Create and Publish Your Own Print and E-Book

THE Self-Publishing Updated for MANUAL2019 Create and Publish Your Own Print and e-Book

J. BRUCE JONES

151 THE

Self-PublishingUpdated for MANUAL2019 Create and Publish Your Own Print and e-Book

J. BRUCE JONES

PublishingMastery101.com 1 Updated for The Self-Publishing Manual KDP/Kindle Create and Publish Your Own Print and e-Book Print

By J. Bruce Jones

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2 — HOW TO USE THIS BOOK —

In my How to Publish Your Book Facebook Group I get some version of this question more than any other. Usually the book is written and that is as far as the author has gotten. Where do I start? What do I do? How do I publish my book? I have just published, now what do I do? These are really big and often confusing questions. So, let’s dive in and see if I can give you some direction and the basic overview of how you can publish your book.

The Publishing Manual, Create and Publish Your Own Print and e-Book is set up in three parts depending on what your questions or needs are.

Part 1. Key Publishing Questions. Part 1 takes you through many of the basic questions that people ask about publishing their book. I talk about where to publish, what is print-on-demand, what is an ISBN number, how to create a Kindle Print Book or Kindle E-Book and how does copyright work.

Part 2. Writing, Creating and Publishing Your Book. Part 2 is an overview of the creating and publishing process. I have broken it down into 12 steps. We start with creating the content. Then print or e-book, what is involved and how do you do it, interior and cover. We move to publishing your book, how and where it is done and then one of my favorite topics, re-purposing your content for additional revenue. Includes the Self-Publishing Checklist.

Part 3. The Bonus Section. In the bonus section I cover four topics; how to launch your book as an Amazon best-seller, the Best-seller Check List, how to create a book quickly using my Top Ten Technique and we wrap up with a resource list. 3 — TABLE OF CONTENTS —

Part 1. Key Questions to Ask Before You Begin

• Where Are You in The Process? Are You Just Starting Out or is the Book Complete? 8 • What Kind of Book Are You Creating, Novel, How To, Children’s, Picture, Coloring, Poetry, Business, Cookbook? 9 • Is Your Book Going to Be Paperback, Hardcover, E-Book or All the Above? 9 • What Do I Do? Self-Publish or Traditional Publish My Book? 10 • Where Do I Publish My Book? 12 • Self-Publishing Sites Comparison Chart 14 • What is Print-on-Demand Printing? 16 • What is KDP.Amazon/Kindle Print? 16 • Why Does Kindle/Amazon want My Tax and Bank Account Info? 19 • What is an e-Pub? 19 • What Software Programs Should I Use to Create My Book? 20 • What Programs Should I use to Create a Picture/Children’s Book? 21 • Can I Create a Hardcover Book? 22 • Can My Book Be in Bookstores? 23 • How Do I Get My Book in Bookstores? 24 • How Do I Make an Audio Book? 25 • Are You Publishing Primarily in the US or Worldwide? 26 • How Long Should My Book Be? 27 • What is an ISBN Number? 28 • Do I Need to Copyright My Book? 30 • Who Owns the Book’s Copyright if I Publish on Amazon, Kindle/Amazon or Me? 31 • How Do Royalties Work? 32

4 — TABLE OF CONTENTS —

My Story, Learning to Write at 53 37

Part 2. How to Write and Publish Your Book 39 Writing Your Book 39 1. Writing Your Book 41 2. Collect Your Graphics Assets, Images, Pictures, and Charts 43 3. Key Elements that Every Book Should Have 50 4. Editing Your Book 57 5. Pre-Edit Printed Proof 59 6. Six Different Options for Publishing Your Book. 61 Creating Your Book 67 7. Creating a Kindle e-Book, Including a Kindle Formatting Guide 69 Kindle e-Book Formatting Guidelines 72 8. Creating a Kindle/Amazon Print Book, Inside and Cover 77 9. Creating a Quick Print Book 83 Publishing Your Book 85 10. Uploading and Publishing Your Book 85 11. Launching and Marketing Your Book 90 Re-Purposing Your Book’s Content 12. Re-purposing Your Book Content for Additional Products 93 Self-Publishing Checklist 97 Part 3. Bonus Content • Making an Amazon Best-seller 111 • Best-seller Checklist 120 • Top Ten Technique for Creating a Book 122 • Publishing Resources 133

5 Publishing your book is often the fulfillment of a dream you might

not know you even have.

It can transform your life.

J. BRUCE JONES

6 Part 1. Key Questions to Ask Before You Begin

7 Part 1. Key Questions to Ask Before You Begin

• Where Are You in the Process? Are You Starting Out or Is the Book Complete? The process of writing each book is unique. But they all begin with sitting down and doing the hard work of getting your thoughts and ideas down. Along with words, we will also need pictures, illustrations or charts for our books.

There are many different ways to write a book. You can sit at a computer, or legal pad, you can also dictate or record it using audio or video and then transcribe. There is no correct way; there is only your way. I am not an expert on writing; I am an expert on creating the book. I didn’t learn how to write until I was 53 and I have now created over 40 of my own books and many more for others. You can read my story on page 35. All I know is keep going, do not stop, keep trying and you will get there. Write a little bit every day. we have editors. This is one of the biggest lessons I have learned from being aThe graphic goal is, designer. you have Our to jobfinish. is to But create you dothe not ideas have and to story. be perfect, The editor that is and why graphic designers is to clean the story up and create the book’s aesthetics.

One of the hardest, but most important things I have learned in writing my books, push the publish button. Release my ideas to the world. When you do,

8 it can be a transformative experience. I find that writing and publishing can be Manythe fulfillment people come of a dreamto me andthat say, you I mightam done not with know the you writing. even had. I don’t know where to start the creating and publishing the book? Let’s see if I can answer a few of those questions and get you through the process.

• What Kind of Book Are You Creating? A Novel, How to Book, Children’s Book, Picture Book, Coloring Book, Poetry Book, Business Book or Cook Book? This question can open up all kinds of questions. It is usually a question I ask when I have my graphic designer hat on. It tells me what software to recommend and how to start preparing your artwork for the project. If you are going all text, then you are using MS-Word or Google Docs. If you are creating a book with a lot of design and images. We would talk about InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator. Or freelance illustrators or designers. This question is very much of a ‘how to’ type of question.

• Is Your Book Going to be Paperback, Hardcover, e-Book or All the Above? Not something you think about when you start writing the book. But this question comes into play as you start to think about the publishing. Depending on where you want to take your book, the design and layout will change. E-books, you will stay in MS-Word or Google Docs for writing and Kindle for publishing, images will be 72 dpi. Paperback you will be looking at the print side of Kindle and using Adobe InDesign for layout. Hardcover books, IngramSpark.com for publishing, along with InDesign for layout and production. We start out writing but as we progress we will take different paths. We will cover more of this as we work through this book.

9 • What Do I Do? Self-Publish or Traditional Publishing? This is a big one and a question I am often asked. There are two main routes, traditional publishing or self-publishing.

To go the traditional publishing route, you will generally need an agent. Not always but often, and it is the agent that approaches the publisher. This can that come with an audience and will sell. I am not a fan of this route. If you havebe a difficult, a big following, and long then journey. it is possible, Publishing but is for a business most of us, and this they route want is booksvery hard. In traditional publishing, your publisher gains control over your rights and content. If you control your rights you control your content. I teach using your book’s content for marketing and selling. I also want you to create other products by re-purposing your content. This isn’t available to you if you give up your rights and go with a traditional publisher. The author retains owner- ship and control of their rights and content. One of the best decisions Amazon made. The copyright stays with the author.

I am a huge fan and supporter of self-publishing. Self-publishing before had a bad taste to it, but not anymore. If you want to publish a book; you can publish a book. It is being done all over the place with great success. The gatekeepers have fallen. We have Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), Smashwords. com, IngramSpark.com and more. No one is going to say no to you publishing your book. It is all up to you. Self-publishing has become easier and easier to do and very often free. For self-publishers, the world is opening up.

The writers I know, who have gone the more the traditional route, have found success with smaller, more focused publishers. Publishers who know their market and can work with an author. For me, it comes down to control. Who controls the rights and uses to our content? I like being able to use my content any way that I want.

10 Self-Publishing • No one can say no. If you want to publish your book, you can publish. • Faster to market. I have done books in one weekend. • Control of your content, you keep your copyright, this is super important. • You can re-purpose your content for marketing. Create other products such as workbooks and journals. Make podcasts and videos. • Free to publish or close to it. You pay the costs to edit, design and format your book, free if you do it yourself. • You will have to market your book yourself. But even with most publishers these days you will have to handle the marketing. • Higher royalties, estimate $2.50-$3.50+ vs. $.70 for traditional publishing.

Traditional Publishing • You will need an agent to approach a publisher. • Lots of people can and will say no to publishing your book. • It can take a year to create and release your book. • You lose your copyright and your rights to control your content. • You will not be able to re-purpose your content. The publisher owns your material. This is important in marketing your book. You want to be able to use your content how you want. • A publisher will do the production work for your project. Don’t pay a publisher to publish your book. • You will most likely still have to handle all the marketing yourself. This can be a challenge because your publisher now controls your content and may not like your ideas.

11 • Where Do I Publish My Book? The main self-publishing path leads to Amazon and Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). Kindle publishes both e-books and paperback–print-on-demand books. You create your book using programs like MS-Word, Adobe InDesign and Pow- kdp.amazon.com. Files get reviewed for any technical issues but not editorial. OnceerPoint. approved, Once that you is hitcomplete publish you and create you are a cover. a published The two author. files are Now upload starts to the hard part, marketing and selling your book. With self-publishing, everything is under your control. You keep all the rights to your content.

There are also many other outlets for publishing your book. Sites such as Lulu.com, Blurb.com, Barns & Noble Press, Bookbaby.com, Direct2Print.com, Smashwords.com, and IngramSpark.com and more. The message here is that you can publish your book when and how you want and under your own control.

