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Writing and selling a book has become easier than ever before. No longer is this something that only the trained writer is able to do and you do not have to be Jeffery Archer to write and sell books. You also do not have to contact a publisher and hope they like your book. So what do you need to do to write and sell an eBook?
- Choosing The Type Of Book To Write
- Mapping Out Your Book
- Start Writing
- Proofreading And Editing
- Making Adjustments
- Getting Your Book Ready For Publishing
- Publishing Your Book
- Market Your Book
Choosing The Type Of Book To Write
Deciding to write a book is the easy part, the rest is the difficult part. After deciding to write a book, you will need to choose the type of book you are going to write. Are you going to write a fiction book or a non-fiction book? If you are going to write fiction, you need to choose the genre you are going to write in. If you choose a non-fiction book, you need to determine the subject.
When writing a non-fiction book, you need to do your research or have a lot of experience in the subject. People do not want to buy non-fiction books that do not give them interesting information or overviews. Putting enough research and insight into these books as possible is recommended.
When writing a fiction book, you have to ensure that you have a compelling plot. Yes, there are a lot of books that sell millions that do not have the most compelling plot, but the ones that stand the test of time will. After all, people remember the Agatha Christie book “And Then There Were None” which was written in 1939, but how many remember “The Mediterranean Caper” by Clive Cussler which is the second book in the best selling Dirk Pitt series?
Mapping Out Your Book
Anyone who has done NaNoWriMo knows that there are 2 types of writers. The first is the writer that meticulously plans what they are going to do, does their research and maps their book out. The other is the “fly by the seat of their pants” writer who starts writing with only the idea in their head. While there is no way to say which method of writing is better, planning is generally considered a good idea. You will know where your book is heading and you might not get writer’s block as easily. Of course, you will need to use the writing style that suits you.
If you are going to map out your book, you have to do this differently for fiction and non-fiction. With a fiction book, you should map out the overall story that you are going to be telling. You should have some information about the characters, the world the book is set in and some research. The research will need to relate to the book like a writer creating a mystery book may need to research police tactics.
If you are going to be writing non-fiction, you will have to plan your chapters. You need to consider how the book will flow and how one chapter will lead to another. You do not want to start your book and then have a chapter in the middle that relates to something from chapter one. Flow is essential if you want people to understand the material you are presenting.
Start Writing
Once you have the book mapped out, you get to the even harder part, writing it. Writing a book is not easy and you should never think that it is. You will spend a lot of time on this and you will constantly think that you are doing this wrong. There will be revisions and changes where the entire story starts to take a different shape than the one you imagined. With non-fiction, you will often remember something that you forgot and have to change something in a chapter which leads to even more changes.
The key here is to keep writing. All of these issues are why good books are not churned out in a month. They are also the reason why writers have draft copies of their books which never see the light of day. There are a number of ways that you can keep yourself motivated when writing such as having a creative space and ensuring that you write in bursts so your brain does not fry.
Proofreading And Editing
When you have finally finished your book, you need to have it proofread and edited. You can do this yourself if you feel confident enough and want to save some money. You can also hire someone to do this, but you need to be careful with this. Hiring a cheap proofreader and editor may leave you with a book that hasn’t changed much and is still not 100% up to par.
There are a lot of online services which provide proofreading and editing services to independent authors. These services can be pricey and you will need to set aside some money for them if you want to use a professional. Hiring a freelancer is also possible, but you need to look into their credentials. There are also some points and questions that you have to ask freelancers to ensure that they can give you what you need.
Making Adjustments
After the proofreading and editing have been done, you might have to make some adjustments to your book. These adjustments will be based on the information provided by your proofreader and editor. Some of these changes will be very small, but others could be adjusting whole paragraphs. These adjustments can lead to another round of proofreading and editing.
If you are going to proofread and edit your book yourself, you can make these adjustments as you go along. This will save you some time, but it is not something that works for everyone. Switching mindset between writer and editor can be hard for some people and if you are one of these people then edit everything then adjust.
Getting Your Book Ready For Publishing
In the past, you would be sending your book to publishers and hoping that they like it enough to publish. This is no longer the case as you can self-publish your book with Amazon. What you need to do instead is get your book ready for publication.
There are a lot of guides that you can use which will help you get your book ready. I would suggest using one of them because you do not want someone to buy your book only to have the formatting all wrong which makes it hard for them to read. This will often result in poor reviews which will lower the success of your book.
It is not only the formatting and file type that you have to consider. You also need to have a cover for your book and a summery. When it comes to cover creation, Amazon does have a cover creator that you can use. You can also hire someone to do this for you or make one yourself using other software.
Publishing Your Book
Once you have everything ready for your book, you can publish it. There are 4 sites that you should use for direct self-publishing. These are Amazon, Kobo, Nookpress, and iTunes. Publishing on all of these platforms will give you a lot of exposure. You can also look at publishing with online distributors such as Draft2Digital and Smashwords.
Market Your Book
A mistake that many people make is to write and publish a book then sit back waiting for sales. You need to remember that you are competing with thousands of other people who have the same idea. Simply publishing your book will not be enough to ensure that you get sales and make money, you need to market your book.
You need to be proactive with your marketing and plan a book launch. You also need to consider freebie offers which will get more people reading at least part of your book. You should also consider engaging with your potential audience as the book is being written. This can drive up the hype and anticipation of the book release which often leads to better sales.
Writing and selling an eBook is not easy and you need to approach it correctly. You need to take the time to plan everything from the book to the marketing and not just hope for the best. If you have had any experience with writing and selling an eBook or have more information about the process leave a comment or contact us so we can add it here!