Granted, I am yet to publish my riveting debut novel and establish myself as a bestseller (soon come!), but I have worked with enough authors to know a thing a two!

If you want to start a career as an author, you have two main options; you can go down the traditional publishing route or you can self publish your work. While a lot of writers do not like the idea of self-publishing and believe that the only way to make any meaningful sales is to go through traditional publishers, the former is becoming a lot more popular. It’s really up to you which way you want to go, but if you do want to self publish, it’s important that you know how to do it properly. These are some of the best tips to find success through self-publishing. 

 

Edit Your Work Properly

If you work with a traditional publisher, they will provide an editor to improve your work and make sure that there are no simple mistakes in there either. A lot of people think that editing is just about catching spelling and grammar errors but it isn’t. It’s also about improving the structure and pacing of the novel and cutting out anything that doesn’t add to the story. If you are self-publishing, you will not have access to a professional editor, unless you are willing to pay for one. That means that you need to edit your work yourself, and if you do not dedicate enough time to editing, it will show in your work. Many self-published authors fail because their work is not edited well enough, so make sure that your book is ready before you decide to publish. 

 

Be Prepared to Invest

There are some great platforms, like Amazon, where you can publish your book in digital format. However, you may also want to sell physical copies, which means that you have printing costs to cover. Even if you are only publishing digitally, you will need to spend money on marketing the book, so some investment is always required and you need to decide how you are going to cover these costs. In some cases, you may need to take out a loan, in which case you need to consider unsecured loans vs secured loans, and how you are going to repay the money. If you are going to pay out of your own savings, think about whether you will be able to sustain yourself financially afterwards. It’s important that you consider the financial aspect carefully before deciding to self publish. 

Watch Out for Scams

There are a lot of self-publishing scams out there, so you need to be careful. There are companies that offer to publish and market your book for a large fee, but in reality, they won’t really do that much at all. There are also marketing services out there for self-publishers and many of these do not really offer much in return for your payment. It is important that you avoid these scams and instead focus on using things like book blog networks and social media to do your own marketing. 

If you follow these three important tips, you stand a much better chance of success with self-publishing. Authors, editors, cover designers, publicists, and printing people, what are your tips? Let’s start the conversation below.

 

Disclaimer: this is a collaborative post and has some affiliate links.