RESOURCES, SELF-PUBLISHING:

E-Book Publishers • KDP.Amazon.com, the main e-book site, an e-book reader, free, https://kdp.amazon.com • Smashwords.com distributes e-books to over 80 outlets and devices, free, https://www.smashwords.com/ • Draft 2 Digital.com, free, https://www.draft2digital.com/

Print-on-Demand Paperback Books • KDP.Amazon.com, paperback, print-on-demand, a division of Amazon, free, https://kdp.amazon.com

Combination of Paperback, Hard Cover and e-books These companies offer a variety of options including e-book, print, spiral/coil binding, saddle stitch/staples and pdf with distribution options • IngramSpark.com, print-on-demand, world’s largest book distributor to book and gift stores, some fees, http://www.ingramspark.com/ • Lulu.com, similar to KDP.Amazon but with more printing options, paperback, hardcover, spiral, saddle, free, https://www.lulu.com/

12 • Barnes & Noble Press, formally Nook Press, a new, revised publishing platform from Barnes & Noble, now offering print, e-book and a possible relationship with their stores if you can sell 1,000 books over a year. https://press.barnesandnoble.com/ • BookBaby.com, a variety of different pay packages, fee,https://www.bookbaby.com/ • Books-A-Million D.I.Y. with BAM! Publishing, write, publish, print and distribute in print or e-book, http://www.bampublish.com/ • Blurb.com, photo and art books, free, http://www.blurb.com/

Book Printer with Access to Bookstore Distribution • IngramSpark.com, print-on-demand, world’s largest book distributor to book and gift stores, some fees, http://www.ingramspark.com/

13 SELF-PUBLISHING SITES COMPARED Kindle e-Book Text Kindle e-Book Fixed Format Primary Function E-book E-book, fixed format

Distribution Amazon Amazon

Primary File Needed Word saved as html, or Kindle PDF Create, with MS Word, Google Doc

ISBN Number ISBN not required ISBN not required

Typical Book Orientation Primarily Vertical Primarily Vertical

Square Book if Possible No Yes

Typical Page Count 3,500 words on up 24-150

Min-Max Page Count Pages depend on reading device No min, but recommend 24+

Photo DPI 72-120dpi 72-120dpi

Black/White/Color Formats Gray scale/Line/RGB Gray scale/Line/RGB

Photo Size Insert images into Word file, Insert images in file 900 pixels wide X 1100 pixels tall

Common Programs for MS Word, Google Docs and Any program that can make a PDF Creating Kindle Create and Kindle Create or Kid Create

Interior Page Margins No margin required No margin required

Bleeds No bleeds Run images to edge of page

Cover Front cover only, jpg, 300dpi, Front cover only, jpg, 300dpi, Canva.com has excellent templates, Include as first page of file, also Kindle Cover Creator upload cover to Kindle site

Table of Contents (TOC) Created using H1 heads or created Created from designated points in with Bookmarks and Hyper-links file in Kindle Creator, also supports Bookmarks and Hyper-links

Page Numbers, Headers No page numbers or headers Yes, page numbers and headers added to master page

Words on the Spine No spine No spine

14 KDP/Kindle Print/Paperback IngramSpark.com Lulu.com

Paperback Print Paperback, Hardcover, epub, stores Paperback Print, division of Amazon

Amazon World wide, Amazon, epub Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Ingram

PDF PDF PDF

ISBN Required, Kindle supplied ISBN Required, Ingram or author ISBN Required, Lulu supplies free or free or author supplies paid supplies paid author supplies paid

Landscape/Vertical Landscape/Vertical Landscape/Vertical

Yes, several sizes Yes, several sizes Yes, several sizes

32-300+ 32-300+ 32-300+

24 to 480-740 depend on size 24 to 480-740 depend on size 24 to 480-740 depend on size

300dpi 300dpi 300dpi

Gray scale/Line/RGB and CMYK Gray scale/Line/CMYK Gray scale/Line/CMYK

Size images same as in book Size images same as in book Size images same as in book 300dpi 300dpi 300dpi

InDesign, MS Word, PowerPoint InDesign InDesign, MS Word, PowerPoint

Recommend .5” margin all around Recommend .5” margin all around Recommend .5” margin all around

Add .125” bleed to top, outside Add .125” bleed to top, outside Add .125” bleed to top, outside edge, and bottom of your page edge, and bottom of your page edge, and bottom of your page

Set up as a spread, back, spine Set up as a spread, back, spine and Set up as a spread, back, spine and and front with .125” bleed all four front with .125” bleed all four sides. front with .125” bleed all four sides. sides. High Res pdf file. High Res pdf file. Ingram supplies High Res pdf file Cover Creator template

Manually added in file Manually added in file Manually added in file

Yes, numbers added to master Yes, numbers added to master page Yes, page numbers and headers page added to master page

Yes, min 100 pages author or Yes, recommend 150 pages Yes, min 100 pages if author Cover Creator created, min 131 pages if using KDP Cover Creator

15 • What is Print-on-Demand Printing? Print-on-Demand is what makes self-publishing a print book possible. Read- ers buy your book on Amazon or other indie publishing sites. Using digital printing a single copy is printed, packed and shipped to the customer. Think high-quality photocopying. The process is fast and seamless. It seems like the book was pulled off a shelf, but they aren’t, the book is printed, bound and shipped. What this means for you as an author is no inventory. You do not have

This saves you tremendous amounts of money and effort. There are no garages fullto do of anything books waiting other tothan ship. write, layout the book and upload the print files.

RESOURCE: • KDP.Amazon.com, Lulu.com, Blurb.com and IngramSpark.com, the leading print-on- demand publishing sites. See the previous question for the web address.

• What is Kindle and Kindle Direct Publishing? Kindle Direct Publishing, owned by Amazon.com, has several sides. It is the e-book side of Amazon. They are the dominant publisher and distributor of e-books in the world. They are also the supplier of the Kindle e-book readers and apps. KDP is also the print-on-demand, paperback publisher for Amazon.

Kindle E-Books readThere on are the several Kindle types reading of Kindle device e-books. or app. A There big feature is the generalof e-books re-flowable is that the texte-book resizes such to as whatever a novel or device non-fiction you are book using, that phone, we are tablet, used orto. e-bookE-books reader. are To create an e-book you use a word processing application like MS-Word or being the interior pages, often written and formatted in MS-Word. The second, Google Docs. You format your e-book and upload two files to Kindle. The first author. a front cover file, usually a jpg document. Hit publish and you are a published

16 You can also publish picture books, children’s books, and comic or graphic novels on a Kindle. In these books, the pages move page by page on the read- travel or cookbooks also work very well on Kindles. These more complex ing device or app instead of flowing. More complex books such as textbooks,

Thisbooks past are year usually Kindle made a really from pdfcool, files. free application called Kindle Create. Cre- book. You can customize, format and add a Table of Contents to your e-book. It worksate takes on yourboth MS-WordPC or Mac or and pdf is interior very easy book to use.file and turns it into a Kindle

Kindle Paperback and Print-on-Demand Books Kindle Direct Publishing is also the print-on-demand side of Amazon. We use to publish our book through a division of Amazon called CreateSpace.com. CreateSpace merged into Kindle and everything is under one roof.

Kindle prints paperback books in either black and white or color. They have

Kindle; they process and move them over to Amazon for selling. Kindle pays youa wide once variety your bookof sizes sells and on options. Amazon. All You book manage interior everything and cover from files one upload Kindle to account. For hardcover books or other binding options look at Lulu.com, Blurb.com also IngramSpark.com.

Use word processing programs like MS-Word and Google Docs to create your book. Books with more complex formatting or designed, we use Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator.

My recommendation is to publish your book in both formats, e-book, and paperback. Once you have one format ready to go you are pretty close to creating the other. You don’t know which format your book will be successful in. Do both.

See Creating Your Own Book, Page 67 for more in-depth details.

17 RESOURCES, KINDLE BOOKS: • KDP.Amazon.com, e-book, and paperback, print-on-demand division of Amazon, free, https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US Kindle has a variety of apps to help you create e-books and illustrated graphic books. These apps work with PC and Mac. • Kindle Create, a free app for creating Kindle e-books. Pretty much any kind of book can be created using Kindle Create, including novels, non-fiction, business books, picture books, textbooks, and comic books. Import your word processing file into Kindle Create, style it, build a table of contents (TOC), export it and publish on Amazon. Kindle Create also imports PDF files. You can move the pages around, build a TOC and create the needed e-book ready publishing file. https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/GHU4YEWXQGNLU94T

• Kindle Kid Creator, great for creating books with illustrations, import PDF file, jpg, png, tiff. Add pages and text to imported PDF files. https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201562880

• Kindle Textbook Creator, create and publish educational material for Kindle devices and reading apps. Convert PDF file of existing textbooks, study guides, reference material. You can include audio, video, hyperlinks and image popups. https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201642070

• Kindle Comic Creator, the original Kindle app, designed for graphic novels and comic books. Support for panels, imports, PDF, jpg, png, and tiff formats. https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200735480

18 • Why Does Kindle/Amazon Want My Tax and Bank Account Info? Amazon needs this info to pay us our money. How do they get the money into our banks if they do not know the account number? Account holders must provide this information. All e-commerce sites report sales to the IRS. That is how it works.

• What is An e-Pub Book? E-pub is the other e-book format and does not work with Amazon and Kindle. It is the format used on all non-Kindle reading devices on the market. This includes Kobo, Nook, Apple iBooks and Sony devices. There are over 80 different sites and many readers.

Generally, you want to be where the most customers are and that is Amazon and Kindle. After that iBooks and Nook which is Barns & Noble’s reader and then Kobo. Kobo is big in Canada, Japan and now a big push in a relationship with Walmart. Kindle has about 40% of the market and ePub and all the other readers have 60%. 40% is a huge amount. Be where your customers are and

Therethen pick are aalso couple many others. other My e-book advice, formats go with to consider,Kindle first. PDF, TXT, RTF, HTML, and others. Depending on your audience and how you are selling your content you may end up using one of these. PDF is the most popular.

RESOURCE: • Barnes & Noble Press, formally Nook Press, https://press.barnesandnoble.com/

• MS-Word. Microsoft Word is the standard word processing writing program around the world. It is for writing and for creating documents of all kinds. You may use MS-Word for writing but you can also use it to format your text and books for Kindle. MS-Word is a very versatile application. You can also use on- create your e-book for Kindle. MS-Word also works fine for creating printed

•line Google applications Docs, word like Googleprocessing, Docs, and Open document Office and creation Scrivener. software by Google.

Requires a Gmail email account. Works with PC or Mac and is like Microsoft’s Part of the Google Drive service of office products. Available online for free.

•Office Adobe Suite. InDesign. InDesign is the number one application for laying out and designing your print book. Think of it as a bucket. You use a word processing program like MS-Word to write your book. An illustration program such as Adobe Illustrator to create graphics for your book. A photo editing program like Photoshop for cleaning up your photos and images. You bring all these - sign can do pretty much anything you need graphics wise. InDesign, Illustrator, andfiles Photoshoptogether in rent InDesign, from Adobethe bucket on a somonthly to speak basis. and This create package your book. is the InDe Adobe Creative Cloud.

• Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop is the number one imaging-editing program. Photoshop is the second leg of the Adobe Creative Cloud. Anything you need to do to an image or photo you can use Photoshop. Photoshop is a very powerful program. It for editing, touching up photos, building graphics and illustrations. There are less expensive online alternatives such as Pixlr.com and FotoFlexer. com. But Photoshop gives you the most features and is the industry standard.

20 • Adobe Illustrator. Illustrator is the third leg of the big three Adobe products. Illustrator is for drawing and editing vector graphics. Graphic designers use it to draw illustrations, logos, charts, and diagrams. Illustrator is also part - mats. They all work together to help you create your project. of the Adobe Creative Cloud. These programs can save your files in many for • Microsoft PowerPoint. PowerPoint by Microsoft is the companion presentation software to MS-Word. Businesses and organizations use it for presenting can adapt it to publishing because of its ease of use. It has a simple graphics platformslide-show to digitalcreate presentations.picture books, Itchildren’s is part of books, the Microsoft and journal Office books. Suite. In We some cases, we can also use Google Slide and Apple Keynote. InDesign is my go-to design program but PowerPoint and the others are alternatives that we can

•use Scrivener also. As ,long a word as we processing can save programthe file in and PDF outliner format. designed for authors. In- side of this, you can manage your documents, notes, and graphics. PC or Mac.

