Self Publishing in Five Easy Steps

The “self” in self publishing can be a little confusing. It’s self-serve in the sense that you can publish almost instantly and theoretically do it all yourself, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Turns out, there’s more to it than just putting your book out there and seeing what happens. Ideally, you’ll have other people’s help as well. Here, we’ll run through the basics of self publishing in five steps.

There’s more to self publishing than meets the eye.

Self Publishing Is Not Step One

Luckily, the publishing bit itself is actually pretty easy thanks to platforms like Kindle Unlimited/KDP, Draft2Digital, and IngramSpark, to name a few. You may want to jump straight to this part. Don’t do it yet!

Step One: Create Your Masterpiece

First, write a great book. Simple enough, right? Ha! Fortunately, we offer tons of helpful resources for that part. That’s a topic for a whole slew of existing blog posts! For the sake of brevity, let’s assume you’ve already done this work.

In the words of David Gaughran, “As soon as you write ‘The End,’ your book is now a product.” And products require testing and marketing. In the traditional publishing world, agents and publishers take care of some of that. But in self publishing, you have the control—and responsibility—to handle both.

Step Two: Establish Yourself for self publishing

What happens if someone finds your book with no marketing on your part whatsoever (a small miracle in itself)? Make sure your author platform is set up for success so your readers can find you and anything else you write.

Step Three: Connect with Others

Beta and Sensitivity Readers

Before you release your work to the whole world, use beta and sensitivity readers. Beta readers can give you opinions, impressions, and main takeaways. Sensitivity readers are especially important if you are writing characters outside of your own lived experience. Don’t ask your mom! Strangers will be much more inclined to give you true, unbiased feedback. (I happen to be one of them, offering beta reading, sensitivity reading, and proofreading at Good Story Editing.)

Editors

Yes, of course we’re going to say you should get your manuscript edited, but it’s all what you make of it. Ask anyone and you’ll hear the same thing. Your book/product will be better and more marketable with editing … if you’re willing to revise. There’s a lot to developmental, line, and copy editing, but here are the quick and dirty definitions when you’re approaching self publishing:

developmental editing = big picture (structural)

line editing = sentence level (sensical)

copy editing = the fiddly bits (spelling)

Depending on how much feedback you’ve received and how many revisions you’ve done, you’ll need to spend more or less time here.

Cover Designers

Again, could you do this yourself? Probably. Canva even has a template for it. But Canva doesn’t have the industry knowledge of a professional designer. You probably don’t, either. However tempting it may be to save money here, don’t make the mistake of undervaluing art when self publishing. Your book cover is going to be on pretty much everything with your face on it from here on out, so you should really love it. Enough to look at it all the time. So, is it worth the cost? Absolutely. People really do judge books by their covers.

Launch Team

This is seen as more of an optional thing, but a great idea to get support for your book launch. There are professionals who do this, of course. Your writing group could work just as well. The main takeaway here is to have a launch plan in place so that when your book goes live, it’s not just floating around the world wide web: people actually know it’s there. (We can help with custom author marketing plans.)

Target Audience 

Who’s going to read your book? Who is going to be really excited about it and share it with others? These are the people it will benefit you to connect with before you self publish your book. The best place to do this is through your author platform, where you’ll command interest. You can even run tests to see which book cover, scene, or character name resonates the most.

Step Four: Formatting

If you’re lucky, your editor/s or the platform you choose will include this step. I can tell you right now that 14 pt. Comic Sans isn’t going to fly. When in doubt, use 12 pt. Times New Roman with 1” margins. Beyond that, you’ll want to check with the publishing tool you’ll be using or outsource with Reedsy, Fiverr, Upwork, or others.

Step Five: Self Publishing

Finally, it’s time for self publishing your book! You’ll want to research your options and decide what formats you want, like print, ebook, audiobook, or all three. Other factors you might consider in choosing your platform are cost, whether you can get advance copies, whether you need to purchase ISBNs, and royalties. Ultimately, these are personal decisions requiring more or less investment of time, energy, and funds. To some degree, your budget and lifestyle will guide your decisions.

I wish you all the best in this creative journey! Join us at Good Story Learning for endless resources and a writing community at your fingertips. You can also work with one of our Good Story Editing book editors to make sure the manuscript is as strong as possible—after all, you need another set of eyes before you press “publish”!