Self-Publishing: Things You Need

If you want to see your book published there are lots of options out there.  Some people suggest that you go through a traditional publisher, and some suggest that you should self-publish.  This is something that each writer must decide by him- or herself.

There are a few things that you will need, when you decide to self-publish, to see some lasting success.

1) A plan:  Not just a plan to write, but a plan to build your success.  This is not a short term plan, but a long-term plan.

2) An editor:  Truly, this is a given, but it must be mentioned.

3) A Team:  You do not have time to write a blog, and write a book, and market and edit, and live your life.  Even if you think that this is a one person business, it is not.  It takes a team to publish a book.  There are more people in this business who can improve your writing than you might initially think of.  An editor is one, but a website designer is another.

4) An even better plan:  You want to succeed?  It’s time to write another plan and look at what works, and what does not on a regular basis.  You need to be willing to take advice and also be willing to adjust your writing to follow this plan.

5) Another Book:  While you do not need to continue a series of books, one book does not mean that you will find success with one book.  To be able to continue on that path to success, you need to continue to write.

This is a writing life. If you want to write and then publish books, you need to keep on doing what you do.  There is a foundation — think: creating plans — but there is also a part where you ask yourself a lot of questions, one of which should be how many books do you publish a year?

You also need to improve your writing.  This means that while you might make some money with your writing, if you really want to write for a living, you need to think about how to best spend that money to make more money.  Perhaps taking a writing course can be a huge help.

Thinking long term and self-publishing go hand in hand.  Your best platform for self-promotion is your blog, and this means that you write a blog post which not only gets traffic but encourages your readers to go out and improve their own blogs.

Yes, you need to self-publish, and that is a choice you can make, but you also need to think of a list of things you will need to do to have success with your books that you self-publish.