RESOURCES: • Adobe.com, https://www.adobe.com/ • Google.com/docs, https://www.google.com/docs/about/ • Microsoft Office, https://products.office.com/en-us/home • Scrivener.com, https://www.literatureandlatte.com/ and other places

• What Programs Should I Use to Create a Picture/Children’s Book? Picture books and children’s book fall into their own world because they are so picture heavy. Once you receive your illustrations you will need to lay them out and then add text. I would recommend using Adobe products, InDesign, worthPhotoshop renting and the Illustrator. Creative TheSuite Adobe for your products project. give you the flexibility to create your book. They also export the proper high res pdf files for publishing. It is

21 Publishing a photo or image book on Blurb.com? I would look at Blurb’s Book- wright Book Publishing Software. It is an alternative to the Adobe products. It is free and downloads to your PC or Mac. You can create layouts, add text, work with their templates or design your own. Once the project is complete youRESOURCES: upload the files right to Blurb. • Adobe.com, https://www.adobe.com/ • Blurb, Bookwright software, http://www.blurb.com/bookwright

• Can I Create a Hardcover Book? The short answer is yes you can. If you want to sell a hardcover book to the world you should look at IngramSpark.com. They do a great job. If you aren’t distributing your book in stores but want a hardcover version, use sites like Lulu.com or Blurb.com. They both have excellent hardcover options. In fact Lulu.com has a variety of cover binding options. Both Lulu and Blurb have distribution relationships with Amazon. The books can get a little expensive to sellRESOURCES: after everyone adds their financial markups. • IngramSpark.com, print-on-demand, world’s largest book distributor to book and gift stores, some fees http://www.ingramspark.com/ • Lulu.com, Similar to KDP.Amazon but with more printing options https://www.lulu.com/ • Blurb.com, Photo and art books http://www.blurb.com/ • 48hrBooks.com, if you just need books printed quickly, paperback, hardcover, coil bound, and saddle stitch, https://www.48hrbooks.com/

22 • Can My Book Be in Bookstores? When we publish we usually think of a book in a bookstore, but this isn’t the case anymore. Most self-publishers publish only on Amazon. They publish with the intent of never being in a store. And their books are either e-books or print-on-demand paperbacks. They are happy to never leave Amazon. Along with paperback books, we also have e-books, audio books, video, pdfs, and a combination of these. Again, never being in a store.

A key question I ask when someone comes to me is; do they see their books in stores or only on Amazon. Staying on Amazon in either e-book or paperback or both is the easiest path when starting out. Publishing through Kindle for e-books and print-on-demand paperbacks and stay in their universe. It is a good universe to be in. Amazon is one of the most trusted e-commerce platforms to be on. This is where people go to buy and they cover major chunks of the world.

The problem with print-on-demand is that most bookstores won’t order books from Kindle/Amazon. Even though stores can order, they won’t. One reason is - stores cannot return unsold print-on-demand books. A little-known fact about bookstores,Amazon. Stores all the do booksnot like you dealing see in with a store the are big actually fish. The on other consignment. reason, book If they do not sell, the will return to the publisher. Kindle/Amazon do not take print-on-demand books back. But you can have a very nice publishing business staying on Amazon. Your job then becomes, creating new books and marketing/selling them. Amazon takes care of the rest. If you want a book in bookstores, work with print-on-demand publisher/distributor, IngramSpark. Bookstores can return books ordered through IngramSpark.

RESOURCES: • IngramSpark.com, print-on-demand, world’s largest book distributor to book and gift stores, some fees http://www.ingramspark.com/ • Lulu.com, Similar to Kindle but with more printing options. Has a distribution relationship with Ingram https://www.lulu.com/

23 • How Do I Get My Book in Bookstores? If you see bookstores in your future, you need to self-publish your book through IngramSpark.com. IngramSpark is part of Ingram. Ingram is the world’s largest book distributor with over 39,000 outlets worldwide. Book- stores order books from distributors. IngramSpark is like Kindle. The print print and distribute from their warehouses and return if they don’t sell. In- gramfiles are has the some same small and fees the butprint-on-demand works very much process like Kindle.is the same. IngramSpark But the books also distributes to Amazon for both e-book and print. And to stores and e-book distributors around the world. Many people who go this route keep Amazon under their control and then use Ingram for the rest of the world. down to this. It can get a little confusing trying to figure out what to do, but it kind of comes • If you do not care about bookstores, then stay with Kindle for e-book and paperback print. Manage your Kindle accounts yourself. You will be happy. This is generally what I do.

• If you want to be in bookstores, even sometime in the future, then take a serious look at IngramSpark. When you move to IngramSpark you will also want to start thinking of yourself as a publisher. It is a bigger deal. You will need to pick up your publishing game and start selling your books to bookstores. You are the book salesperson. None of these other companies do that, it is up to you. Ingram is a printer and a distributor. They are not a sales site such as Amazon, but you will be in their catalog. Making the choice to go with IngramSpark you will need to buy your ISBN numbers. ISBN numbers are the universal tracking code for books. I will talk more about this shortly.

• A good middle ground. If bookstores are in your future, buy your own ISBN instead of using the free ones from Kindle. In the Distribution area of Kindle, donumber not check from Expanded MyIdentifier.com. Distribution. MyIdentifier This is what is a division Ingram ofdoes. Bowker. Release Do yourthis book through Kindle/Amazon and start exploring the retail book world. When

24 you are ready you can move over to Ingram and start printing/distributing there. The key is to own your own ISBN number.

See page 28 to learn about ISBN numbers.

RESOURCES: • IngramSpark.com, print-on-demand, world’s largest book distributor to book and gift stores, some fees, http://www.ingramspark.com/ • Lulu.com, Similar to Kindle but with more printing options, https://www.lulu.com/ • Barnes&Noble, If you can sell 1,000 copies in a 12 month period you are eligible to pitch your book for selling in their stores. https://press.barnesandnoble.com/

• How Do I Make an Audio Book? One of the hottest trends right now in publishing is to release your book as an audiobook or podcast. This is usually done after you have published your book in print and e-book. Sell your audiobook on Amazon.com. And distribute your podcast on Apple iTunes, SoundCloud or Stitcher. Each chapter is an episode. Very often you will see audiobooks selling for much more than the printed or e-book version. Your book is a ready-made series. Record each chapter right from your desktop or for better quality in a recording studio. You can also hire professional narrators through ACX.com, a division of Amazon. This will give you a professional sound. It is all the same content but in different formats.

RESOURCES: Publishing as an Audio Book • ACX.com is like Kindle but for audio. It is a division of Amazon and handles their audiobooks. The books themselves are sold through Audible.com. You can create your own or hire a professional reader for your book. http://www.acx.com/ • Findaway Voices, an alternative to ACX and a way to create and distribute audio books to multiple retailers. Great for indie authors. https://findawayvoices.com, has an excellent Help page which describes the process, https://my.findawayvoices.com/help-and-resources

25 Publishing as a Podcast Distributors • iTunes, Main podcast site, https://www.apple.com/itunes/ • Stitcher.com, radio shows and podcasts, phone and tablet, https://www.stitcher.com/

Hosting • Libsyn.com, complete podcast hosting and publishing platform, https://www.libsyn.com/ • SoundCloud.com, online audio distribution platform for audio in all formats, podcast hosting, https://soundcloud.com/

Article • Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income.com has excellent information on how to get started, https://www.smartpassiveincome.com/podcasting/

• Are You Publishing Primarily in the US or Worldwide? Are staying only on Amazon? Then KDP is the best choice for publishing e-books and print-on-demand paperback books. This applies to the US, the UK, and Canada. This is what most self-publishers in the U.S. do. It is free to publish on Amazon. Amazon takes care of everything. Amazon handles the selling, ordering, printing, shipping and payments. If you go this route, you can use the free ISBN numbers supplied by KDP/Kindle and save the $125.00. I do this.

If you want to be in retail stores, bookstores, and gift shops then IngramSpark. com is the way to go. Many authors will use Kindle and KDP for Amazon and IngramSpark for the rest of the world. Ingram is the world’s largest book distributor. They print and can handle all e-book and print distribution. If you want to be worldwide with a paperback, hardcover and e-book then look at IngramSpark.com. If you go this route, you will need to buy your own ISBN numbers. You can also let Ingram handle distribution to Amazon and work with one vendor.

Going the IngramSpark route is a bigger deal. I do not recommend this direction for beginning authors. There are technical and marketing challenges

to deal with. I recommend getting your26 first book finished and published on Kindle/Amazon. Then start building your platform and getting the marketing and sales going. You will learn so much with one book under your belt. You can then branch out and conquer the world.

RESOURCES: • IngramSpark.com, print-on-demand, world’s largest book distributor to book and gift stores, some fees, http://www.ingramspark.com/

• How Long Should My Book Be? Your book needs to be as long as you need to tell your story.

It is a tough question to answer. Books can be short or long. With e-books, you can do short read books in the 4,000-8,000 range. This works to get something up quick, or to a regular size book of 70,000 words. The book you are current- ly reading is in the 30,000-word range.

• Kindle/Amazon paperback, your book needs to be at least 24 pages long, 50- 70 works pretty for a short quick book. 150-200 pages make for a decent size book. The average word count per page is 250 words.

• Children’s books generally fall in the 32-page length. I like coloring books in the 80-100-page length and journals 140 to 160 pages. so 24, 28, or 32 pages will work. Even 8 or 12 pages can work very well as a quick• A quick print print book. book Something created atyou a localcan give printer away needs to potential to fit into customers. a unit of 4Books pages with FAQ questions work great for this.

Learn How to Create and Publish Your Own Book Join PublishingMastery101.com and gain access to all the self-publishing courses in the Publishing Mastery Academy. Includes the Master Classes and a 1-on-1 session with J. Bruce Jones. PublishingMastery101.com 27 A lot of books these days are quick reads. People do not have a lot of time. So, something you can read in a day can be very popular in the business categories. One idea I teach is do not make 300-400 page books. Break them up into a series or volumes. You can make more money if you have more books and then link them together. Cross-sell inside each book for the next book. But the bottom line is telling the story you need to tell.

RESOURCE: • One of my favorite books on how to set up and sell a book series is, Write. Publish. Repeat. (The No-Luck-Required Guide to Self-Publishing Success) by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant

• What is an ISBN Number? This is a question asked all the time. What is an ISBN number and how does it work? ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number. It is the unique barcode with a sequence of numbers found on the back of books. The numbers identify and track the sales of every print book. Some e-books also need ISBN numbers. ISBNs are for ordering and tracking books. The number/barcode is usually found on the lower back corner of the book. There is an ISBN number for every print book published. The number connects to the book title, not the book cover design or the book content. If your book is a new version, edition, hardcover version of a paperback, your book needs a new unique ISBN number.

In the United States, Bowker.com manages the ISBN num-

Every country has a different register and cost for purchas- ingbers. these You numbers.buy them Infrom the MyIdentifier.com, United States, the part cost of is Bowker.$125 each but you can save a lot of money if you buy them in lots of 10 or 100. Usually, all you need is the ISBN number. The book publishing site generates and applies the barcode. Leave a blank space in the lower corner of your back cover for the ISBN barcode. ISBN numbers are usually assigned to the publishing company of record.

28 Many print-on-demand sites give ISBN numbers away for free. Sites like Kin- dle, Lulu, and Blurb. Free ISBN numbers that come from each of these sites usually list that site as the publisher. The free ISBN numbers only work on the site that issued them. IngramSpark offers discounted numbers for their books.

The ISBN indicates who is publishing the book, not who controls the rights. The rights belong to you as the author/creator. If you publish with a traditional publisher, they own the rights to the book while under contract. with Kindle/Amazon. Either a paperback or e-book. Stay away from book- storesMy recommendation at this point. Stay for onnew Amazon. self-publishing If you are authors, publishing publish a print your book? first bookUse their ISBN numbers to start. Kindle print books must have an ISBN number. E-books don’t need an ISBN number. Some e-book sites do need an ISBN number. You will need to check each site’s requirements.

You can’t use any publishing site’s ISBN numbers to print on another platform. You have to stay with the company that issued it. If you have any idea that you might want to distribute your paperback book in bookstores. Including sometime in the future, you have two choices.

moveOne is your to buy book your to own IngramSpark ISBN number for printing from Bowker and distribution at MyIdentifier.com in bookstores. and use it on Kindle/Amazon for your paperback. This gives you flexibility. You can The second is to work with IngramSpark.com for printing and distribution. Use their ISBN number or the one you purchased. IngramSpark also distributes to Amazon.

