10 great ways to make your book a success

Self-publishing is the quickest way to see your new book in print (both on paper and digitally) and is why so many authors choose this route, its success has seen a huge shift in the way traditional publishing operates and now everyone has the opportunity to sell their work to an audience.

But simply uploading your book to Createspace doesn’t necessarily guarantee success (ask any author), the key to success comes with planning and a pro-active approach to self-promotion too, like most things, the more you put into it the more you’ll get back.
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So here are some great ideas that you can use to help make your book a success.

ONE) Get social – and do it early, self-promotion starts with the popular social networks and building interest in you as an author and your soon to be released book, it’s up to you whether or not you use your own personal profile or that you create a specific ‘author’s’ page instead, just ensure that your social networks reflect the image you want to portray as a professional author.

TWO) Have a Website – Your own website says a lot about you as an author and gives you a great platform to promote, interact and sell your book/s from, they are cheap and easy to set up and should be on every author’s ‘to-do’ list.

THERE) Mail Out Lists – Following on from your social media pages and your website you should look at creating your own mailing list, these can be managed for you by services such as AWeber or Mail Chimp etc. In order to work you need to offer something of value in return for your visitor’s email address, this could be a free download, vouchers, chapters of your new book, guides and even other books you may have written. Once you build your list you have the opportunity to keep them updated with news and promotions with your new and forthcoming books.

FOUR) Quality – Prior to publishing make sure that you have someone other than yourself proof read your book, it’s easy to be too close to see any errors, a fresh pair of eyes will help. Depending upon your budget it is also worth getting your book professionally edited too, this final polish of your manuscript can take a good book and make it truly great.

FIVE) Be chatty – Get involved with forums and write blogs (both on your own website and guest for others too), interacting with others is a brilliant way to generate awareness of you and your work, it does take some consistent effort but it’s very much worth it.
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SIX) Beta test it – Before you ‘officially’ launch your book get it into the hands of a small group of people, this could be to followers on your social media or mailing list, select 20 or 30 people and let them tell you what they think, don’t be too precious either, being able to take feedback professionally will help you to become a great writer.

SEVEN) Re-write – Don’t be afraid to go back to the manuscript and make alterations if you need to, you have a choice, publish a mediocre novel now or a best-seller later.

EIGHT) Formats – Ensure that you have your book as an eBook and a paperback too, many authors like the idea of a hardback but you will find the overwhelming majority of your readers will either be via eBook or paperback. Another option is to publish in audio, companies like ACX offer services to turn your book into an audio and thus give another option when selling, this is something to consider as Amazon are promoting their Audible service quite heavily at present.

NINE) Design – Have a professional book cover design to represent your work, we all judge a book by its cover so ensure you get one which represents you well.
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TEN) Keep going!! – Determination and perseverance are the most important elements of self-promotion, if you believe in your work and have the stamina to keep going you will be successful.