Authors have never been in a better
position to publish their e-books, with very few barriers, many low cost
alternatives, hundreds if not thousands of supposed experts more than happy to
offer their advice and very inexpensive word processing, computers and internet
connections to tell the world about your wonderful new book.
There are numerous sites that will
offer to distribute your book to all or most of the major on-line book stores
and publishing houses. They are for
the most part inexpensive as an upfront fee or they will take a small
percentage of your sales. Though it is relatively easy to set-up your book on
each site they do have variations in how the content is to be provided to them
as a file. It can be worth the savings in time to go through a central
publishing company to upload the file and information as well as having a
central accounting platform where you can see how each distribution outlet is
selling.
Once you have completed your book
but before you decide to publish, find yourself a good book editor. Be wary of companies using off-shore editors, if an
editor is too inexpensive then they are probably not of a high caliber and
merely glorified spell checkers. A great book editing will be your best asset and one you will want to develop a long
term relationship with as they will know your writing and can guide you over
time to hone your skills.
Once your book editing is complete,
it is time to create a book cover design. Just like a professional book editor,
novel cover design should not be done by an amateur but a professional that has
experience in e-book covers. There are certain characteristics that are unique
such as file size and thumbnail image design that will be very important when
launching your book.
Additional items that you need to be
sure are done properly are your author website design and marketing materials such as social media sites and
virtual tours. There are many sites promising the world, if it sounds too good
to be true, be sure that it is. What sell a book are great writing, wide
distribution and a professional look for publishers.
If you get these right then your marketing will follow suit, don't fall for
anyone that tells you they can sell thousands of your book without ever reading
it. It is not true!
Rick Momsen is CEO of Pegasus Publishing and author of The
Complete E-book Marketing and Publishing Guide