RESOURCE: • To purchase an ISBN number: Bowker.com is the official U.S. ISBN Agency. Sales for ISBN numbers is done through MyIdentifiers.com, https://www.myidentifiers.com/

29 • Do I Need to Copyright My Book?

What is Copyright? “Copyright is a form of protection grounded in the U.S. Constitution and granted by law for original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Copyright covers both published and unpublished works.” – copyright.gov

You can decide if you want to have a registered copyright or not. The mere creation of your work makes it copyrighted but it has no real enforcement behind - ing. This is what most self-publishers do. Be sure you do this. It lets the world knowit. The that first you step at is least to put know the copyrightabout copyright. notice onWrite your it worklike this: before publish

copyright.gov and costs $35.00. Registering your book with the copyright office can be done online at Do I Have to Register with the Copyright Office to be Protected? “No. In general, registration is voluntary. Copyright exists from the moment the work is created. You will have to register, however, if you wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work.” – copyright.gov

Your work is always protected under copyright. But you cannot do much about usuallyit in a court not worthof law it.if youYou haven’tcannot moveregistered forward with with the acopyright lawsuit without office. Including a regis- teredany financial book. Read damages. the copyright.gov Suing for copyright FAQ page, infringement it has a lot isof veryinfo onexpensive this. and

- try that you publish your book in. Make sure it is easy to understand which countryYou should you also are filefrom. your Which copyright jurisdiction in the youcountry are in.that Different you live countries in not the have coun different rules. Most countries respect other countries’ copyrights.

30 RESOURCES: • U.S. Copyright Office: https://www.copyright.gov/ • Get your questions answered here at the U.S. Copyright Office’s excellent FAQ page, https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/

• Who Owns the Book’s Copyright if I Publish on Amazon? Amazon or Kindle or Me? You do. That is the beauty of working with Amazon, Kindle and most of the other publishers mentioned in this book. You keep all your rights. With a traditional publisher, you give up your rights to the publishing company. Not so with Amazon. It is a beautiful thing. This means that you can use your content in your marketing. You can also create more products. Products like workbooks, journals, posters, etc from the same content. Some programs like Kin- dle Select restrict you from releasing duplicate content. Kindle Select lasts for a 90 day period of time, but you do not give up your rights. Amazon can com- plain about seeing the same content on your website as in your Kindle book. But again you do not lose the rights. If they ask, acknowledge that this is all your original content. This should suffice Amazon’s inquiry.

31 • How Do KDP Kindle/Amazon Royalties Work? Royalties are what we get paid for publishing our books on Amazon or any other site. A book gets sold and everyone gets a piece of the pie.

Kindle e-Book Royalty Kindle has two e-book royalty payouts based on the list price, 35% and 70%. Depending on how your book is set up and where it sells in the world, deter- mines which one you choose. The royalties are exclusive of VAT charges.

35% royalty, your royalty will be 35% of your list price. Amazon pays for

$200.00. Applies worldwide. the e-book file download delivery cost. Books need to be priced from $.99 to -

This is the royalty that works for picture e-books because of the file sizes. Min imum E-Booklist price File willSize be adjusted Minimumdepending List onPrice the e-book fileMaximum size. List Price less than 3mb $0.99 $200.00 greater than 3mb but less than 10mb $1.99 $200.00 greater than 10mb $2.99 $200.00

35% Royalty Rate x (List Price – applicable VAT) = Royalty

70% royalty, your royalty will be 70% of your list price. The author pays for world. Books need to be priced from $2.99 to $9.99 the e-book file download delivery cost. Some limits on where it applies in the 70% Royalty Rate x (List Price applicable VAT – Delivery Cost) = Royalty

You will be able to see the different options and royalties when your select your e-book price.

VAT are taxes added to products in some countries, does not apply in the US.

32 KDP Paperback Royalty, Amazon Distribution Channels

Your royalty rate is 60% of your list price, minus your printing costs. Printing costsKDP offers depend a fixed on the 60% number royalty of ratepages, on ink,paperbacks and the Amazonsold in the marketplace Amazon market. the book sells in. The author pays nothing to have our books on Amazon. Amazon takes the book’s manufacturing cost out at the time of printing.

(Royalty Rate x List Price) – Amazon Printing Costs = Royalty

List price is $15. Your book is a 333-page paperback, black ink, sold in the US (.60 x $15) – $4.85 = Royalty is $4.15. $4.85 are Amazon’s costs.

KDP Paperback Royalty, Expanded Distribution Channels The royalty rate is now 40%

Check the links below for more info on KDP printing costs and a Royalty Calculator.

This all compares to traditional publishing that pays about $.70 to $1.00 per book. Many people get concerned about the royalty thing and get upset that Amazon is taking a piece. My comment is get over it. We are getting to publish our books on the most trusted platform on the planet. Amazon is taking care of everything. The sales page, the order page, the printing, shipping, and payments, all for no out of pocket expense. They actually pay you the money. You do not have to chase anyone around to get paid. It is amazing, if you want more money, raise your price or create more books.

RESOURCE: • Kindle Royalties for e-Books, detailed information on how royalties are determined. https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200644210 • Kindle Royalties for Print Paperback Books, calculator and printing costs information https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201834330

33 34 My Story, Learning to Write at 53

35 36 My Story, Learning to Write at 53

Who am I? I am J. Bruce Jones, a 33+ year business graphic designer. I have been in every kind of design project that you can have. Designing logos, brochures, environmental wall graphics, books, newsletters, presentations, reports, more. It has been a wonderful career helping businesses create their graphics.

I am also a product developer and have many products of my own. My biggest selling product is a collection of editable clip art maps called the World of Maps. The collection includes maps for use in PowerPoint and Adobe Illustrator. Usually used for business sales and marketing presentations and education. The editable maps sell worldwide, online and in packages. The World of Maps has been selling for over 25 years. I also have posters, t-shirts, about publishing through the books I have authored. I have created over 40 books,mugs, pdf which files, I sell and on video Amazon. courses The many topics based range off from, of my music books. theory, I came geogra to know- phy, coloring, publishing and children’s books. Creating books was one of my publish books. earliest goals. Starting around the age of five, I knew I wanted to create and The fascinating thing for me is that at age three I knew six words. In elementa- ry school, I am diagnosed with dyslexia. Throughout my primary school years, college and beyond I struggled with writing. It was almost impossible for me

37 to put a sentence together. Everything was backward and twisted. I still cannot tell you what a noun or preposition is. Even today, if I do not get a word models and did projects instead of writing papers. Around age 50 I started to pushout on with the tryingfirst try to it write. is gone, Writing it is not has there. always I was been that a goal kid inof schoolsmine. I wanted who made to write books. I started writing blogs and pushed my way along. I also learned about the power of an editor from being a graphic designer. I learned that I did not have to be perfect; I had to get my thoughts down in a reasonable fashion. I

Atcould 53, thenI took work a product with an development editor and get course it fixed. from the Internet marketer Jeff Walker. Called Product Launch Formula. In this online course, he had us do an exercise where we had to write out a business plan around our idea. He had us do our projects in little pieces, building it bit by bit over a period of could write. What I could not do on one day I could do the next. Words started time. After finishing our project something magical happened, I realized I head and I could write. If you read any of my emails during that time they are hugepouring because out of for my once fingers. I could They write. wouldn’t I kept stop. pushing Some and switch pushing had flippedand I loved in my a very enjoyable and always wanting to do effort. Along the way, I developed variousthe change. strategies What wasfor creating a very difficult the copy. and This painful experience task for helped me had me switched create the to Top Ten Technique for writing a book. I highlight it in more detail at the end of this book.

Today I have many writing projects going on all the time.

To learn more about what I am doing please check out my publishing blog, BruceTheBookGuy.com http://brucethebookguy.blogspot.com/

Come over and join the How to Publish Your Book Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/HowToPublishYourBook/

38 Part 2. How to Write and Publish Your Book

39 Part 2. How to Write and Publish Your Book

Writing Your Book 39 1. Writing Your Book 41 2. Collect Your Graphics Assets, Images, Pictures, and Charts 43 3. Key Elements that Every Book Should Have 50 4. Editing Your Book 57 5. Pre-Edit Printed Proof 59 6. Six Different Options for Publishing Your Book. 61 Creating Your Book 67 7. Creating a Kindle e-Book, Including a Kindle Formatting Guide 69 Kindle e-Book Formatting Guidelines 72 8. Creating a Kindle/Amazon Print Book, Inside and Cover 77 9. Creating a Quick Print Book 83 Publishing Your Book 85 10. Uploading and Publishing Your Book 85 11. Launching and Marketing Your Book 90 Re-Purposing Your Book’s Content 12. Re-purposing Your Book Content for Additional Products 93 Self-Publishing Checklist 97 Part 3. Bonus Content • Making an Amazon Best-seller 111 • Best-seller Checklist 120 • Top Ten Technique for Creating a Book 122 • Publishing Resources 133

40 Writing Your Book

1. Writing Your Book The steps to writing your book can many, there are no strict rules of thumb. There are a million ways to write a book and many good books on it. The one - er asking yourself is. Is your book all text or all pictures or a combination of both?you choose Are you will writing be the aone novel, that creating fits your a style.children’s Questions book, youa how-to might book, consid cookbook, or poetry book? Whatever it is, begin by putting your ideas down on paper or on a computer. Create an outline or mind map of ideas. You can also dictate or record yourself speaking your ideas and then transcribe and edit. see the magic of your writing abilities take form. Let the creative ideas flow and build one on top of the other. You will begin to This book isn’t about the mechanics of writing, it is about publishing what you have written. But I do have my technique for writing books. I call it the Top Ten Technique for Creating a Book. You can read more about it starting on page 121.

My advice is to write your book using a standard word processing program like MS-Word or Google Docs. Keep the layout simple. Leave the formatting to your graphic designer. Below are many resources available to help you with your writing.

41 SOME OF THE BOOK WRITING RESOURCES THAT I LIKE: • Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, this is a classic • One of my favorite resources is Steven Pressfield’s blog and his books. He

out “The Series” - is a wonderful writer of fiction, non-fiction and the process of writing. Check The War of Art, Break area of Through his blog. thehttp://www.stevenpressfield.com/. Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative. Press field has an entire series of excellent how-to books on writing. Including, • The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know, Shawn Coyne • On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft, Steven King • On Writing Well, William Zinsser • The Writing Life, Annie Dillard • How to Write Bestselling Fiction, Dean Koontz • The Elements of Style, Strunk and White • Write, Publish, Repeat, by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant. This book is a must on how to manage your writing and build a career and income from your books. This is one of the best I have read on how to structure your books to lead your readers from one book the next. I recommend it. • Joanna Penn and TheCreativePenn.com blog and books. Joanna is a British best-selling thriller author. Penn writes on writing, marketing, publishing and making a living as an author. Her book How to Market a Book is excellent. https://www.thecreativepenn.com/

RESOURCES: One of the easiest ways to get the word down is to dictate your them. You can speak it into your phone or computer; audio or video. A great way to do this is to create a series of questions and have someone interview you. Record it, transcribe and edit. A great place to do this is while you commute in your car. You do it every day and there is no one to bother you. Both of the services below can take audio, video or link from a video. • Rev.com, a fantastic service for transcription, very accurate, $1.00/minute, https://www.rev.com/ • Temi.com, audio to text transcription, uses speech recognition software, $0.10/minute, https://www.temi.com/ 42 2. Collect Your Graphics Assets, Images, Pictures, Charts Some books have text only; some have pictures only. Like with writing, you need to start collecting or creating your images and graphics. There are lots of ways to create illustrations for your book.

