Guest Post by Dean Burgess.
Doing what you love is one of the secrets to having a successful and fulfilling career. And for those with a passion for writing, what could be better than turning that passion into a thriving business? While this might sound like a daunting endeavor at first, with the right approach and guidance there is nothing stopping you from achieving your goals. In this article by JD&J Book Cover Design, we’ll explore the best practices you can follow for turning your hobby into a business. 

Pre-launching an eBook is a great way to generate interest prior to publishing, it’s incredibly common for the major and even smaller publishers to do this, and it’s something that most self-publishing authors can and should consider doing too.

If you are using KDP publishing for your book, they have a great option which you can use to set up pre-ordering, it allows you to sell your eBook to a reader up to a year before it’s actually released, a customer can order the book and it will then be delivered to them on the release date that you set.
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Once you’ve set up a book for pre-order, you’ll see a countdown timer within your book’s setup page, this keeps track of your release date and indicates when you need to have the final file for your book ready to upload (in order for your reader to receive it on time).

Guest Post by Jennifer David (From Writer Cosmos)

Dear new writer, we tell you frankly that you will not be able to learn how to write a book in a single creative writing blog article. Still, as experienced ghost writers, we hope to provide some ideas to help you regain lost inspiration or sharpen your storytelling techniques at the end of this reading.

Ghost writers’ tips: how to start writing a book?

You're probably wondering where to start first. To write a book, you first have to start writing a book.

You will laugh, but the first big challenge is to get to the end of the first draft, to the final point, going from scattered writings and beautiful descriptions to a narrative text with a gripping plot, a plot, solid structure and well-rounded characters. In short, you have to tell an exciting and compelling story.

Many aspiring ghost writers claim to write only when struck by divine inspiration. This would be equivalent to expecting to achieve excellent sports results by sitting on the sofa watching TV and waiting for the urge to go running.

Self-publishing a book is an easy way to bring your book to market, you don’t need to have an agent or go cap-in-hand to a publisher, but that being said, it does require a great deal of hard work in order to make sales, and as you’re doing it yourself, you’ll need to budget for everything that goes along with preparing and promoting a book.

And because the pathway to self-publishing is quite straightforward, many authors choose this option, as a result, there were over 2.3 million self-published books released in 2022 (and if you include traditional published books, the total number is over 4 million). That’s over 6,000 self-published books launched every day (over 10,000 if you include traditionally published books too).

So, there are a lot of authors writing and publishing their work, great for those of us who love to read!
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But how many authors who choose to do it by themselves are successful? It’s quite easy to get bogged down in the numbers, but self-pub authors can make break throughs and become true best sellers, here is a list of some of the best indie authors who you may not have realized self-published.

If you are self-publishing a book, then you will have most probably decided upon launching with eBook, paperback and maybe even hardback (with Amazon’s KDP launching this format recently, more authors are choosing casewraps to go along with paperback edition).  However, with the rise in popularity of audio books, it is well worth considering an audio edition of your publication too.

The good news is that you don’t have to have a recording studio, or even be prepared to read your book in its entirety yourself, Amazon’s ACX service gives you everything you’ll need to hire and prepare a great sounding audio book, you can read a full article on how to create an audio book, which should help.
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But when it comes to the book cover for your audio, there are some differences that you need to be aware of and prepare for.

For those prolific writers and authors amongst us, creating a series of books will be a highly likely and almost natural process, taking a passion for the written word and hopefully a great idea to extend across several volumes.

What’s more, if you can create a series of books, KDP links them together within Amazon, and this is great because it really helps your readers to find more of your books, which in turn should help you in selling more and reach a larger audience.

So, how do you create a series in KDP?

Self-publishing a book can be a very rewarding process, but if you want to reach a large audience (and which author doesn’t want lots of readers to enjoy their book?) It can be a challenging task.

Once your book is complete and the interior edited, proofread and formatted, you will need to consider the book cover design. As the ‘face’ and advertising for your book, it is worth taking your time here and getting a professional design which represents the focal point of your work, also, one which will ensure that your book stands out upon the bookshelves (and in a good way).

Why the cover design for your book is so important.

First, you need to consider just how many books are self-published, on average (and according to recent figures from Bowker), 1.7million books are self-published in the US annually, this breaks down to an average of 4,657 books per day, so book buyers and readers will have plenty of choice, and you’ll have some competition.

If you’re self-publishing a book, then you may well be considering both KDP and IngramSpark as your print on demand service, both are great options and have huge distribution channels to offer an author, not only this, but they are quite straightforward to use and have promotional options to help you with advertising and ultimately selling your book.

But when it comes to the book cover, there are some differences that you should be aware of.

If you’re an indie author and looking to self-publish a book, it can seem a little confusing at first. Who prints the book, then how do you get the book into a store (online and on the high street) and how do you promote the book too?

These are all valid questions and ones which can stop authors even trying to publish their own work, but it shouldn’t stop you, the self-publishing industry is a great deal easier to use than it’s ever been, and there are lots of great services that an author can take advantage of for success.
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So, if you have just finished writing a manuscript and think you’re ready to publish, let’s look at what you should consider doing next (with links to lots of other helpful resources).

Working in the publishing world you get to meet with lots of wonderful, and very talented authors, creative individuals who have spent a great deal of their time developing an idea into a story, or sharing an experience, or writing specific details of their knowledge within a certain arena, all dedicated to bringing this to an audience of interested and engaged readers.

And for the readers, we love to lose ourselves in a great author’s work, being taken on a journey or to learn something we never knew before, there are lots of reasons why we read and there are lots of ways that we can support those self-publishing authors that we love.

So, this year, why not support your favorite self-publishing / indie author, here are TEN ways that any reader can help.