Fast Self-Publishing Online

Never Revealed Before

Let me take you by the hand and show you what I’ve never revealed before – that is, my system for becoming a self-published author.

That is, of course, if you want to get your hands on this information as soon as possible.

Feeling lost

Have you ever wondered WHY you are feeling lost and unsure about how to get started with self-publishing a book?

Perhaps it is your know-how that’s lacking that can end up in your not having the confidence to make the decision to step out and give it a go. 

It’s scary and you may feel that you don’t have the backbone to embrace something new.

Maybe it is too much of a challenging adventure.

You are frightened that you could make a mess of everything.

Doing things like handling your own marketing is outside your capabilities.

You are a creative, not a promoter. You don’t believe that you possess the necessary aptitude or skills for marketing online and building your author platform.

But the problem is you know that if you continue to ignore the marketing side of your book business you will become disillusioned when there are no sales and there is no income.

Goodbye to challenges

But you can say goodbye to those feelings of being lost, the frustrations, the procrastination, and not ever realising your dream.

Struggles with getting started will diminish your determination and drive to become a self-publisher. 

If you want to

• experience the thrill of having your books published,  
• open up pathways to multiple streams of income 
• be empowered as a successful self-published author
• experience the jubilation when you make that first sale and then have ongoing sales
• celebrate and enjoy that sense of empowerment because of your self-publishing achievement, and
• make your dent in the world

then The Self-Publishing Genius is designed just for you.

My role as a self-publishing coach is to help you navigate the ‘cyberspace maze’ that you as an author may experience when embarking on your journey.

The secret

I’ll let you in on a little secret.  There is something you haven’t been told.

It’s the secret to creating a book in 30 days, publishing it without breaking the bank, getting it to market within 24 hours, and launching it successfully even if you’ve never done it before.

The people who are getting great results in this area are playing by a different set of rules.

There’s something they know… which YOU DON’T.

Do you know what it is?

The answer

They’re using a secret which makes things much easier for them.

And if you were using it too then your results could be completely different.

I want to personally invite you to my FREE training where I’ll walk you step-by-step through my system which will change your results forever.

Marji Hill

Author and Coach

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How To Market Your Book

Marketing

“I don’t know how to market my book.” This is a real concern among aspiring authors. I understand you probably feel apprehensive about having to handle your own marketing to make sales when you first self-publish your book, so knowing how to market your book is a challenge.

There is a multitude of strategies you can use to promote your book and reach your target audience. Here are just 8 tips to help you start your marketing journey.

Target audience

Define your target audience. identify your ideal readers and understand their interests and behaviours. This will help you tailor your marketing efforts to reach them effectively.

Even before you start writing your book, you should make sure you know the kind of book you want to write, and who will want to read it.

Author platform

Build an author platform. Establish a presence on social media platforms, create a website or blog, and engage with your readers.  

Your website is where you establish your brand persona. It’s your hub.

Invite people to your website to learn more about you. It’s where people will go when they want to follow you and find out more about you. From here you will build a following and connect with potential readers.

Book reviews

Encourage readers to review your book on platforms like Amazon or Goodreads. Positive reviews can help boost your book’s visibility and credibility.

Book giveaways

Consider offering free copies of your book through giveaways or contests. This can create a buzz and attract potential readers.

With Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Select you can do a 5-day free promotion to help you get your book noticed and build up those all-important reviews on Amazon.

Paid Advertising

Paid advertising is an option either on social media platforms like Facebook or Amazon.

Events

Participate in book events: Attend book fairs, author readings, local writer’s groups, and other book-related events to connect with readers and promote your book.

Influencers

Work with bloggers, or social media influencers to promote your book to their followers.

Email marketing

Email marketing is very powerful. Build an email list and send out newsletters or broadcasts to keep your readers informed about your book and other related news.

Creating and maintaining an email list is one of the best things you can do to secure the sales of your current and future books. You can develop a real relationship with your email subscribers and turn them into paying customers. 