• You can hire an illustrator, Fiverr.com or Upwork.com are good places to look.

• License art from a stock photo house like ShutterStock.com, Dreamstime. com, or Pixabay.com. There are many paid and free stock art and illustration sites available online.

• You can draw the art yourself using pen and paper. Then scan it, clean it up in a program like Photoshop, Illustrator, and others.

• Use a drawing tablet from companies like WaCom, Huion, and Ugee. Instead of drawing with a mouse on your computer screen you use a stylus and draw on the tablet. The tablet connects to the drawing application on the computer. Applications such as Illustrator or Photoshop on your computer.

• Use can also draw using an app on an iPad, iPhone or Android device. An art/ drawing app like Symmetry costs very little and the tools are powerful.

• Take your own photos. Use Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom to edit. Remem-

Rememberber the final the resolution image resolution needs to berequirements 300dpi for afor print black-and-white book. or color images. They may vary according to the publishing platform that you chose. It is often best to involve your freelance help as early in the process as you can. Let them know how you are printing and publishing. E-books are 72 or 120dpi and print books are 300dpi, black-and-white or color.

43 RESOURCES: STOCK PHOTOS AND ARTWORK SITES: Stock Photos, Clip Art Sites • AnimationFactory.com http://www.animationfactory.com/en/ • ClipArt.com, http://www.clipart.com • CorbisImages.com, http://www.corbisimages.com • Dreamstime.com, http://www.dreamstime.com/ • FotoSearch.com, http://www.fotosearch.com/ • GettyImages.com, http://www.gettyimages.com • iStockphoto.com, http://www.istockphoto.com/ • JupiterImages.com, http://www.jupiterimages.com • GraphicsFactory.com, http://www.graphicsfactory.com/ a very affordable yearly fee, almost unlimited uses, unlimited downloads • Shutterstock.com, one of my favorite sites for images, http://www.shutterstock.com/

Online Free Photos • Pixabay.com, this site is filled with royalty free photos, vectors and art illustrations that you can use for all kinds of things. https://pixabay.com/ • Pexels.com, more free images, https://www.pexels.com/ • Unsplash.com, Free high-resolution photos, all of the photos are copyright free under the Creative Commons Zero license. Pretty cool images, https://unsplash.com/ • VisualHunt.com, a very cool site with commercial, non-commercial, public domain photos of all kinds, https://visualhunt.com/ • 99Designs Free Images, 99 Designs.com has put out a fantastic list of 30 public domain photo websites. You always need to check to be sure, but this is a great place to start, https://99designs.com.au/blog/resources/public-domain-image-resources/ • Symmetry Labs drawing app for iPhone, iPad, and Android, check your App store • Article from Digital Trends, The Best Drawing Apps for the iPad Pro, https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/best-ipad-pro-drawing-apps/

44 How Do I Find an Illustrator for My Book?

Look around your own community for a freelancer. Connect with a local graph- icFinding designer, an illustrator or search onlineor photographer can bring great for your results. book Are is like you finding part of ana writing editor. group, ask there? The local librarian might know because they work with a lot of local authors. Look through sites like Fiverr.com, Upwork.com, HireAnIllus- trator.com, and Freelancer.

Resources are all over the web for freelance illustrators and graphic designers. Fiverr.com and 99Designs.com are two of the more popular sites. You can look through a lot of illustrator samples, connect and get an idea of style, ability, and price. There are a ton of Facebook Groups on every topic, join several and become involved and ask questions.

It is a good idea to send out test concepts to several artists when choosing an illustrator. See what you get back. Pick a typical illustration and create a small project. Was the process easy? Did the illustrator understand the project? Did on Fiverr.com or whatever site you select. Get a feel of who will work out. Be surethey theystay onare budget familiar and with time? the Itkind is well of book worth you testing are creating. five or more Remember illustrators print books have different requirements than e-books. I usually want the highest resolution image I can get. It is easy to reduce the print resolution down for e-books. Even if you are creating an e-book, get the print resolution images and resize them. You might want to make the print version later.

One of the key questions to ask is who owns the rights to the images. You want full control over your images when you get them. You can use them for your book and for more products. Be sure you can get the original illustrations. If you end up with some cool illustrations, they might make great t-shirts, mugs, and calendars.

45 Another place to look is on some of the stock photo sites like Shutterstock. com. You can search tons of styles and then reach out to the illustrators you like. See if they will do a freelance project. Shutterstock gives you their email addresses.

Some Tips for Working with an Illustrator or Graphic Designer • You will need to give your illustrator or designer directions on your style. What you are looking for and what illustrations to make. To help them along, show them samples of what you like and what you do not like. Fiverr.com, stock photo/illustration sites and Google Images have tons of examples to look at. Download or screen capture your choices and pass them on to your illustrator. The more they know about your project the better the project will go.

• Be very clear on the expected goals and tasks. How many illustrations will you need? How many rounds of changes can the illustrator do for your project? Who owns the rights to the images? Can you reuse the images? These questions are important guidelines in communicating with your freelancer. What to expect from each party. Cut down on misunderstandings later on.

• I know it doesn’t always work, but I like local resources so that I can sit with them and go over the project. I know so much remote now. But if you can meet face to face or use video chat, then you can clarify a project much faster and clearer. Use services like Facebook Video Chat, Zoom.us, or Skype. It is very easy to connect with your team and act like it is local.

Common Art Requirements • Print books, Kindle Print, Lulu, Blurb, IngramSpark, art should be 300dpi, black and white or color. With color images, IngramSpark likes CMYK, Kindle Print and others RGB. JPG for raster and eps or Adobe Illustrator for vector art.

Ask the illustrator to give you illustrations that are a little bigger than the size you need. I like being able to crop or change the size if I need to. So you might

46 need an 8.5” x 11” full-page illustration but ask for a 9.5” x 12” at 300dpi. If you are purchasing stock images from a photo site like ShutterStock.com. Download the biggest size image they offer. It is pretty easy to downsize your image, but you can’t always go up in resolution or size.

• E-books, Kindle, color or black and white, 72 or 120dpi, I like artwork that is 900 pixels wide and 1100 pixels on the long side. Generally, an image around for8.5” this x 11” is toat keep72 or the 96dpi, caption gif or connected jpg is fine. with If you the have illustration. image captions It is common include on e-bookthem in for the the final caption art as andpart illustration of the graphic. to be Usually on different at the pages.bottom. If Thethey reason are one graphic they will stay together.

Be sure to get full reproduction rights for the images. You want to be able to use them for marketing or creating more products later, like t-shirts, mugs or a calendar.

What is the Difference Between Raster and EPS/Illustrator Images? • Raster Images are images made up of bits or pixels. Photos that come from your phone, a digital camera or a stock photo site are raster images. All the images you see online are raster images. For print books, we use images with a resolution of 300dpi. DPI stands for Dots Per Inch or 300 pixels in the space of one inch. E-Books use 72-120dpi images. To edit raster images we use a program like Adobe PhotoShop. If you zoom in on a raster image you can see the dots that make it up.

• EPS/Adobe Illustrator images are vector images and made up of lines and matter how far you zoom in on the image you will always see crisp, clean lines. EPS/Illustratorfills. These images images are usually can blown-up created or and enlarge edited to using the size Adobe of France. Illustrator. They No will still keep the sharp clean lines and edges. These images are scalable. EPS is a version of Illustrator, it stands for encapsulated postscript.

47 Differences Between Raster and EPS/Illustrator Images?

Raster image, 300dpi Blown up 3200%, see the pixels

No matter how far you zoom in, EPS or vector image vector lines stay crisp and clean.

Generally, photos and line drawings are raster. Mechanical illustrations, clip art, and charts are vectors. Usually created using Adobe Illustrator. Both raster and Illustrator illustrations work in Adobe InDesign page layouts. Inserted using the Place command. For MS Word we would generally use raster images and we Insert them.

48 RESOURCES, FREELANCE: • Fiverr.com, https://www.fiverr.com/ • Freelancer.com, https://www.freelancer.com/ • HireAnIllustrator.com, https://www.hireanillustrator.com/i/ • UpWork.com, https://www.upwork.com/ • 99Designs.com, https://99designs.com/

Locating a Stock Site Illustrator Many of the stock photo and illustration sites give you the contact info for the individual illustrators. Great way to contact some you like. • Dreamstime.com, http://www.dreamstime.com/ • Shutterstock.com, http://www.shutterstock.com/

Video Chatting Software for Connecting • Zoom.us, https://zoom.us/ Excellent video chatting and conferencing application. Records video and audio, free and paid options. I love this service. • Facebook Video Chat is located at the top of the FB Messenger window, look for the little video camera.

49 3. Key Elements that Every Book Should Have There are no hard and fast rules on how to structure a book, but there are some conventions. There are also so many different kinds of books, from novels to how-to, to children’s, to coloring. Book parts come and go. But here are some basics in many books.

The General Structure of a Book This one stays in all books, the left-hand page is an even page number, and the right-hand page is an odd page number. Do not change that.

• Front Cover. The most important page for your book is the front cover. With Amazon and selling online the front cover is often the only part of your book your reader sees. Does your cover tell your book’s story? Is your title clear? Does your subtitle support the question that your book solves?

Many of our books will never be in a bookstore but instead on sites like Am- azon and our own websites. We will see our books in search results and in recommendations as thumbnails. A key test for your cover is to print out your book cover to about an inch wide. Can you still read at least the title? Your subtitle might be tough, but you need to be able to read the title when the thumbnail is pretty small.

I follow a philosophy of “do not make me think” and run all my covers through help,this filter. cookbook, You want etc. theyou reader want the to understandtitle to be clear. the book and its title, at first glance. It may be a bit harder with a fiction book, but for any business, self- loveWhat with I find your with working a lot of titleauthors because is sometimes it might be the wrong. subtitle I usually is often wait a better until the title. The solution, switch them and you are fine. A key tip here is to not fall in- ing title only means something to us and very little to our audience. The one endthat ofwe the have book been making talking process about andfor the then three finish years the wetitle. have Very been often working our work on the book might need to change. 50 Spend some time looking at books in your category. This is very easy to do on Amazon.com. You can search in your niche. There is often a common theme that runs through a particular genre. Cookbooks have pictures of the food on the front. Biography books have a picture of the subject of the story. Fiction books usually have a full cover photo or illustration. Business books anchor the cover with a picture of the author, creative text or a combination of both. it is good to know where you can start from. You get the idea; see how your book fits. You can break these conventions but Another test that I do is to open up a page on Amazon of the competing books in my subject area. Make a thumbnail cover image and drop it over the top of one of the books. Does my book stand out from the other books? Do I see it in the collection of similar books? If yes, great. If no, then fix it.

Does your book stand out among your competitors?

51 • Page 1. Title Page, repeats what is on the front cover. The title page design often mimics the basic design of the front cover. The title page should include the title, subtitle, author name, your web address. Sometimes the copyright notice is added here too. With Kindle books, your web address or your Amazon Author Central web address can be live links. Title page links are often accessible from the “Look Inside” feature on Amazon. Also from your Kindle reader. Using live links within your e-book is a great way to pull people into your sales funnel. They don’t even have to purchase the book.

Book Cover Title Page

• Page 2. Left-hand disclaimer and legal page. This is the page behind the title page. This is where you put your disclaimer information, including your copyright info. You can also include any publishing info, contact info, web address, etc.

