The Complete Guide to the Online Book Publishing Process
The publishing process can be overwhelming for a self-published author.
With everything you need to keep track of, from writing to publishing your book, you may feel like the entire process is impossible, mainly because you don’t know where to start.
But it would be best if you considered all of these things:
- How much editing do you have to do?
- Who do you include in the entire book publishing process?
- Where do you publish, and how do you get your book?
So if you love to write and want to put what you have created out for people to read, you might be wondering, what do you need to do, and how do you start? Below are the steps needed how to publish a book on Amazon. You can even use it as a template for any other books you want to publish online.
Write your manuscript.
Before you start the rest of your publishing process, you’ll need to write your manuscript. This can be daunting if you don’t know where to start or what to say.
First, you need to choose a topic you’re passionate about. This can be a genre that you are fond of reading. Or issues and current trends that you often pay attention to. Then, you can brainstorm ideas and decide what you want to cover in your book.
If you’re not interested in what you’re writing about, chances are that others won’t be either.
Include personal anecdotes and stories in your book if possible (but only if they’re relevant). Personal stories make books more interesting than just reading dry facts or statistics on paper.
Don’t fret too much about grammar or spelling errors while writing — you can always fix these things later. Just concentrate on getting your ideas down on paper, so they don’t get lost in the shuffle later when things get busy.
Most authors say they spend more time planning their book than writing it. But if you’re worried about not having enough time in your schedule, it’s important to remember that you don’t need to write your book all at once or even in one sitting.
Edit your book.
The next step is to edit. The amount of editing you need will depend on the length and complexity of your book. Editing includes copyediting, such as checking for grammar and spelling, and substantive editing, like checking for content.
One of the best ways to edit your book is by reading it aloud. This helps catch many issues with sentence structure and word choice that are easy to miss while reading silently. Reading out loud also gives you a sense of how long the chapters are so that they aren’t too short or too long.
If you have the funds, you can hire a copyeditor. Hiring one is not just a good idea; it’s an essential part of the publishing process.
The editor is your last line of defence. They will critique your work and help ensure it’s as polished as possible before it goes into the world.
When you hire an editor, you should expect a professional who has the following qualities:
- They have experience with books in your genre. For example, an editor specializing in romance novels might not be the right person to edit your thriller novel.
- They must be familiar with book-publishing conventions. The rules are different for novels, nonfiction books, and textbooks, so finding someone who understands how each genre works is essential.
- Someone who has worked on multiple projects similar to yours before — in length, style, and subject matter — so they knows what it takes to produce quality work in those categories.
Design your cover.
Your cover draws people in and makes them want to read your book. It sets the tone for the book and lets readers know what kind of story they’re getting into.
Many resources are accessible to help you create a cover that reflects your vision for your book. For example, if you have access to Adobe Photoshop or similar software, you can use it to make your cover.
Many authors choose this route because they know exactly what they want their cover to look like, and it’s easy enough for them to do it themselves.
However, if you’re not a designer, you may want to hire someone else to do this for you. Especially if you don’t have any experience with graphic design software, it’s probably best to hire an experienced designer instead of trying to do it yourself.
Format your book for publication.
The formatting process is critical to the success of your self-published book.
If you do the formatting incorrectly, the reader will not enjoy the reading experience, and they may even be discouraged from purchasing future books from you.
It’s important to note that formatting is different from editing.
Formatting is how you lay out the words on the page; editing refers to correcting grammar, spelling, and sentence structure errors. Many formats are available for self-published books, but you can use either Microsoft Word or Adobe InDesign for ebooks and print books.
Both programs have free online templates that make it easy to format your book correctly with just a few clicks of the mouse.
To help you with the formatting, you can also get feedback from others who have already published their ebooks. This will give you an idea of how well they sell and what kind of information people like reading about most.
It will also help you figure out how much money you can expect to make from each book sale and whether or not it’s worth pursuing this career path.
Test your ebook.
Once you’ve written your ebook, you want to test it out on as many people as possible. An excellent way to do this is by creating a free book sample and sending it out to friends and family.
This is a great way to get feedback on your book and find out if there are any errors or mistakes in it that need fixing.
The feedback from these people will help you improve the quality of your book overall, so make sure you listen carefully to what they have to say about it.
If you have an iPhone, iPad, or Android phone, test your book on each one.
If you plan to sell internationally, test the book on a Kindle or Kobo eReader. The more devices you can try on, the better.
Ask friends or family members if they could help test your book by reading through it on their device.
Even though they won’t know what they’re looking at when they read through it (it doesn’t look like a print book), their feedback will still help identify any issues with formatting and layout before publishing.
Announce your ebook’s release date.
The next step in ebook publishing is announcing your ebook’s release date.
You can do this via an email campaign, social media channels, or both.
You can use MailChimp to create an email template and schedule the emails to go out at specific times with a link to your book’s page on Amazon.
You’ll want to make sure you have enough time between the announcement and release date so that people have time to buy it before it goes out of stock.
If you’re using Amazon KDP Select, you can set up pre-orders for your book, ensuring enough copies are available when it launches.
Publish your book on Amazon Kindle.
Amazon is one of the most popular publishing platforms for self-publishing authors.
It offers various services, including distribution through Amazon’s ebook store (the Kindle Store), print-on-demand publishing, and marketing tools like Amazon Author Central and Goodreads.
You can start by uploading your manuscript directly to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) using the KDP Web Service or submitting it through their desktop software.
Once they approve your book for publication, you can set prices, enrol in KDP Select, add categories and keywords, set up a cover image, and then publish.
Final Thoughts
Many people assume that if they write something or want to share their ideas with others on the internet, they should just put it up on their blog or website instead of bothering with an ebook.
That’s not true! Blog posts are great — they’re short bits of information that can be quickly read over coffee or while waiting in line at the grocery store.
But books are different; they’re meant for longer-form reading sessions where people can truly immerse themselves in your world.
There are a lot of people who want to publish their books but don’t know where to start. As you research the topic, write the manuscript and get it ready for publication, there are many steps to keep track of.
So if you’re one of those people, this guide will help you walk through the entire process of publishing an ebook on the internet.
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