beta readers, from the professionals I hired to edit, format, and design the cover, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Here are the basic steps I took to get the book done. And I recommend this system to anyone thinking about writing their own book:
1 . Tons of brainstorming. I used a method called mind mapping, where you just sort of methodically write down everything that might pass for an idea. First for the book, then for chapters, and then for smaller sections.
2. First draft. Write, write, write. This first draft will almost always be terrible. Get it out of your system, fundamentally rethink the project, and try again. Get tons of words on paper, like tens of thousands. Stop when you just can’t write any more.
3. Second draft. Take all those tens of thousands of words and arrange them in a logical and persuasive order. Add more where you need to smooth things out. Take out stuff that really doesn’t help. Have some trusted friends read through it and see where they lose the plot, so to speak. Ask what they really like. Use this feedback if it’s helpful and toss it if it isn’t. Massage it a little more.
4. Hire a good editor. These people are worth their weight in gold. Some editors just check for grammar and spelling errors, others will help you with the bigger picture—the sequence of ideas, good flow, and more. My editor did both, and she was phenomenal. No body’s perfect, but she caught so much! She made my writing better and really cheered me on, even as she cleaned up my messes.
5. After you and your editor go back and forth a few times tweaking this, adjusting that, and you’re satisfied that it’s about as good as it will get, you can show it to more readers. You’ll get feedback on what will be close to the finished product. Very helpful.
6. Now it’s off to the formatter. Kindle has very specific specifications for the manuscript so that the digital links will work properly and that the internal navigation will do what it should. I’m not interested in learning how to do that. My formatter handled both the Kindle version and designed the print version, and did a really great job. Again, we still found a few typos here and there, but this gave us time to fix them. (FYI, you can update your manuscript over and over if you need to, on the Amazon site, even after your book is published.)
7. Get someone to design your cover. You can pay anything from a few bucks to a few hundred bucks, and generally, it’s better to pay as much as you can afford for a good cover. Your cover will sell your book, or, kill it. Despite the common admonition, everyone judges books by their covers. Get a good one. There are some standard guidelines for what makes a good cover that we can talk about in the future.
8. Upload your manuscript(s), Kindle and then paperback, to Amazon, and they do the rest. The Kindle book is delivered instantly to anyone who buys it, and the paperback book is printed on demand and shipped out from Amazon directly. Gone are the days when authors must buy hundreds of books and store them in the garage, praying that someone will buy them.
9. Market the book. This is a huge topic and one I’m still working on. I’m approaching this as a marathon and not a sprint. Since the lay reading niche is pretty small, I’ll be using some specialized, organic methods to get the word out about the book. Already there are rumors of opportunities to do in-person lay reader trainings for some churches where the book has been shared.
If you have a God-glorifying book burning inside you, let’s talk about how I can help you get it out of your head and out into the world! Drop me a note at editor@goodshepherdpubishing.com.