On the next page is some sample disclaimer copy to give you an idea what I am talking about. Not all books need all this. I am also not a lawyer and you should check with an attorney if you have any questions. But some version of this is in every book.

52 RESOURCE: SAMPLE BOOK DISCLAIMER TEXT

Disclaimer: All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information, contact Publishing Company Name. Reviewers may quote brief passages in reviews.

Notice of Liability: The information in this book is distributed on an “as is” basis, without warranty. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, neither the author nor Pub- lishing Company shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any liability, loss, or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information or websites contained in this book.

Websites and Ideas: information purposes only and are not warranted for content, accuracy or any other im- pliedThe Internet or explicit is a purpose. fluid changing medium and websites change all the time. All links are for

The ideas expressed in this book are my own and there are no guarantees that you will have success with them. This book is intended to be informational and is my opinion only. Please consider leaving a review wherever you bought the book or telling your friends about it.

Published by you or your company name Phone number or contact; http://www.PublishingCompanyWebsite.com

Amazon Author Central Page http://www.amazon.com/author/authorname/

53 • Page 3. Right-hand page. Table of Contents should go here and be descriptive. This is a key page. Your not want to use Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc., but instead, youtable want of contents descriptive is your titles book’s that telllist ofthe benefits. story of Youyour do book. Amazon’s Look Inside feature usually will show the Table of Contents (TOC), so you want it to work for you. The Table of Contents could also be placed on page 5. It needs to be close to the front and on the right.

• Page 4. A left-hand page is a good place for your books intro, or acknowledgments. Often referred to as front matter content. Ok so here is where people differ Table of Contents on the order of the pages and what to include. In most books, this is front matter. Introductions, quotes or praise about the author, prefaces, acknowledgments are also front matter. Now a huge number of books sell online and we never actually pick the physical book up to look inside. One of the major tools for promoting and marketing your book on Amazon is the “Look Inside” fea- of the book to view. The problem is you do not know how many review pages youture. will Clicking get with on athe cover Look on Inside Amazon’s feature. sales For page instance, gives you a coloring the first or few children’s pages book may only offer a few pages, but with a big novel, it can be a lot of pages.

What I like is to get is the reader to view my good stuff as soon as I can. Promoting my love for my spouse isn’t selling my book. That is why the Table of Contents is so important, it can sell the book, it is the book’s outline. Get people to the good stuff. I have mixed feelings about all the fun quotes and drawn out intros. The placement of this information is up to you. Some of this stuff can be in the back pages of your book, or on your website, or on the back cover.

• Page 5. Right-hand page. Wherever this pages actually falls, Chapter 1, your content, is where you begin your book.

54 Book Back Pages and Back Covers

Author bio Promote your services Cross promote your other books and where to buy

Back Covers Book promo text Table of Contents turned into book promo bullets Author bio Highlight inside pages Contact info ISBN number goes here

• Page 6. Back of the book. Back matter is the last informational pages in a book. It ties off the book’s introduction, sort of like credits at the end of a mov- - ject, add a resource list at the back of the book. Add any extra info that might applyie. Add to an your author book. bio An along index, with for a example, photo and would contact be anyinfo. extra If it fitsinformation for your sub that your reader might need. If you offer programs or consulting, drop that in also, give readers a call to action. 55 • Last page in the book. Add an ad for your book where people can learn where to buy the book. We call this a call to action. For example XYZ book is “available at Amazon.com” or “Other books by Author Name, available at Am- azon”. If you have a series of books put a book catalog page with all the cover thumbnails at the back. Your reader may not know you have other books. Cross promote your books in each one of your books. I have books that sell many copies to the same reader. Make it easy for your reader to recommend your book, or buy another copy.

• Back cover of the book. Remember printed books all have back covers. On Amazon, we usually look at the front cover and the Look Inside feature but the back cover is there also. Amazon shows the back cover in the little thumbnail images below the main book’s image on the book’s sales page. They also show up as one of the pages in the Look Inside section. Sometimes we actually have the book in our hands and want to turn it over and show people.

• What to Include on the Back Cover? On the back cover show the title, a quote of praise about the book, and a descriptive paragraph. I also include three or four bullets pulled from the table of contents, a short bio about the author with a headshot. I like repeating the copyright info here, plus your website and publishing info. Usually on the right is the ISBN number bar code, usually applied by KDP.Direct or IngramSpark.com.

Kindle ebooks do not have back covers, what do I do then? You can still put this info at the back of the book or some version of it. I would especially put a list of your books with live links directing the reader to Amazon to learn more.

• Spine. If your book is over 135 pages you can add text to it. In reality, anything over 100 pages is thick enough to add text to for Kindle. The Kindle Cov- er Creator will need 131 pages. I use 135 pages as a general page count. You will want the spine to be thick enough to hold the type.

56 4. Editing Your Book One of the most important things you can do for your self-published book is to have it edited. One of the most common negative comments in Amazon book reviews is poor editing or none at all.

There is copy-editing, line editing, proofreading, and development editing.

• Copy-editing corrects the spelling, punctuation, and typos.

• Line editing grammar, spelling, and punctuation. works on the structure and flow of your book. As well as the • Proofreading is usually done at the end of the formatting. After everything is complete and almost ready to publish. It catches all those last-minute errors and inconsistencies.

• Development editing, most self-publishers do not do this. But you can if you are having problems getting your book going. Developmental editing helps you begin the book and structure the content. It reduces redundancies and duplicate information. Provides storyline consistency. And that proper storytelling conventions are being used in regards to the genre you are writing in. You can also secure the plot and resolve any holes.

HowYou have Much finished Does your an manuscriptEditor Cost? and you are now ready for editing. That is a pretty open-ended question. It depends on the kind of book, how many words, what state the manuscript is in. It is really hard to put a gener-

Many editors are in the $35-40/hour range at 8 pages per hour average, de- pendingal figure uponon this, the but service somewhere required. between Proofreading $500-$1,200 is in the give $25-35/hour or take a bunch. at 10 pages per hour. Some charge by the word or by the page, and are you doing - er or reporter who is working freelance on the side it might be on the lower line editing, copy-editing or proofreading.57 If you can find a local English teach side. If you are going with a professional editor it will be much higher. Either way, it is worth it to have a better book.

Some of the print-on-demand sites also sell editing packages. This might be a pretty good place to start for information about what an editor does.

How Do I Find Someone to Edit My Book? For your editor, you want someone you can work with and is familiar with your type of project. Are you doing a novel or a business book or self-help book? If you have chosen to publish a cookbook, then you might want someone who knows cooking. If you have the budget, look for someone who will reporter that is picking up some extra cash. understand your type of project. Or you might find a local English teacher or You can also look at freelance sites like Upwork.com and Fiverr.com. Be aware that the person might be outside the country and doesn’t have a full grasp of your language or style. If you use a freelance site like Fiverr, test your pros- does the kind of job you are looking for. pects. Send some sample copies to five different editors and see which one RESOURCES, EDITING: • Some great tips from Joanna Penn of the CreativePenn.com on how to find an editor. https://www.thecreativepenn.com/2014/07/14/how-to-find-the-right-editor/ • Editorial Freelance Association, Excellent source of info on finding editors and giving you an idea of how much to pay and the process. https://www.the-efa.org/rates/

RESOURCES, SOFTWARE TOOLS: Editing has turned to online web-based tools and there are many applications that can help with the editing or for preparing a first pass on your manuscript to get it ready for the editor. • AutoCrit.com, https://www.autocrit.com/ • Grammarly.com, https://www.grammarly.com/ • HemingwayApp.com, http://www.hemingwayapp.com/ • ProWritingAid.com, https://prowritingaid.com/ • SmartEdit.com, http://www.smart-edit.com/ 58 5. Pre-Edit Printed Proof This is so important, I make it a step all by itself. This is a technique that I use and recommend all the time to authors. You are at the stage where you have pret- basic editing. The book is about ready to move to the fullty much editing finished and layout the manuscript. stages. The Andtask started is to create some a physical version of your book, including a rough cover. You will see things on paper that you never see on the computer screen. This also makes a great proof copy to send to the editor. A physical proof will start getting you excited about your upcoming book. The book is going to happen. There is something about touching and the turning of the pages that get us to completion.

A. Create a pdf at the correct size of your book. You will need to change the document size in Page Setup in MS-Word. In the File pull-down menu change to change the page size in the print menu also, otherwise, it will print at 8.5” the standard page size to 6” x 9” or whatever your book’s final size is. Be sure x 11 and will not look correct. Save the file as a pdf. I usually take this pdf file versionto Staples of oryour OfficeMax book. and have them print it out. Try to print pages back to back, even if it comes out at 8.5” x 11 that is fine. The goal is to have a printed B. Print the book out and have a spiral binding put on it. Be sure to put a cover on it, even if it is only the book title. I also have them put a clear plastic cover on the front and back. Staples can do all this. Make it look and feel like a book.

Plastic Back Cover Spiral or Comb Binding Plastic Front Cover

59 C. Review the physical paper proof. Do your own edits and then you are printed proof. ready to send the book off to a real editor. It will amaze at what you find in the D. Have an editor, edit your book. Your editor can copy-edit for spelling and grammar. Or keep it simple and proofread for spelling and consistency errors. You can also go deeper with a line editor and look at your manuscript. But all books need some editing.

E. Update your book. After formatting your book, but before publishing, print it out again for a review. Do another round of editing if you have the budget for it. A Proof Editor might be all you need at this point.

RESOURCES, FREELANCE: • Fiverr.com, https://www.fiverr.com/ • Freelancer.com, https://www.freelancer.com/ • HireAnIllustrator.com, https://www.hireanillustrator.com/i/ • UpWork.com, https://www.upwork.com/ • 99Designs.com, https://99designs.com/ • Editorial Freelancers Association.org, https://www.the-efa.org

Note that editors make suggestions about the content of a book. The author has complete control over how they want their content to be. You, as an author the author’s voice or heartbeat of a story. It is crucial to keep the authors work ashave close the to final the say style and in nowhich one theelse. author An editor wants will the also book be towatchful be. An editorto not alteris also human and cannot guarantee complete accuracy. They do strive to provide the best they can, as with everyone, oversights and missed errors can and do happen. Remember to be patient and be kind to your editor even if you disagree.

60 6. Six Different Options for Publishing Your Book e-book, or a physical printed book, which sells online, usually at Amazon. Then aThere printed are version six options of your for self-publishingbook that you sell your in book.bookstores. The first A quicktwo are print an sta- pled version that you might give away. A PDF book that you can sell on your website and an audiobook. Inside each of these are different formats and binding options.

A. E-Book. When we say e-book we usually think of a Kindle book, sold on Amazon. Kindle books are usually created using MS-Word and read on a Kindle reader or app. The Word file uploads to Amazon as either an HTML or mobi file. We also have the Kindle Create app from Amazon/Kindle for creating e-books. It is fantastic for creating the Kindle ready file. There are also other e-book formats, The other main one is the E-pub format. E-pub books work on a wide variety of e-book readers. E-pub books distribute through many sites. Including Barns & Noble with the Nook, Apple iTunes, Kobo, Sony and many others. There are approximately 80 or so publishing platforms for e-books. E-books can also pdf files, and sold off your own site and others.

Kindle and E-pub books have two parts. One is the interior file, which is your main body content and the second is the cover file, usually a jpg. Your publishing platform will need both.

