Writing books takes a huge amount of dedication, and self-publishing a book online in 2024 requires mounds of bravery. Indeed, with no traditional publisher to back you, creating a published book all on your own means following many steps. You’ll need to take the time to not only come up with a story that satisfies your readers’ demands, but also master the ins and outs of editing your own work, proofread, design, and finally self-promote on social media to make those well-deserved sales.
Self-Publishing in a Nutshell
Self-publishing a book has long been thought of as a second-rate solution to sell your work to an audience. Come 2024, talented writers know that it’s a fabulous option that avoids numerous hassles such as low royalty rates and unrealistic demands from traditional publishers.
One of the most popular online platforms available is right under our noses. Amazon has an excellent self-publishing scheme called Amazon KDP which is great for beginners. This method is relatively straight forward: upload your book and cover to the platform, price it how you see fit, keeping in mind the relatively high Amazon royalties, and ta-dah! You are now a published author. Naturally, this is all fine and well, but self-publishing and selling a book in 2024 takes great finesse and the ability to follow a series of steps laid out by bona fide authors.
Writing Your First Draft
Building out your first draft is the hardest part of becoming an author. That blank page is a scary thing, and being able to create even the roughest of drafts is demanding. Don’t hesitate to regularly reward yourself for all your hard work, and break the book down into manageable pieces instead of trying to write it all at once. Avoid editing yourself as you go, the most important part of creating your first draft is to get it written down. You’ll have plenty of time to fiddle with commas and spell checking online platforms later.
Don’t Forget to Proofread
As magical as your first draft is, there’s a fat chance it’s also full of typos and grammatical mishaps. Don’t fret, all authors have this experience as they write. As such, make sure to check your work several times before handing it off to one of ComeUp’s expert proofreaders. These sellers, as your first audience, will be the ones to shamelessly pinpoint the errors in your work and provide you with helpful feedback to edit your precious pages with. Don’t be too proud to accept constructive criticism, in particular when your social circle might not give it to you to spare your feelings!
Get a Second Opinion
Once your manuscript is spic and span, it’s a good idea to have someone beta-read your written work to check for things like story consistency in fiction books and accessibility in a non-fiction piece. In order to be taken seriously as a self-published author, it’s crucial that your work make sense to the people, and not just to you. ComeUp is happy to come to the rescue with our selection of beta reading services. The person who beta reads your book will surely become your trusted advisor on whether you’ve done enough to sell your writing to the public.
Design is Everything
Once you’ve done your best to make your book look its best on the inside, it’s time to start formatting to prepare for your first sales. This essential step in publishing online is not to be skipped! Ensuring that your soon-to-be published book has immaculate 1-inch margins, consistent Arial (or Times if you’re fancy) fonts, and relevant page breaks after each chapter is an essential job. You may, however, want to outsource to an online platform seller. The reason why? It can be quite tiring for the untrained eye to do this type of formatting, and as such finding someone to perform this service is generally a good idea. ComeUp hosts a wide variety of sellers who are more than up to the task of making your book look as professional as it deserves.
Creating the Perfect Book Cover
Book cover creation is something that many authors might attempt for themselves due to the wide range of user-friendly platforms that are great for this sort of task. While you may be a skilled graphic designer, your focus should be on writing and selling your self-published work and not on spending hours debating whether your book is more of a teal or sky blue. Instead, finding an indie graphic designer on ComeUp will make your life much easier, and may even have your cover ready by the next day for you to examine with your morning coffee (or Froot Loops, no judgments here). This expert will create a print or ebook cover that will stand out from the crowd and represent your writing in its best light. Debating between two finished covers? Look to your social media followers to help you decide!
Ready, Set, Launch!
Now that you have a neat manuscript and inspiring cover, you’re ready to publish and sell your book to Amazon KDP. To do this, start by creating an account with KDP and following basic instructions, such as deciding on a title, a glossy or matte cover, and your chosen page size. Next up, you’ll create a few keywords that best describe your book so that readers who are looking for, say, a romance novel based in southern Asia know to find you under keywords such as “romance”, “love”, “travel”, and “Asia”. Then comes the arduous task of pricing your ebook. It’s best to sell a little on the high side of what you consider a fair offer, especially if you want print copies. After all, you did spend time and resources writing the book, so your sales should reflect this! Amazon KDP also takes a cut to cover the cost of printing and shipping the book, which can start at $1 and end around $30 if you have a photography book with several hundred pages.
Marketing
It’s all fine and well to have self-published books, but without a firm hand on your marketing tactics, you won’t be going very far. A resourceful way to market your book is to offer snippets by posting them on your favorite social media platforms in conjunction with fierce visual content. Another commonly used strategy to boost sales is to use distribution methods, such as asking readers for ratings in exchange for a free PDF of the book. This builds up interest in your community and social media network while gently tilting the Amazon KDP algorithm your way. If spoken word is more up your alley, appearing on an authors’ podcast or talk show platform can work wonders.
Final Thoughts
Amazon KDP is a great option for beginners to the world of self-publishing books since it’s free to use. The platform itself will support authors through every aspect of getting their book on the Amazon website from hosting to distribution, and it won’t cost a dime. There are, however, some costs to consider when choosing to publish a book on Amazon. For example, when writing a picture heavy book, such as a travel guide or a cookbook, it’s heavily encouraged to hire a professional photographer. This will probably be the most expensive part of creating your book. These books are also likely to have lower royalties since Amazon will take a larger cut.
You’ll also want to hire someone reputable to do your proofreading and formatting, as this is such an important part of the book creation process. On ComeUp, seller offers begin at $10, but the sky is the limit when it comes to our services! Similarly, don’t be afraid to spend a little more on your book cover, just because it is the first thing your demanding audience will see when they are browsing for options. Services ranging from $10 to $50 exist on ComeUp to help make the process that much easier.
ComeUp is an excellent path guide to support authors during their self-publishing book adventure because its sellers will help maximize efficiency. This platform and its services free up time for authors to focus on writing.
