What I Learned From Writing A Guide to Self-Publishing

A Guide to Self-Publishing for CreateSpace On-Demand and Kindle eBook will be available next week. In the development of this book, I practiced what I preached, so to speak. I worked on my author platform, tweeting and posting–though not as much as I wanted to, I created my book cover in Microsoft Word, and I authored, edited, and did all content layout in Word.  I am now deciding on promotions, working on updates to my Amazon Author Page, and setting up my CreateSpace eStore. I learned a lot.

I found that publishing on CreateSpace first has its advantages. CreateSpace uses my paperback cover to make a front cover image for my Kindle edition. Check that off my list. I also found that by working out all the kinks with my paperback edition first, the Kindle edition was easier to get through. Had I done the opposite, I would have had to go back and make changes and republish my eBook every time I found an issue in the paperback. And since there are more details to the paperback edition–hyphenation, pagination, index–there are many more opportunities to come across errors, even if you’ve been through editing.

Lots of little details came to light as I wrote A Guide to Self-Publishing. Things like creating HTML descriptions, the connection between Amazon Author Central and my product detail page, and setting up my eStore and linking it to my website. Much of the information I gleaned  made its way into the text. Some was beyond the scope of the text and found its way into the corresponding Workbook.

The biggest thing I learned from writing A Guide to Self-Publishing is just how much I needed the book. I found myself referring to drafts of the publication to complete the publication. If you’re into programming, think recursion. A little crazy, but it was great to have a book that presented the publishing details in an easy to understand, start-to-finish format.