RESOURCES: • Kindle, https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/ • Barnes & Noble Press, formally Nook Press, a new, revised publishing platform from Barnes & Noble, now offering print and e-book options https://press.barnesandnoble.com/ • Smashwords.com, https://www.smashwords.com/

61 B. A paperback print book on Amazon. For this format, we use a service of Amazon.com called Kindle Direct Publishing. Kindle use to be for e-books. But Amazon has now combined print-on-demand site, CreateSpace, into the Kin- dle platform. Kindle now has both e-book and paperback print books. When someone orders an individual book on Amazon, they print, pack, and ship it to the customer. This is print-on-demand. Amazon collects the money and drops it into our bank account. We create the book’s interior and a cover. We save - lished author on Amazon. both as a pdf file, upload them to Kindle (KDP.Amazon.com) and you are a pub There are other companies also. And many other ways to publish your book. Including hardcover, spiral, saddle stitch (staples), audio and even video. Pub- lishing with Amazon’s KDP platform puts your paperback book in their online store. And also into their expanded distribution system if you want. You can also take your book to bookstores and worldwide distribution using Ingram- Spark

RESOURCES: • Kindle, Paperback, https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/ • Lulu.com, Paperback, spiral, staple, hardcover, https://www.lulu.com/ • Barnes & Noble Press, formally Nook Press, a new, revised publishing platform from Barnes & Noble, now offering print and e-book options, https://press.barnesandnoble.com/ • Blurb.com, Paperback, hardcover, primarily photo and art books, http://www.blurb.com/ • IngramSpark.com, Paperback, hardcover, http://www.ingramspark.com/ • Bookbaby.com, Print and e-book, https://www.bookbaby.com/

C. A paperback or hardcover book you can sell in bookstores. I am not recommending this route yet. You are getting started, but you might have the question of how do I get my books into bookstores. One of the negative sides of KDP/Kindle is that they do not sell to bookstores. Bookstores do not order from Amazon. You cannot return print-on-demand books that do not sell. A traditional distributor will take back books that don›t sell but not

62 Amazon. To be in the distribution bookstore system we would need to look at IngramSpark.com. Ingram’s is the largest bookstore distributor in the world with 39,000 outlets. They are very like Kindle’s print-on-demand platform. Including similar formatting and uploading specifications. The difference being, Ingram works with stores. They also work with online print-on-demand stores and e-book stores. Do not go this route until you have published a couple of books and are ready to start acting more like a publisher. IngramSpark also has some fees, whereas Kindle does not.

What most people do is options A and B, a Kindle e-book and/or a print book. I recommend doing both of these. It doesn’t matter a whole lot which one of these two options you do first. If you time it, you can launch both formats at the same time. A Kindle e-book is usually the route most authors use to go for a best-seller book launch. Authors have more control over the price of the book. It makes for an easy sale. But I also recommend launching a print version.

A few people in my Facebook author group, How to Publish Your Book, are using IngramSpark.com. There are spreading their books beyond Amazon. It takes a bit more work and a little bit of money to cover the fees. If you want to be in stores, you need to be with IngramSpark.com.

What I try to avoid is having a garage full of books. With the great print-on- demand options today. There is no need for inventory or the author shipping their books.

RESOURCES: • IngramSpark.com, Paperback, hardcover, http://www.ingramspark.com/ • Lulu.com, Paperback, hardcover, distributes to Ingram, https://www.lulu.com/

63 D. A quick print book. This is an option where you can create a simple little 5 1/2” x 8 1/2” or 8.5” x 11 book, usually from MS-Word or InDesign. This makes a great little book that you can hand out to potential customers or clients. Generally, this method is for books under 32 pages. And that you distribute yourself or hand out. It is easy and affordable to make this kind of book. This format works great for a business Top Ten Questions & Answers types of book.RESOURCES This book generally also has an interior file and a cover file for printing. • Staples, OfficeMax or your local quick printer, various binding options https://www.staples.com/sbd/content/copyandprint/booklets.html

E. PDF book. One of the cool things you can do with your book is that it can also be re-purposed into several other products. You can use the same PDF you already have for the printed version. You can sell or give it away. The same your website. You can also give it away as a lead magnet to get people to sign uppdf for file your can beemail uploaded list. Attach to a siteit to like one Gumroad.com of the autoresponder or Sellfy.com reply andemails. sold from

Scribd.com and Issue.com. Your PDF file can also distribute through PDF Digital Publishing Platforms like RESOURCES: • Gumroad.com, perfect for any kind of digital file that you want to sell online, https:// gumroad.com • Sellfy.com, https://sellfy.com/ • Scribd.com, a PDF publishing site, kind of like YouTube for pdf files, https://www.scribd.com/ • Issue.com online publishing, magazines, heavy into fashion and style, https://issuu.com/

F. Audio Book. Record your book and turn it into an audio book, or a podcast for Apple iTunes, SoundCloud or Stitcher. Each chapter can be an episode. Your book is a ready made series waiting to be broadcast. You can record your book using desktop gear or at a studio.

64 The main site for releasing audiobooks on Amazon is ACX.com. ACX is like Kin- dle, but for audio. It is a division of Amazon and handles their audiobooks. You can sell your books through Audible.com. Audiobooks generally sell for more money than printed books. You can create your own audiobook or hire a professional reader for your book. If you are creating a podcast then I recommend that you are the person doing the talking.

RESOURCES:

Publishing as an Audio Book • ACX.com, where you go to create an audio book for selling on Amazon, http://www.acx. com/ • Findaway Voices, an alternative to ACX and a way to create and distribute audiobooks to multiple retailers. Great for indie authors. https://findawayvoices.com, they have an excellent Help page which describes the process, https://my.findawayvoices.com/help-and- resources

Publishing as a Podcast Distributors • iTunes, https://www.apple.com/itunes/ Main podcast site • Stitcher.com, https://www.stitcher.com/ radio shows and podcasts, phone and tablet

Recording • Audacity, https://www.audacityteam.org/ A free, open source, multi-track audio software for PC, Mac OS X and Linux. Very popular. • GarageBand, https://www.apple.com/mac/garageband/ a full audio and music creation studio that comes standard on Mac.

65 The key here is to deliver your book in as many formats as you can to as many readers as you can. How does your audience want their books delivered? Fig- ure out how and do it. Usually an e-book and a print paperback book, both now done on the Kindle KDP.Amazon.com platform. But don’t forget PDF and audio.

Check out my entire course on writing, designing and publishing your print or e-book. I go into much greater depth on creating books, How to Publish Your Book, click here, https://bruce-the-book-guy.usefedora.com/p/how-to-publish-your-book/

Learn How to Make Your Own Journal Books Step-by-Step online course for making and selling Journal Books. Includes InDesign and PowerPoint full book and cover templates. Open the template, add content and publish. ThePublishingMastery101.com 66 Creating Your Book

You have finished writing and editing your book. Now it is time to lay the text and graphics out, format and publish it.

How Do I Find Someone to Format and Lay the Book and Cover Out? Designing and formatting your book is key to the project. Finding a graphic around, Google, Kindle formatting or InDesign book layout person. Go to the onlinedesigner freelance or the layout/format sites like Fiverr, person UpWork, is the or same 99Designs. as finding You anmight editor. also Ask con - tact your local community college. They all have design programs with students’ ready for a project. You can also do it yourself, it isn’t all that hard and once you get the publishing bug you can create all kinds of books.

Some Tips for Working with an Illustrator or Graphic Designer • You need to give your illustrator or designer directions on where to go and what to make. To help them along, show them samples of what you like and also, what you do not like. You can search sites like Fiverr or the stock photo/ them on to your illustrator. Go to Amazon and look at book covers and access theillustration “Look Inside” sites. Youfeature will tofind review tons ofinside examples. design. Download Go to an actualthem andbookstore pass and walk around. I do this all the time when I design a book cover. Screen capture or give your designer the names of the books you like. The more your freelancer knows about your expectations and directions the better your project will go.

67 • Be very clear about the goals and tasks you need to be done for your book. What is the look and feel of the book? How many illustrations, charts, and graphics do you have or will you need. Charts and graphics can take 1-2 hours each to make so you want to know you have the correct person. Check with your designer; how many rounds of changes can you do for the price you are paying. With your illustrator, ask who owns the rights to the images? Can you reuse the images; these are all important questions?

• I like to have people close so that I can sit with them and go over the project. So much is online now but if you can meet face to face or video chat you can clarify a project much faster and clearer. Zoom.us, Facebook video, and Skype.com, all work great for having a video conference call. Zoom and Skype both have screen share. Screen share is very helpful when working with your designer or doing corrections. Your designer gets to see what you are talking about.

RESOURCES, FREELANCE HELP: • Fiverr.com, https://www.fiverr.com/ • Freelancer.com, https://www.freelancer.com/ • HireAnIllustrator.com, https://www.hireanillustrator.com/i/ • UpWork.com, https://www.upwork.com/ • 99Designs.com, https://99designs.com/

Video Conferencing Software • Zoom.us, https://zoom.us/, one of my favorite tools for video conferencing • Skype.com, https://www.skype.com/en/ • Facebook Voice Call, located in your Messenger App, very easy video calling

68 7. Creating a Kindle e-Book Books have two parts, the inside where the content is and the cover. We need to make both.

A Kindle e-book like a large text document. Most authors’ in-fact use MS- Word to write their book and also to format it for Kindle/Amazon. The key to a successful Kindle e-book is to keep the formatting simple and not to over design. Do not get fancy with all kinds of design ideas. Stay away from tabbed page from 1996. Generally, for fonts use either Arial or Times Roman. The readercharts andcan formattedchange the files. font Kindlesto whatever e-books they are like simple in their documents, Reader. You think can webalso add images and live HTTP web links to your book. Charts can be a real pain in an e-book so make them a graphic instead of using the table feature of MS- Word. If you have images with captions, make the captions part of the graphic itself not part of the text. Otherwise, they can end up on different pages when the reader is using. On a smartphone the screen is small, on a tablet, it can be someone is reading the book. Kindle files expand and shrink to fit the device

Mostbig. The authors document use MS-Word flows to fitto formatthe shape. their books. But you can also use other word processing application such as Google Doc, Pages, or Scrivener.

