So You Want to Self-Publish?




If reading of my self-publishing experience over the past two weeks has inspired you to self-publish you own book, here are links to the major publisher/distributors. Best of all, publishing on each of these platforms is free and as easy as uploading your Word document.


  • Amazon's Kindle: Go to dtp.amazon.com to set up your account. This is the best place to start since Amazon's ebook sales make up over 70% of all sales, thanks in large part to their hugely popular Kindle platform. Setting up your account and uploading your cover art and manuscript is easy and will take no more than thirty minutes. After that, it takes Amazon about 48 hours to approve and publish your book to Amazon.com. After you've published your book, you'll want to set up your Author's page, which will allow you to introduce yourself to readers. Also, Amazon's help desk was very responsive when I had questions.

  • Smashwords.com is the second most popular site to upload books. The advantage of Smashwords is that it publishes your book in several different formats for all ebook platforms. You can also submit your book to their premium catalogue which allows distribution to other ebook sites.

  • pubit.barnesandnoble.com is a relatively new publishing arm set up by Barnes and Noble to compete with Amazon's success. I've had mixed results with this site. Originally everything went smoothly, but when I had to reload my manuscript after some additional editing, the book failed to show up on Barnes and Noble's site. My repeated emails asking for help were met with silence. 
To get more information about the self-publishing your ebook, I'd like to recommend the following sites:

  • JA Konrath's site: A Newbie's Guide to Publishing is by my estimation, the best site for those interested in self-publishing via ebooks. JA Konrath is incredibly generous in sharing his experiences and success in publishing his 29 novels. 


  • Karen McQuestion's blog has been a wonderful resource to discover how another author self-published to great success.
So there you have it, the bare-bones basics of ebook self-publishing. My next adventure will be learning how to market my book. If you have suggestions, please leave a comment below!

Comments

I love this! Regardless of how one is published, we can all learn TONS from the committed self-published writers. Thanks for commenting on my blog, so I could follow you over here.
larramiefg said…
Marketing, then promotion?
Unknown said…
great information here for those who want to start their own blog.. thank you zebra rug black and white

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