What to Know About Self-Publishing

For those who don’t know, I am a self-published author! Many people hear that, and really don’t know what it means. I was one of those people for a long time until it came time to publish my first novel and I began researching different publishing routes. I had never given much thought to what the process of being an author looks like after you write your book, I guess I just figured you types THE END and your book magically appeared on shelves and bookstores! Turns out, there is so much that goes into getting your book published once you finish that novel that many of us have no idea about and don’t really know where to begin. That’s where I come in! After publishing my first novel and currently being in the process of publishing my second, here’s everything I’ve learned both through extensive research and my own experiences in the publishing world.

What is Self-Publishing?

Self-publishing simply means that you are publishing something yourself. This something can be a children’s book, chapter book, novella, biography - the possibilities are literally endless. What self-publishing means is that you do not have a literary agent or publishing company that crosses all the T’s and dots all the I’s for you, and that’s not always bad depending on what you’re looking for or what you need in the publishing world!

There are two main types of publishing; traditional publishing and self-publishing. Traditional publishing is what most everybody thinks of when they think of what to do with their newly finished manuscript of their book. Typically with traditional publishing, you will begin querying literary agents who are interested in and have experience with your books genre(s) with hopes that you will secure yourself an agent and a book deal. Once that happens, it can pretty much spiral from there in terms of organization since each literary agent will have different schedules, number of clients, publisher recommendations, and ways of going about things in general. Moral of the story here is; your literary agent will be the one helping get your book to publishers who will then publish your book for you.

Self-publishing is just like this but without the middle man. You will not query to find a literary agent and in turn will not have an agent reaching out to publishers to publish your book. Because of this, you likely won’t have some big publishing company pick up your book and slap their logo on your book’s spine and send it out to big companies and bookstores. You will find a company to publish your book yourself.

Why Self-Publishing?

Now after reading the section above, you’re probably thinking, “Alley! Why on earth would you go the self-publishing route if you have to do it all yourself?” And let me tell ya.

While self-publishing seems like the lesser of two options based on thee information above, there are a ton of positives to self-publishing the more you look into it and the more you know about it. I’ll start off by saying I don’t think traditional publishing is bad or that self-publishing is the end-all-be-all only good option, I think it really depends on you as an individual and a writer to weigh the options and make the choice yourself.

I follow a lot of fellow authors of all different genres and at all different stages of their writing journey. One author I particularly love is Jenna Moreci, and I found myself watching a lot of her YouTube videos while writing. I read her fantasy series The Savior’s Sister and really loved her writing and took a lot of her writing advice to heart. She was a successful author with a huge platform and some really incredible books. At this time, I was querying with the intent of going through traditional publishing. I remember hearing about self-publishing around this time and decided to look up some information about it. That was when I learned that Jenna was actually a self-published author!

This catapulted my deep-dive into research about what self-publishing is and how to go about doing so myself. I learned that, while having to market your book completely on your own sounds like a con, most traditionally published authors have to do the same thing. Your literary agent and publisher won’t market your book for you. Sure, they’ll post on their social medias occasionally and set up some release events, but your posts can likely get lost in the mass of book releases that your publisher also has along with yours. With self-publishing, I got to create all my content and have been in control of what is released and when.

You also get to be in control of absolutely everything when it comes to your book, including pricing and how much you receive as the author. This was a huge win for me as I found out many traditionally published authors get a certain amount of money upfront (typically around $5,000-$15,000) and then get very little after that in terms of royalties when your book is actually available in stores. While this seems nice at first, those of us that are looking to make a living as an author find this to be quite a negative piece to traditional publishing. The upfront money is nice at first, but then the very little percentage that you receive from book sales creates a huge setback for making any money off your book afterwards. And the only way to make the upfront money again is by getting another book deal which could take a year or more. With self-publishing, you don’t receive that money upfront but can see much greater numbers in terms of money received from book sales than you would with traditional publishing. For example, I have no middle-man between me and my published book so I don’t have to give a percentage of my sales to anyone else. My publishing programs (which I talk about more in the next paragraph) give the cost of printing my book right off the bat and calculate how much I make per book sale, which is typically around $5/book. That may not seem like much to you, but it’s pretty great compared to many traditionally published authors that make less than a dollar to mere cents off each book sold.

While self-publishing sounds like your book will go unpublished and you’ll have to release it on some website like a fanfiction, that couldn’t be further from the truth. I use both IngramSpark and Amazon KDP to publish my books. I’ll get into the steps of self-publishing and getting your book from the computer to your hands later on, but I have found success using both IngramSpark and Amazon KDP to the point that my books is available in tons of stores and on Barnes & Noble’s website!

