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Self-Publishing Tips: Book Editing, Book Covers and Research with Dee Doanes.
So many writers keep asking me how
to self-publish books that I wanted to share Four Steps that will helping new writers out
there. I had interest in my book from a great literary agent. I decided to
self-publish when I thought about the things I could do on my own since I had a
background in marketing.
These are the Four Detailed Steps
I did, including the costs, to self-publish my book:
Step 1 Hire a Book Editor
After writing my book the
first thing I spent money on was hiring a professional book editor. Ann Kempner Fisher was
my editor. She is absolutely the best!
She’s located in the U.S. it cost $1,300 and was well worth the money. Most good and experienced editors charge $4.00- $6.00 per page. If you’re
located in the U.K. join a well-known writers group and get referrals from
writers in the group. Spending money on editing is a necessity and not an option.
Some self-published writers hadn’t done this and said publicly that paying for
a book editor was too expensive. They posted on blogs that they wanted to
publish books quickly on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).
Then I read complaints on Amazon reader forums and Good Reads forums from
readers having to struggle to read books with bad grammar, misspellings,
etc. You only have one time to impress readers and you won't get another
chance. Stephen King, James Patterson, and other professional writers always
use editors. Self-published writers have to do the same thing to compete.
Step 2 Format Book for Publication
I formatted my book for Kindle. This was difficult to do myself so I went on Fiverr.com to
find someone to format my book per KDP requirements: set up the margins, table
of contents, etc. This cost around $25. The people that do book formatting
charge by the number of pages. Fiverr is a wonderful marketplace to find all
sorts of inexpensive services for your book project including: website updates,
social media marketing, book promotions, logo/ad design, graphics, etc. Just
look for the highest rated vendor in the appropriate category and place your
order via Paypal.
Step 3 Design Book Cover
I used 99 Designs to
get a distinctive and low cost book cover illustration and design (for $299). This was a very good price since good illustration can cost around
$500-$1,000. I heard about 99 designs from fellow writer Tim Ferriss. He's
written several best sellers: The Four Hour Work Week, The Four Hour
Body, The Four Hour Chef. He really knows how to market books! 99 Designs is a crowd sourced
marketplace where several designers and illustrators submit work based on your
specifications and you choose the winner.
A book cover is an important tool
in attracting and selling your book to readers, especially for my genre which
is paranormal mystery. I saw some outstanding book cover artwork for established
paranormal writers. Then I saw some poorly designed book covers in the market
place from self-published authors. If you want to compete with mainstream
published authors you can’t look like an amateur!
Step 4 Research the Book
Marketplace
I researched my genre to see what
types of books were in the market place. I checked Amazon bestsellers lists,
Wall Street Journal bestsellers lists, and went to Barnes and Noble bookstore. This helped me prepare my market campaign for when I started promoting my book. I will discuss this in another post about book marketing. Questions to ask
yourself are: How many books out there are like your book? Are you writing a
niche topic?
Any writers interested in
learn any more self-publishing tips please check out my blog: http://www.deedoanes.com
and join my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/deedoanesauthor
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