7 Steps to Self-Publishing Every Author Needs to Follow

Self-publishing your book is a sure-fire way to getting published. Authors go one of two routes, they pitch their book to an agent and/or publisher, or they take matters into their own hands and publish the book themselves. It’s becoming more difficult to go down the traditional publishing route, therefore self-publishing provides you with flexibility to exercise your creative license as well as schedule your launch around your schedule.

If you’ve decided to go down the self-publishing route, here are the seven steps to getting yourself swooning over seeing your name in print.

1. Decide what kind of book you want to write. The beauty of self-publishing is that you decide to set your own terms. If you want to write a novel that is part coloring book, go for it. If you want to write a cookbook that has social-political commentary, you can do that too. There are no limitations or restrictions with your book style, voice, or topic. You are the publisher so you can create whatever version of your book that your imagination comes up with.

Give yourself enough time to promote your book. When you use platforms such as Lulu, Blurb, or Create Space then your book is available instantly on their websites. Pushing your book for distribution on Amazon and Barnes & Noble can take between 6-8 weeks to appear.

Once you’ve published, make sure to let the world know that your piece of magical prose is on the Internet and don’t forget to change your title in LinkedIn to “published author.”