Baby Steps to Publishing

The second season of my podcast Coffee and Catastrophe is underway.  You can check out both season one and the current posted episodes of season two by clicking the Podcast tab above.

As many of you know, I started spending a lot of time on KBoards toward the end of 2016 as I tried to wade through the ever-changing world of marketing for indie books.  Lately I've been seeing a ton of posts by newbie authors asking about what they need to do since finishing their first manuscript.

So this season Brian and I are focusing on talking about various insights into the self-publishing realm.  The latest episode 2.3: Baby Steps to Publishing offers an overview of the steps newbie authors need to take when they prepare for self-publishing that first book.  Since Brian and I tend to yak a lot in between each step, I'm posting the list we discussed below.

1.  Write Your Book - make it the very best it can be

2.  Edit, Edit, and Edit Some More - from self-editing methods to proofing and developmental

3.  Develop a Team of Beta Readers - find people who will give you helpful, solid, and specific feedback

4.  Set Up Website/Blog/Social Media/Mailing List - limit social media initially to what you can keep up with on a regular basis, but be sure to create a mailing list link so readers can sign up for new releases

5.  Get a Professional-Looking, Genre Appropriate Cover - strong legible fonts readable in thumbnail, avoid busyness, and avoid too much flat black

6.  Decide Where You're Going To Sell Your Book - will you stick to one site (KU?), use an aggregator, or go all in wide
- www.kdp.amazon.com
- press.barnesandnoble.com
- www.writinglife.kobobooks.com
- download iTunes Producer
- aggregators www.smashwords.com or www.draft2digital.com

7.  Select Keywords and Categories - study your genre and choose up to 10 keywords and 2 genre classification categories

8.  Prep Front and Back Matter - your formatted manuscript will need a table of contents, legal disclaimers, cover artist information, author bio, dedication, acknowledgements, and a link to that mailing list you've created

9.  Develop an ARC team - don't know what that is, then listen to the podcast

10. You'll have to listen to the podcast to find out this all-important last step

Be sure and listen in to podcast 2.2 on how to avoid scams and scammers.  They're rife in the indie world, so make sure you're prepared for how to deal with them - 'cause you WILL have to deal with them.

Until next time, happy reading!