Marketing a book takes time and effort. You need to be persistent and keep trying different strategies until you find out what works best for you.

Marji Hill

Author and Coach

Join Facebook Group: Fast Self-Publishing Online

Good Metadata for Book Sales

Good metadata for book sales is a strategy that needs to be part of an author’s marketing arsenal. Quality metadata helps the discoverability of your book. This in turn can boost sales.

Incorporating quality metadata into your sales strategy is basic for all successful indie authors.

What is metadata

Metadata is information that describes your book. It includes the title, subtitle, price, publication date, ISBN, author bio, book description, and any other relevant information that readers use to find your book.

Metadata lets librarians and booksellers know which category to place your book and where to shelve it. BISAC codes, for example, explain a book’s genre and help its positioning.

Metadata is information that can be used in many places.

A lot of time and energy might be spent creating good book metadata but once it’s done, you’ll have a great marketing tool that helps customers discover your book.

Metadata, together with relevant keywords and phrases, enables you to write a good author bio and book description. This helps search engines bring attention to your book when users search for relevant words or phrases.

Once you’ve created the metadata store it in its own, dedicated document file. This is a huge time saver. Draw on this metadata when you need it because there are just so many places this data can be used and placed. 

Keywords

Make a record of words and short phrases that you think potential customers might enter into a search engine or website to find you and your book. The more specific the keywords and phrases are, the more likely the person searching for those specific words will be happy to find your book among the search results. 

There are different ways for finding keywords. You can do a search on Amazon; you can use the Google Keyword Search tool to help you think of other keywords for your book; there is Publisher Rocket which is another great way.

Book description

Not only should your book descriptions grab the attention of customers, but they should also be informative, compelling, and full of keywords. When a customer comes to your sales page it should lure the customer in to make that buying decision.

Similarly, the author biography, should be succinct and keyword-rich. This author bio and the book description are your opportunities to make an impression, so make sure you’re using the right book metadata and keywords to do it.

Create a dedicated document

Create a dedicated document containing your book’s metadata. Keep this in a safe place and then draw on it when you need to use it to disseminate your book information to all kinds of places:

• ISBN record 
• Pre-publication data at the National Library
• Publishing platforms like IngramSpark and Amazon
• The online retailer where you’re selling direct
• Website, author page, and book pages
• Your Amazon Central author page
• Public Lending Right(PLR) and Educational Lending Right(ELR)
• Goodreads profile
• Social media profile pages
• Online interviews, guest blog posts, and other promotional appearances

This master document with all your book’s metadata is invaluable. As I’ve already mentioned it will save you time; it will provide consistency; and, you will have a resource and information about your book that can be easily retrieved and disseminated.  This exposure will always mean a greater chance of sales.

Marji Hill

Author and Coach

Join Facebook Group: Fast Self-Publishing Online

The New Way To Publish

The average author finds it very tough to secure a deal with a traditional publisher so let me tell you about the new way to publish a book – the alternative way.

My own experience has been very different. I’ve had publishing contracts with a lot of mainstream publishers – the likes of Angus & Robertson, Allen & Unwin, Macmillan Education, Heinemann and others.

Traditional publishers

You hear about the painstaking efforts authors have trying to get a publishing deal and how they struggle to get past the traditional publishing gatekeepers.  You hear about the rejections that an author gets, and the discouragement, after trooping the streets and knocking on the doors of publisher after publisher.

I was one of the lucky ones because publishers approached me, and my partner. We never had to knock on the doors of publishing houses or go through a literary agent. 

Why were we successful? It was timing. At the time we had the knowledge and that is what the publishers wanted.

Benefits of traditional publishers

When we got a contract to write a series of books we worked with a team of professionals: editors, designers, and marketers. Our role was to create and write the content. The publishers did the rest.

The publishers took on the financial responsibility for the editing, the designing, the production, and the marketing a collaboration that was often time-consuming. There was a lot of communication that went on to and fro with the publishing professionals.

