COVER STORY
The book in you It’s often said that everyone has a book in them and today, thanks to the advent of e-books, people are putting that old adage to the test and self-publishing in their millions, writes JULIE LAKE.
E
veryone wants to be another E.L. James, author of the phenomenally successful Fifty Shades of Grey. The path to successful digital selfpublishing is not an easy one but it does offer better odds than winning a major lottery because it’s about hard work and savvy marketing, not just luck. And retirees have a particular advantage because they already have a base income and the time to try something new. When I published my first e-book in 2009, it was a huge learning curve because back then you had to find and pay for web hosting and the comparatively primitive desktop publishing programs available. Reaching a target audience was equally challenging given the limited
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on-line marketing tools, while distribution was difficult for someone who’d rather be writing than wrapping and posting. Ten years ago the market was limited to those few who used e-readers but then you had that market pretty much to yourself. Today the number of e-book readers is huge – Kindle e-book sales easily top one million a week – but the number of authors has grown too. Then along came Amazon and made it all so easy! There are other platforms available today, for example Barnes and Noble and Kobo both offer e-book publishing programs to support their e-readers, but Amazon remains the best bet for new authors who are not IT experts because its services are so comprehensive.
Once you have a book in manuscript form, Amazon Kindle will walk you through the process step-by-step, including layout and editing, formatting, uploading and publishing. Ongoing support in terms of marketing, sales and payment is equally good. Authors can opt for either 35 per cent or 70 per cent royalties with conditions governing each option and today these are paid direct – and automatically – to your bank account. This is just one reason why writers like myself made the shift to e-books from traditional print publishing. Not only do you make more than the standard 10 per cent royalty paid by publishers on retail sales but you also exercise more control over your book. In the words of self-publishing expert Ryan Buckley of Scripted, a commercial community for writers and editors: “The beauty of Amazon is that once you have enough leverage in the market, you’re essentially working on auto-pilot. As far as passive income is concerned, it’s hard to beat a portfolio of Kindle books.� The challenge lies in attaining that leverage. And the first step is to decide what sort of book you would like to write – fact or fiction? The former sells better, with self-help books usually topping the e-book best seller list. Fiction is more fun to write, for the truly creative, and has a good market for those who can crack it. The second step is to regard your enterprise as a business, requiring a business plan. This should include: A market survey – What other books like yours are out there? How well are they doing? What makes them
successful? Is there room for another book on the same topic? Branding – Your book needs to have a unique something that makes it attract the attention of browsers. A series of books, fact or fiction, should have titles and cover designs that tie the series together. All my gardening books (the backbone of my own digital publishing enterprise) carry the GardenEzi brand name and a five-step program clearly visible on the cover of each book. This “brand� distinguishes my books from the many other books covering the same topic and is used in all promotion. Investment – it’s possible to publish your e-books without any up-front expenditure. I did! But today’s e-book readers expect a much higher standard of presentation. Though Amazon and other companies give you a lot of help, it pays to invest in some professional design. There are dozens of websites specialising in e-book formatting and layout, plus cover design, and some of these are free. This is especially important if you are planning to offer readers print-ondemand, by which you can have the book printed in hard copy as well as e-book download. This means some extra work for you in distribution and up-front expense from printing costs but does enable you to reach those readers who still prefer a printed book. Budget – for promotional expenses and also for professional editing. It doesn’t cost much, there are plenty of people available to do this and writers should never edit their own books. Promotion – Traditional off-line advertising still works and advertising in print magazines can be very worthwhile
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6 YOUR TIME MAGAZINE / August 2018
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