With all the distractions facing us each day, it’s hard to maintain a publishing focus. Here’s a checklist to help you develop a plan and keep you moving forward.
Developing a plan is crucial. You disciplined yourself to write your novel, now its time to develop a strategy to get readers and sales — and the sooner you start the ball rolling, the sooner you will be up and published.
Before Your MS is Ready to Publish
Before you have dotted your last “i” and crossed your last “t”, you should have a plan on how to publish and market your book.
Initiate your plan at least 3 months before your anticipated launch date. In other words, you need a lot of time to accomplish:
- A final manuscript, polished and edited
- A well-formatted MS for digital conversion
- Formatting Service provider lined up
- The completed book cover design
- Book publishing accounts set-up and ready for publishing
- A blog or website
Preparing the Manuscript
Remember this quote:
“When in Word, you are NOT designing your book, you are preparing your book for conversion.”
NOTE: I format ebooks using a professional program and knowledge of HTML. While this may not be the option for you, (you’d rather go from Word directly to conversion) I’ve found it eliminates a lot of headaches and formatting issues. If you plan to use the Word to ebook conversion option, be sure your file is properly formatted.
Whether you plan to print a POD (print on demand) or digital book, a properly formatted word file is crucial. If you plan to publish in both print and digital, then do not design the book in your word processing program. You will just make formatting for print a lot harder.
Instead, stick to basic formatting and styles, and then modify the file in the final design program.
Publish a Blog
Whether you are shy or not, you NEED a website or blog presence. It is very easy to sign up for free accounts, such as WordPress or Blogger. Allow at least 2-3 days for set up, including adding photos and content, and refining the blog to fit your style and needs.
Book Cover Design
You NEED a professional looking cover – period. Many book buyers are driven to purchase by the cover design. And with the increased competition, you need a cover and title that stands out form the crowd.
Only plan to design your own cover is your have a background in design. A poor cover design screams a poor quality novel. Depending on the designers time schedule, plan at least 4 weeks for a final book cover.
Register for (ebook) Publishing Accounts
There are several online publishing sources: the top three being Barnes & Noble (NookPress.com), Amazon (kdp.amazon.com (ebook) CreateSpace.com (POD) and Apple iBookstore. Familiarize yourself with their publishing requirements prior to your launch date.
Apple iBookstore only allows submissions from authors who have a US tax id number (your SSN). Your submission must also be a verified EPUB file (epubcheck from threepress.org), and an assigned ISBN number to be published to their service via a Mac computer.
Smashwords is an ebook distributor that takes a lot of the work out of publishing distributing your work to all the major ebook sellers. They accept WORD formatted files and validated epub files.
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