What I valued most of all was that the publishers took on the distribution of our books to libraries and schools throughout Australia.

Disadvantages

Most authors find it very hard to secure a deal with a traditional publisher. Not only that, if you are lucky enough to get a contract, the publishing process can take a long time – many months, if not years –  before the book ever gets into production and into the marketplace.

The author has no control over the publishing process; there is no creative control, and royalties are very low.

A different world

Today, the publishing world is different. Any aspiring author with an internet connection can write. When they have a completed manuscript they can self-publish their book for free or for a very low cost and make it available to a world of readers.

Authors, these days, can enjoy the challenge and freedom of self-publishing and the control they have over the publishing process.

The Print on Demand model (POD) model has released substantial economic barriers to self-publishing of the past.

In essence, today authors create their manuscripts, prepare them for publication, set up a free account on Amazon.com, and then list and publish their books.

Print on Demand has transformed the way an author can publish a book. It’s certainly been a game-changer.

Marji Hill

Author and Coach

Join Facebook Group: Fast Self-Publishing Online

Publish a Book for Free?

The question as to whether or not you can publish a book for free is often debated. My simple answer is -Yes. It is absolutely possible to publish a book for free. 

How do you do it?

We live in amazing times. The internet has transformed the world of publishing. Mainstream publishing houses have been challenged by new concepts such as print-on-demand (POD), electronic books, fast self-publishing, and online distribution and selling.

No longer do authors have to try to find a publisher because they can now self-publish the fast way and profit from publishing their own books. The alternative way of publishing means authors can do it themselves.

Steps

1. Authors create their manuscript
2. Authors prepare their manuscript for publication
3. Authors set up a free account on amazon.com with Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)
4. Authors list their book on KDP and then publish

Preparing a manuscript for publication

Editing the manuscript, formatting it, and designing a cover are the elements of publishing that self-publishers usually have to pay for.

Editing

It’s the editing that can be very costly. However, it is possible either to reduce these costs or to do it for no cost.

Self-editing

To edit for no cost then make sure you do an advanced self-edit. 

Ask yourself.

• Have you paid attention to the text’s detail?
• Are your words precise rather than general? 
• Are you up to date with grammar and language usage?
• Have you consulted a style manual?
• Have you refined the manuscript and tried to remove inconsistencies like varied capitalisation and punctuation?
• Have you avoided clichés?
• Have you used the same words or sentences on a regular basis? 
• Has the same information been repeated?  
• Is the meaning of a sentence clear?
• Do you need to delete content to produce a more coherent and complete manuscript?
• Have you tweaked, polished, and fine-tuned your content?
• Have you read the manuscript a few times and done a meticulous review?

Self-editing software

When you can get your manuscript to an advanced state and you are happy with it run it through some self-editing software like Grammarly.

Manuscript editing software programs have built-in spelling and grammar checkers. They can clean up mistakes in spelling, grammar, and punctuation; and some even have suggestions for improving your language. 

Beta readers

Find other people to read your manuscript. Fresh, unbiased eyes can see mistakes and errors that you have missed.

Set up a system of beta readers. They can read your manuscript, give you their feedback, and identify errors that have slipped through. Independent readers can give you honest feedback about your manuscript.

It’s helpful to have a fresh set of eyes looking at what you have written because you will always miss things when you read the manuscript yourself.

Make connections in the book industry and identify people who can edit books. You may be able to trade editing services with a service that you can provide.

Formatting

When you publish with Amazon KDP you can format your print or eBook using KDP resources. These are all free. 

You have to format and upload two files: a manuscript file, which is the interior of your book including the front matter, body matter, and back matter, and a cover file, which is the outside of your book including the front, back, and spine.

KDP offers free tools, guides and webinars to help you and outlines how to go about formatting your files.

Book cover design

Book covers can be created for free using the KDP Cover Creator or you can build a cover on the free version of Canva.

