12-Point Action Plan For Self-Publishing Success
12-Point Action Plan For Self-Publishing Success
1. Profitable niche
If you publish a book you’d like it to sell, wouldn’t you? The very first step on your journey to success is to write in a niche that is popular with your market. This means researching your market because you want to publish a book that people want, not a book they don’t want.
Publish a book that has some chance of selling.
Find out if other books in your niche are selling and get an angle that’s a bit different to your competition. Even before you start writing your book doing your market research helps you to achieve your goal of publishing a book that’s going to be profitable.
2. Quality
Create a quality book. Ensure that you are putting quality content out into the marketplace.
A good book will always be around. Ask yourself – does your manuscript have a pleasing interior, has it been professionally edited and proofread, and has the formatting been done by a professional?
3. Cover
A book’s cover is the first thing a customer sees so an awesome cover helps a book to stand out in a crowded marketplace. Because the cover is the first impression a customer has of your book the cover can influence buying decisions.
The decision to buy is frequently made on how a cover looks.
The cover profoundly affects the ultimate success of a book.
4. Optimise Metadata
Optimise your book’s listing on Kindle Direct Publishing(KDP) for success. Before you put pen to paper work out your metadata.
If you are clear on this in advance of publishing your book you will be maximising your chances of having the book discovered in the Amazon marketplace.
By metadata, I’m referring to the title, categories, keywords and the book’s description. When talking about optimising your book’s listing I am referring to building the sales page which happens when you are listing your book on KDP.
5. Price
As a self-publisher, you decide the price. You can keep changing your price.
If publishing an ebook, you may launch it at $0.99 and then later increase the price to $2.99 or more.
Pricing is something you can play with strategically depending on what it is you are trying to achieve.
6. Multiple books/series
Produce multiple books in different formats – ebooks, paperbacks, audiobooks. Not only that make these multiple formats available in the various marketplaces around the world.
If you create a series of books you can have your books drive readers from one book to the next. At the back of each book, put links to your other books.
Customers can then be driven from one book to all the others. To produce a series is a sales strategy because customers can become loyal not only to a series but to you as the author.
7. Reviews
Customer Reviews, together with Editorial Reviews, provide credibility to your book and social proof. Implement a campaign to generate as many reviews as possible.
Reviews carry a lot of weight with Amazon. Amazon likes you to get reviews so work on a plan to secure them.
8. Amazon’s promotional tools
Amazon offers a whole suite of marketing tools ranging from paid advertising to free promotional options that help authors reach their target audience on the Kindle store. These include Author Central, KDP Select, Kindle Countdown Deals and Free Book Promotions.
9. Author Central
Amazon Author Central is in effect another author website. It gives you the opportunity to share the most up-to-date information about yourself and your books with millions of readers. It is a one-stop-shop for all information about you and your books on Amazon.
10. Author Website
Your own author website, or blog, needs to be a focal point of your book marketing strategy. This is your primary online presence.
It’s your hub. From here you will connect with your readers and prospective readers.
On your website, your target audience will learn about you and your books. This audience will see your bio, your books, get an insight into the way you think, have links to your social media platforms, and be able to access the valuable content that you distribute in the form of blog posts.
11. Email list
In addition to your author website, build an email list. This list is your database. You own it.
The email list together with your author website would have to be one of the most valuable assets any author could have.
Nobody, and no social media platform, can take it away from you. It’s yours and it’s your audience to keep and grow.
12. Marketing strategy
Marketing involves both paid and unpaid strategies to promote your work and there are a plethora of methods that you can use ranging from online marketing to offline. In the current world, a social media presence is essential for all authors.
Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Goodreads and YouTube positions you on the map and they help you to boost your audience.
While online marketing is the primary focus for your marketing activities there is still marketing power in doing offline promotions particularly if you have published a paperback.
There you have it: a 12-point action plan for self-publishing success.
If you want to learn how to become a self-published author, have access to tips, information and advice on getting your book written within 30 days, publishing it yourself without breaking the bank, and getting it into the marketplace within 24 hours even if you’ve never done it before then visit my
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Marji Hill
Author and coach
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