So You Want to Write a Book?
You have an idea for a book. Maybe it's a novel. Maybe it's a non-fiction work bringing your unique ideas and solutions to the world. But you’re at the early stages and don’t have a full sense of the task ahead of you.This is not "How to Self Publish a Book in a Month." You could probably do it in a month, but it wouldn't be a book anyone would want to read. In reality it'll take a year or two. I don't mean to discourage you, only prepare you for the task ahead.
That said, there are some things this post won't be covering. Here are some things you should be aware of that are outside the scope of this post. When thinking of your book you need to look at the bigger picture, and that includes marketing and promotion. You need to promote yourself as an author and have a platform that contains all your writing efforts where you can connect with your fans, letting them know of new books that are coming out, and how to stay connected with you. This platform is your website, which should be optimized for SEO, have a blog, and an email-gathering process.
I only mention these things up front because, as an author, this is one of the realities you must face. Are you up to the task? You don't have to have all the technical skills yourself; there are a lot of resources available. The important thing to remember is it isn’t just about this one book. You have to be prepared and committed for the long journey as an author. Otherwise you’ll be putting all the effort in producing your book for a limited audience—yourself and immediate friends and family.
Producing Your Book
Now let’s just focus on the production of this one book. It’s easy to get frustrated with how long it takes, because I can assure you, it will take longer than you think. But if you have an idea of the scope and process you can prepare yourself. Even with traditional publishers it can take two years to publish a book.I’m outlining the steps a self-publishing author needs to be aware of to prepare a high-quality, physical printed book available for purchase on Amazon.
Why Not Just an Ebook?
What about just making it available as an ebook? Won’t that be faster—and cheaper? Not really. Most books are still purchased as physical books so that should be your focus. Also, creating the ebook version is just a final step in the overall process. All the layout work has to be done anyway, so there is no savings in bypassing the printed version. And more important, ebook sales and distribution is plateauing, and will dramatically limit your audience if that is the only route you take.Steps in Book Production
As I said earlier, book production can take up to two years. Of course there are exceptions. If you are an experienced, fast writer, if the editing process doesn’t require much revision, and if you don’t need any illustrations, your book could be produced in less time. But all of the following steps still need to be addressed.Inside of book
- Write the book. Learn the craft of writing or none of the rest of this matters.
- Editing (multiple rounds, not optional). Self-publishing authors frequently skip this step—because of the time and cost—and that's why there is a stigma around self-publishing. Again, if you skip this step your book will suck.
- Revisions
- Illustrations (optional). And potentially expensive—unless you are the artist.
- Dedication (optional)
- Acknowledgments (optional)
- Author bios. You need two of them: 1) a short paragraph for the back cover, 2) a long bio, around 350 words, for inside, at the end of the book.
- Author photo (optional)
- Design and layout. For best results use Adobe InDesign or Microsoft Word. KDP offers a downloadable template for Word with built-in style sheets. If you don't know how to use style sheets, learn. It will save you hours of headache later.
- Indexing (optional)
- Stay-in-touch page. A page directing readers to your website and how to follow you on social media.
- ISBN number for copyright page (see below).
Book cover—front, back and spine
- Cover design
- Layout the full cover (front, back, spine). This can only be completed after you’ve created an account with KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing, Amazon’s self-publishing service; you, as the author, will have to set up the account since it asks for your personal banking info—Amazon needs to know where to send the royalty payments for books that sell).
- During the signup process you will be asked to enter the title, sub-title, author name, and other info. This is a very important step since you can’t correct any mistakes or misspellings once the ISBN number has been generated; The ISBN number is directly connected to this info so it must be entered carefully. Once the account is set up you will receive your book's ISBN number that needs to be put on the copyright page.
- You have to choose the paper stock it will be printed on (you need to order physical samples of two books printed on the different paper stocks—allow shipping time and costs). The choice of paper stock is needed to calculate the thickness of the book, which determines the spine artwork.
- Once you select the paper stock, KDP will generate the template needed to assemble all the cover artwork, which you'll use in Adobe Photoshop or other image editing program.
- Written summary for back cover of book. This is usually a paragraph or two, and is very important. It is the one piece of info that shows up on your Amazon book page description that lets people know if this is what they’re looking for.
- For best results the cover elements should be assembled using Adobe InDesign, because of its text handling capabilities. It will export the final PDF file needed for KDP.
Final steps
- Sign in to your account, upload all the files, and run it through KDP's approval-checking software. If there are errors, fix them, then re-upload and try again.
- When it passes the approval-checking software, order a printed physical copy to be shipped to you for final proofing.
- After you receive the proof copy, carefully read and check everything. This is your last chance to correct anything.
- Make your final changes. You can either order another proof copy or say “approved with changes.”
- Once you approve the printed proof, press submit and you’re finished, yay! It will be live on Amazon and you can copy and share the link on social media.
Summary
Is your head swimming? It’s a lot to take in. Your actual process may involve more or fewer steps, but the question you want to ask yourself is, “Am I willing to invest this kind of effort?” Remember, this is for one book. You get to rinse and repeat for every book.This is where developing your author platform comes in. As a self-published author all the marketing and promotion is up to you. The commitment isn’t just for writing this one book. The commitment is to be an author and connect with your audience over the long term.
Writing and publishing a book has always been one of the more complicated endeavors a person can tackle. Robert Louis Stevenson said, "Anybody can write a short story—a bad one, I mean—who has industry and paper and time enough; but not every one may hope to write even a bad novel. It is the length that kills."
The good news is you don’t have to do it all alone. There are resources to help along the way.
Watch for upcoming posts outlining additional resources to help you on your writing journey.
