Where to start when self-publishing

You’ve decided to self-publish your book… What now? 

Self-publishing can feel overwhelming, especially if it’s your first book. Some tips can help you streamline the process and maybe even enjoy it. Here’s a high-level roadmap to get you started. 

Make a schedule

It sounds simple, but when you self-publish, you need to keep track of everything your publisher would normally track. Decide what your ideal launch day is and work backwards. Build in at least a month for you to find and give your book to ARC readers (and alpha and beta readers if you’re going that route, too). If you’re working with a developmental editor and/or line editor, then you’ll want to build in another couple of months, depending on the editor’s time requirements. And all of this is before you even finish writing the book. 

When you build a schedule, it helps you see the whole picture at once and helps you stay on track. 

Create a budget

You know when you want to publish, now you need to think about how much you’re willing to set aside. There’s almost an infinite amount of things you can spend money on when you release a book, so narrow down the list to what is necessary and what you can afford. Some considerations are:

• Editing

• Book formatting

• Cover design

• ISBN numbers

• Copyrighting

• Marketing

Just know that it is possible to publish a book for $0, meaning you don’t need a budget at all. That said, paying for things like editing and cover design can help you get more positive reviews and start building up your readership. 

Decide on your formats

The freedom of self-publishing means that you get to choose what format your book is in. Maybe you only want ebooks so that you can forego formatting issues that hard copies can introduce. It’s possible your budget only accommodates one ISBN, which means that you can only use that on one format (though there are ways for the platform, like KDP, to provide a free ISBN, but it’s only usable on that specific platform). If you want to produce an audiobook, that is a different production schedule and also requires an ISBN. 

Write the book

You can work on all of the above tasks while you’re still writing your book. Make sure to do continuing research while you’re writing so that you know what trends are happening in your genre. 

But the most important part is to write the book. If that feels overwhelming, remember that just 200 words per day will give you a 73,000 word book in a year’s time. You can do it! 

If you want to use a foolproof 13-step plan to help you get started, you can find it here.