Outsourcing your book cover design to a graphic designer has become a thing of the past. With the Canva software, you the author, become the graphic designer and you can create a vast array of graphics with unequalled professionalism.

When starting out with Canva register for the free version. This has plenty of uses and things it can do which never fail to disappoint.

Publish 

KDP on Amazon is a free site that allows you to publish paperbacks, hardcovers and eBooks without paying a single penny.

Even if you use the IngramSpark platform which charges $49 to publish both print and eBooks it is possible to get a promotional code and publish for free.

In conclusion, by mastering how to DIY it is possible to publish your book for free.

Even if you decide that you’d like to outsource the formatting, for example, it is possible to publish your book for a very low cost.

Marji Hill

Author and Coach

Join Facebook Group: Fast Self-Publishing Online

4 Useful Resources for Authors

To help writers on their creative book writing and publishing journeys I’m sharing just 4 useful resources for authors. The ones that I’ve chosen I believe to be indispensable and they are tools that I personally use myself.

Fiverr  

Fiverr is an outsourcing marketplace. An author needing digital freelance services can get help for publishing a book.  Fiverr provides instant access to a global network of freelancers.

On Fiverr, find specialists who create book covers, do artwork, provide editing services, offer to format, create “sell sheets”, build websites,  perform web development, and much more. It is easy to find freelancers who offer the services you want.

Authors can buy pretty much anything and even find ghostwriters to write their books. 

To help an author select a freelancer on Fiverr, there is a seller review system that will assist in helping you decide whether or not a special freelancer is for you.

Canva     

Canva, which was founded in Australia, is a graphic design platform. With Canva authors can create anything they want: book covers, invitations, flyers, social media posts, logos, illustrations, YouTube thumbnails, Pinterest pins, and illustrations for your book’s interior  – just to mention a few.

It’s an indispensable tool for authors who self-publish. Not only do authors have to create wonderful books they have to do their own marketing as well.

No more do authors have to find a graphic designer. With Canva they can generate a vast array of graphic designs that look very professional.

Tangent Templates

Tangent Templates is a software suite designed for authors who want to make low-content books. But its applications apply to other books as well.

Tangent Templates is a template system that comes with lots of tools. For instance, its KDP Helper gives you the perfect cover and interior dimensions with perfectly sized cover templates, clearly laid out to use with tools like Adobe, Powerpoint, Keynote and Canva. 

When designing a book cover on Canva the cover helper works out all the exact dimensions with exact pixel sizes for any cover an author chooses to design.

If an author wants to publish a book on Amazon KDP, Tangent Templates helps them create a book and then list it quickly on KDP. Usually, the book will be available for sale on Amazon within 24 hours so that very quickly an aspiring author becomes a published author!

There is no subscription for Tangent Templates so it is available just for a one-off fee.

Publisher Rocket

Publisher Rocket is an amazing piece of book marketing software. It helps authors with their research into keywords and categories when listing their books on Amazon.

This research, if done manually, can take hours and hours but the great advantage of Publisher Rocket is that it speeds up the process.

There are four main tools within Publisher Rocket that help an author with their book listing. The features include

1. Keyword Search
2. Competition Analyzer
3. Category Search
4. AMS Keyword Search

The keyword research feature, for example, helps an author understand how readers use Amazon and choose the books they buy.

Personally, the benefit that I love is the way Publisher Rocket can assist with market research and with validating an idea. Even before an author starts writing they can research categories to find out which ones would be best to help an author discover a profitable niche and one that is not too competitive.

Publisher Rocket gives me the data that I need to increase my sales and to publish bestselling books.

Publisher Rocket helps an author get the most out of Amazon. It has the power to transform book marketing with just a few searches.

In my effort to be fully transparent some of the links above are affiliate links and I want to emphasise that these are all resources that I use personally in my own publishing journey.

Marji Hill

Author and Coach

Join Facebook Group: Fast Self-Publishing Online