The Steps to Self-Publishing

Self-Publishing has many different routes you can take to successfully get your book published. This is just the route that I’ve taken and found success with and want to share for those who have no idea which routes are available or which to take.

Step 1: Finish Your Book

I know this may seem obvious, but a lot of people go through the publishing process with very little or nothing completed to actually publish. I do believe it’s a good idea to begin researching publishing options while you’re writing to get as much information as you can by the time you’re actually ready to start this publishing journey, but I definitely don’t recommend starting any of the following steps until your book is complete and polished and ready for publishing - and you’ll see why later on.

Step 2: Getting Your Book Cover

Once your book is complete, you can start looking at ideas for book covers. This is one of the major reasons you should have your book polished and complete first. Your book cover will have an eBook copy that is just the front cover of your book plus a paperback and/or hardcover copy that will have the front cover of the book, the spine, and the back cover with your book blurb and/or reviews raving about your book. Your book needs to be completed before doing this so that whoever creates your cover will have the accurate dimensions for the books size and the width of the spine. I used GetCovers for my book cover and had decided to make some changes to my book after already receiving the files with my book cover. I then had to pay to have these files resized after making the changes to my book that had in turn added pages to my book.

There are many different ways to go about getting a book cover. You can make one on your own - many self-published authors will use programs like Canva to make their own covers, you can hire a freelancer to create the cover for you, or you can use an online program with creators that will make it for you. I used an online program called GetCovers. They were priced really well and had great reviews, plus you get to communicate with the person actually making your cover and get unlimited free revisions until the cover is exactly what you wanted.

Step 3: Find a Publishing Program

This should take lots of research on your end - not because it’s hard to do or find, but because you should make sure you are using the publishing platform that is right for you as an author. Some of the most popular publishing platforms are IngramSpark, Amazon KDP, Barnes & Noble Press, and Draft2Digital. There are tons more, these are just the ones I have the most knowledge on.

I, personally, use Amazon KDP and IngramSpark to publish my books. IngramSpark is a print-on-demand platform that prints books every time I get a sale. It is also the platform that is most connected to book retailers, so every time I get an order through Barnes & Noble or any other retail store, it gets printed through IngramSpark and sent directly to them. I use Amazon KDP for my paperback books and my eBooks. AMAzon KDP is the only platform that I use for my eBooks and there are a few reasons for this. Amazon KDP has many great promotions for authors such as Kindle Unlimited where you can submit your eBook to KDP Select and readers who have Kindle Unlimited can read your book for free! You still get paid based on the number of eBook pages read, and readers are more inclined to pick up your book because it doesn’t cost anything. However, in order to submit your book to KDP Select, you have to agree that your eBook is not available for distribution from any other platform besides Amazon KDP and KDP Select. I do think this is worth it, though, as a huge percentage of my initial book sales came from Kindle Unlimited Readers.

Step 4: Complete the Publishing Steps

Once you’ve decided on which program(s) you’ll be publishing your book through, you can complete the required steps for each platform to get your book ready for publishing! his usually involves uploading your manuscript, uploading your book cover, choosing cover material (gloss, matte, etc.), page color (ivory, cream, white, etc.), the height and width of your book (usually based on the dimensions of your book cover). Once you complete this, you can order a physical sample of your book!

Step 5: Copyright and ISBN

It is crucial that you get your book copyrighted! If you don’t your book can be taken and you have no legal documentation showing that the book belongs to you. You can apply for a copyright through the U.S. Copyright Office (assuming you are based in the United States) through copyright.gov/registration. An ISBN is the number that you’ll see on the back of almost every book. This is the identifiable number for all retailers to find your book based off its ISBN number. You can get ISBN numbers through isbnservices.com or through your publishing platform. Both IngramSpark and Amazon KDP offer ISBNs which is what I used for my first book’s ISBN.

Step 6: Publish Your Book!

After these steps, you book should be ready for publishing! From here on, it’s up to you to decide what to do with your book. You can set up a pre-order for your book, publish it right away, order copies for ARC reviewers or giveaways, or wait until your other books are ready for publishing.

I hope these tips and steps help with your understanding of self-publishing, what the process looks like, and helps your decision-making if you are considering between self and traditional publishing. Remember, I post articles on writing, publishing, and even reading and reviewing multiple times a week so check out my other posts! If you have direct questions, feel free to email me directly and sign up for my newsletter!