At last, we are back with part three of our series taking a look at everything you need to know about self-publishing. In this instalment, we will look at services, marketing, and book cover design.
Previous instalments
- Self-Publishing: Everything you need to know – part 1
- Self-Publishing: Everything you need to know – part 2
Services for self-publishers
In part two, we looked at topics such as proofreading and copyediting. (For the differences see this guide). Checking your typesetting, proofreading, and other editorial feedback is something you take on yourself when you self-publish.
Many self-published authors try to do this all themselves (or just rely on friends and family beta-reading for them). The self-published author that makes the effort with some or all such services is likely to find they stand above other self-published authors in terms of overall quality.
You may need to hire some or all of the following:
- Beta readers
- Copy editor
- Typesetting/Design
- Proofreader
- Marketing
- Distribution
In other words, do not be in a rush to publish. There is no editor between you publishing but that also means there is no editor between you and publishing.
What do all these services do?
The short answer is that it depends. As a general rule of thumb – go with free (friends or writing groups) beta readers first and move on to paid beta readers only when you have taken things as far as you can. If you are confident skip to the editor. A good editor may pick up things beta readers missed but that is not what they are for. Finally when all edits and changes have been made – then (and only then) do you go with the proofreader to fix all the errors that slipped through.
We’ve got a breakdown of what these different services do for an author.
Where can I find good author services?
Our directory has a section dedicated to services that you might want to check out.
On the topic of money, be careful. For every good and honest service provider, there are at least two who are just out to take your money. Before you pay, be sure you have verified that who you are going with can do for you what they say they can do at the price they say they will do it for.
The Alliance of Independent Authors maintains a list of service providers rated on a traffic light system from recommended down to danger.
Cover design
Book cover design can be hard to get right and horribly easy to get terribly wrong. Now, you might be a fully-fledged graphical artist – in which case you got this. For the rest of us, we may need to reach outside for a little help.
Getting your book cover design right matters because a bad cover can hamstring a book’s sales. The simple fact is that – aphorisms notwithstanding – we do judge books by their covers.
Not being a graphical design artist myself, I turned to Google for answers. There were more results with lists of rules, tips, and ideas than I could read in the rest of my lifetime. Many of them flatly contradicted each other.
There were, however, a few self-evident truths out there.
- Covers convey emotion not story
- They express genre
- Good covers fit in with other best sellers
- Homework (research) matters
- Fonts and typesetting are not afterthoughts
Book covers according to a designer
Cover design: Do your homework
Take a good long look at the best sellers in your genre. The chances are that there are common design principles shared among those leading books.
Then take a look in the bargain basement where the books do not sell. You can bet that those books have design principles missing.
Whatever those design principles the winners have and the losers do not – you want to use them.
Cover design: Fonts (and typesetting) matter
If you self-design, you will need to identify what fonts and typesetting are used by winners and misused by the non-selling books. Some fonts are better than others. Which ones are right for you depends on you, your book, your title, your genre and current design trends. Not to mention budget.
A word of warning, if you just said this you need to get a designer to do the work for you:
OMG, right. I’m going to use Comic Sans in big pink because it’s quirky just like me and my book.
Please never say this.
Unless you are some gorilla marketing expert, that conceptual design is a heaving bag of fail.
Cover design: Bad covers are easy; good covers are hard
That is not to say do not try to design your own. Just that you need to at least be able to recognise a design that is not going to sell books.
Cover design will require a lot of effort. For some writers, this is a skill they have. For the rest of us, we find freelancers.
If your book cover designs look like this – you need to get a pro.
If you want a chuckle, search any search engine for “terrible book covers”. You will find things like this.
Cover design: Hire a freelancer
I would be remiss if I did not point out that Fiverr has book cover designers to suit all budgets.
Self-publishing & marketing
There is a lot that could be written about marketing books. Marketing is its own special discipline. Rather than re-tread the topic but not as well, a lot of this section will point to other resources.
We covered market research back in part 2 if you need a quick refresher.
The three keys to good book marketing are:
- Know your audience
- Know your audience
- No, really, get to know your audience
I know technically that’s only one thing but it was such a stupendously big and important thing I felt it merited mentioning three times. In other words – mark research, market research and more market research.
You will need to know:
- What sort of income does your main audience have?
- Who does your audience already respect?
- What pains, problems, and needs does your audience have?
- When does your audience buy books?
- What is your audience hungry for?
- Where does your audience hang out on social media?
- Is your audience predominantly one gender, socioeconomic class, or education level?
- Does your audience’s politics lean left, right, or centre?
- What does your audience look for in a book?
- Where does your audience shop for books?
You will, I have no doubt, need to know even more than that. However, the more specifics you can narrow down about your future readers, the easier it will be to reach them.
For example, if your readership is mostly single mothers, you should probably go and make friends with mums in mum groups on Facebook. On the other hand, if your audience is mostly rocket scientists you will need to look somewhere else entirely.
Where does this platform building thing come into it?
That market research you were doing so you could go and connect with your audience – that was platform building. Authentically being part of the community where your readers are will make it much easier to reach said readers. Especially if you have built a reputation as a good source of whatever they are looking for.
Odds are, social media may come into it.
When should I start platform building?
By author platform we mean the sum total of possible readers paying attention to you. This is why platforms are so closely connected to blogs and social media (also mailing lists).
I say this a lot but it remains true – the best time to start platform building was three years ago. The second best time to start is right now. Even if you have not finished a book, now is a great time to get on Instagram, Twitter, or whatever you like. It is also a good time to learn about blogging and start writing about your writing.
You can get a free blog right here in the Author Buzz community.
Social media and self-publishing
For a quick brush-up, you may like “How to run a fully ineffective author Twitter account“.
For social media marketing and promotion, you may wish to look at the Social Media section of our online Author Platforms guidebook.
Conclusions
In this part of our series, we looked at services, marketing, and book cover design which expanded on topics we explored in the first two parts. We discovered just how much there is to do and how much support there is if you look for it and have some money to put behind your project.
Self-publishing requires you to wear a large number of hats. Some of these are things you will be good at while others may be better handled by someone else. One way or another you are going to pay in time, money, or embarrassment. The most efficient route may include hiring an expert or too.
What aspects of self-publishing should we cover next? Let me know in the comments.