Kindle Create Kindle Create is a brand-new book creation program from Amazon. It is for copy in one of several templates. It also helps you build an active Table of Con- tents,creating which e-books. has always The app been allows a challenge. you to open It can an work MS-Word with fileMicrosoft and format Word, the Ap - ple Pages, and Google Docs documents. You need to be able to export a doc(x) file from your writing program. Kindle Kid Creator. A cool feature is that it can create a Table of Contents, somethingThe Kindle weCreate couldn’t app alsodo before accepts with pdf the files earlier to create versions. picture The books. Kindle It isKid like Cre -

69 Kindle Create app for formatting Kindle books

has. The pages are static like a printed book. It does a great job of converting eachate or pdf Kindle page Create into a forKindle pdf pagefiles doesand itnot is veryhave fast.the fluidl recommend flow that it.a Kindle book

My best advice for a clean, workable e-book is to start with a clean document. We write our books in bits and pieces. Often on several different computers. this but behind the document it can be pretty messy. Before starting to format MS-Word files tend to get filled with lots of junky formatting. You may not see andyour work book, from take that. your Use existing styles document and global and formatting save it as from a text the file. Format Then strippull- out downall the menuold formatting. to format Copyyour document.this new cleaned Insert textgraphics file into instead a new of MS-Word copying and doc pasting them into your document. you pick a freelancer, be sure they have formatted Kindle books before. There are several excellent books on formatting your Kindle file on Amazon. If

70 Word to Kindle by Aaron Shepard, available at Amazon is pretty good for learning how to format a Kindle Book

The Kindle reader works great on e-books that are all text or text and a few images. If you have a designed book, like a cookbook, a how-to-book, a children’s picture book. Then the traditional Kindle will not work as well. Espe-

kind of book, Kindle has Kindle Kid Creator and now Kindle Create. Create can cially if you try to duplicate the look of that book in the e-book file. For that has Kindle Creators for comic books and graphic novels. And one for educa- tionaltake the textbooks. pdf file for that book and convert it to a kpf file for Kindle. KDP also

RESOURCES:

Kindle Book Apps Kindle has a variety of apps to help you create e-books and illustrated graphic books. The apps work with PC and Mac • Kindle Create, a new app for creating Kindle e-books and converting pdf files to Kindle digital format. You can format MS-Word files, style, update, and build a TOC. This new app also has different themes that you can access. It can import PDF files, move them around and build a TOC. The application can also import audio and video files and add them to the pdf. Great for creating an interactive book. https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/GHU4YEWXQGNLU94T • Kindle Kid Creator, great for creating books with illustrations, import PDF file, jpg, png, tiff. Add pages and text to imported PDF files. https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201562880 • Kindle Textbook Creator, create and publish educational material for Kindle devices and reading apps. Convert PDF file of existing textbooks, study guides, reference material. You can include audio, video, hyperlinks and image popups. https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201642070 • Kindle Comic Creator, the original Kindle app, designed for graphic novels and comic books. Support for panels, imports, PDF, jpg, png, and tif formats. https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200735480

71 Kindle E-Book Formatting Guidelines Included are some basic formatting guidelines. If you are formatting a Word these will change with the new Kindle Create application. An overriding guide forfile Kindlethese will e-books help getis keeping you started the formatting with your Kindlesimple. e-book. They are Note not that like somedesigned of InDesign books. Keep it simple and your e-book and the formatting will be great.

Basic Guidelines for Kindle e-Books • Keep your formatting simple • Produce a clean, basic document • Use Paragraph Formatting for global layout and spacing • Work in a standard 8.5 x 11” document

General Formatting Guidelines • Avoid tabs and spaces for indenting paragraphs • Use Paragraph Formatting to adjust indents • No headers or footers • No page numbers

Paragraph Guidelines • Do not use Returns between paragraphs • Use Space Before and Space After for spaces between paragraphs • Use Page Breaks between chapters

Text• Insert Guidelines images “from file” do not paste • Format Chapter Heads with MS-Word style features. Use H1 Head and H2 Subheads • 12 points for text, 14-18 points for heads • Use Arial/Helvetica, Times Roman or Georgia for fonts

72 Type Style Guidelines • Bold, italic or underline use format font menu, the formatting palette or the toolbar • Turn charts and graphics into artwork • Add live HTTP web links to your book

Image Guidelines • Every Kindle is a different size. Pick an image that works in the middle. • Use color RGB images

• Avoid charts and tables, turn them into .gif graphics • The author pays for download, be efficient with images sizes Image Size Guidelines • Amazon recommends a picture ratio of 9:11 • Pictures 900 x 1100 pixels, 9:11, old standard was 600 x 800 pixels, 3:4 • Kindle Fire HD 8.9 display 1920 x 1200, 16:10 • At 72 dpi 12.5” x 15.77” inches • At 300 dpi 3” x 3.66” inches

• Kindle e-book format supports .jpeg and .gif • 300dpiKindle processes, or 72dpi or .gif, 96dpi .png, image .bmp, resolution jpeg files

Bottom• Up to 5mb Line per for image, Picture I find Sizes this way too big, keep under a megabyte • Pictures 900 x 1100 pixels, 9:11 • Old standard 600 x 800 pixels, 3:4 • 300dpi or 72dpi, jpg or gif format

At 72dpi, 12.5” x 15.75” At 300dpi, 3” x 3.66” Color gif or jpg format

73 Look in the MS-Word Save As Menu for this option. Be sure to download the When you have completed the formatting, save your book as an HTML file. will show you how your book looks on several of the Kindle devices. They also haveKindle the Preview preview tool tool from on theKDP Kindle Direct upload and run page. your Review HTML yourfile through book before it. It publishing. It is very helpful. You can upload your book, review it, make changes. Then upload another version if need be until you are comfortable with it.

Kindle Cover Guidelines: • The longest side of your cover must be at least 1000 pixels, shortest side 625 pixels, or 13.8” x 8.7” at 72 dpi. The height/width ratio is 1.6:1. • For best quality Amazon recommends a height of the cover image is at least

• I like covers at 9” tall x 6” wide at 300dpi or 2700 pixels x 1800 pixels. 2,500 pixels. Ideal dimensions for cover files are 2,560 x 1,600 pixels at 72dpi.

• The File must be less than 50mb in size. • Files should be in RGB format and saved as jpg or tiff files. For your e-book Kindle cover, you will need to create a separate jpg front cover

Kindlefile. No hasback an cover. online This Cover file Creatorshould betool a jpgon thedocument. Kindle upload page that you can use if you have not created a cover. Canva.com also has some great free Kindle templates that you can use to make a cover. PowerPoint can also work well to create a cover, set your page size to 6” x 9” and export the file as a jpg. done. Make sure everything is good. Once your e-book has is ready for Kindle it is time to have a final proofreading

74 RESOURCES: • Kindle, https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/ • Kindle Help, tons of info here, https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help • Aaron Shepard has a variety of books on creating Kindle books, they are all pretty good. A good place to start, From Word to Kindle: Self-Publishing Your Kindle Book with Microsoft Word, or Tips on Formatting Your Document So Your E-book Won’t Look Terrible, http:// amzn.to/2C6QTJ5

And from Amazon, both books are excellent • Kindle PC, Building Your Book for Kindle • Kindle Mac, Building Your Book for Kindle Mac edition

On Canva.com Check out the Kindle Cover Templates https://www.canva.com/

To Find Book Cover Ideas A. Look at books on Amazon and in stores for covers that you like. They can be an inspiration and as a guide for the cover designer.

B. Find a local freelance designer to design and layout out your cover.

C. Test several ideas and titles with associates. Facebook is a great place to test different cover options. Upload a graphic with covers A, B and C. Ask people to choose.

D. If you are going to publish your book on Amazon then do the Thumbnail Test. Reduce a picture of your cover to thumbnail size, around 1.5” wide. Com- pare it to books on Amazon in your genre, be sure it is readable. See page 51.

We do judge books by their covers. Your reader should know at a glance what your book is about. I follow the “Don’t Make Me Think” philosophy of usabil- ity author Steve Kruge. Your book title should be clear and convey what your

75 book is about without any confusion. If you need to give more clarity to your book then use a subtitle. Subtitles are a great way to add in some important keywords and description to your title. Add your author name to the cover. To help with design and layout ideas, look at similar books in your market. Am- azon is the perfect place to do this. You can also search Google for book cover designs. Use the Google Image Search in your genre and you will see hundreds of cover ideas. Type into the Google search box something like “Book Cover ideas for Sports Books”. Then choose Images from the menu options and you will see hundreds of ideas.

There are many services that can help you produce a compelling cover. You can contact a local graphic designer. Use online services like 99Designs.com and Fiverr.com. Go to Canva.com and access their templates. Many of the book publishing print-on-demand sites also offer design and editing packages.

RESOURCE, DESIGN: • Canva.com, a free and subscription online graphics program. Check out the Kindle Cover Templates, they are excellent. A great resource for making social media and many other graphics. https://www.canva.com/

Freelance Resources: • Fiverr.com, https://www.fiverr.com/ • Freelancer.com, https://www.freelancer.com/ • HireAnIllustrator.com, https://www.hireanillustrator.com/i/ • UpWork.com, https://www.upwork.com/ • 99Designs.com, https://99designs.com/

Learn How to Publish Your Own Kindle Books Step-by-Step online course for making and publishing Kindle Books. Learn how to set up your MS-Word files, learn about graphics, formatting your text, how to make your cover and build a table of contents. ThePublishingMasteryAcademy.com 76 8. Creating a Kindle/Amazon Print Book, Inside and Cover KDP.Amazon.com or Kindle, mean the same. KDP is the print-on-demand side of Amazon. It is full on publishing. These are real paperback books. To the cover. You can do create your book yourself. Or locate a local freelancer or onlinepublish services a book, likeyou Fiverr.comneed two pdf or 99Designs.comfiles, one for the to interior design andand thelay otheryour book. for Books are usually created with Adobe InDesign. But MS-Word, Apple Pages or do the job. PowerPoint can work also. In fact, any program that can generate a pdf file will Kindle Print has a wide variety of book sizes that you can print. From 5” x 8” to 8.5” x 11”, and the European A4 size, in black and white or color. If you use any color anywhere in your book, the book is color for printing purposes. I usually pick Industry Standard Sizes but there are others that are fun like the square format.

• Smallest page count is 24 pages.

• Margins should be 1/2” all around, stay away from bleeding images off the page unless you know what you are doing.

• Images need to have a resolution of 300dpi or dots per inch.

After• Black selecting and White a size or forColor your is fine.book you will then need to lay the book out. You at that size. On the high end, Adobe InDesign is the main choice. But, you can alsodo this use in MS-Word, a program Apple that Pagescan format or even the PowerPoint. text, graphics This and depends generate on a whatpdf file kind of book you are publishing. Sites like Lulu.com and BookBaby.com have online book and cover building options. Some sites also have design and layout packages that you can buy.

77 Trim Sizes for Kindle Paperback Books

Trim Size Trim Size Page Size for Black ink Black ink and Color ink and Inches Metric Bleed, Inches and white paper cream paper white paper 5” x 8” 12.7 x 20.32 cm 5.125” x 8.25” 24 - 828 24 - 776 24 - 828 5.06” x 7.81” 12.85 x 19.84 cm 5.185” x 8.06” 24 - 828 24 - 776 24 - 828 5.25” x 8” 13.34 x 20.32 cm 5.375” x 8.25” 24 - 828 24 - 776 24 - 828 5.5” x 8.5” 13.97 x 21.59 cm 5.625” x 8.75” 24 - 828 24 - 776 24 - 828 6” x 9” 15.24 x 22.86 cm 6.125” x 9.25” 24 - 828 24 - 776 24 - 828 6.14” x 9.21” 15.6 x 23.39 cm 6.265” x 9.46” 24 - 828 24 - 776 24 - 828 6.69” x 9.61” 16.99 x 24.41 cm 6.815” x 9.86” 24 - 828 24 - 776 24 - 828 7” x 10” 17.78 x 25.4 cm 7.125” x 10.25” 24 - 828 24 - 776 24 - 828 7.44” x 9.69” 18.9 x 24.61 cm 7.565” x 9.94” 24 - 828 24 - 776 24 - 828 7.5” x 9.25” 19.05 x 23.5 cm 7.625” x 9.5” 24 - 828 24 - 776 24 - 828 8” x 10” 20.32 x 25.4 cm 8.125” x 10.25” 24 - 828 24 - 776 24 - 828 8.25” x 6” 20.96 x 15.24 cm 8.375” x 6.25” 24 - 800 24 - 750 24 - 800 8.25” x 8.25” 20.96 x 20.96 cm 8.375” x 8.5” 24 - 800 24 - 750 24 - 800 8.5” x 8.5” 21.59 x 21.59 cm 8.625” x 8.75” 24 - 590 24 - 550 24 - 590 8.5” x 11” 21.59 x 27.94 cm 8.625” x 11.25” 24 - 590 24 - 550 24 - 590 8.27” x 11.69” 21 x 29.7 cm 8.395” x 11.94” 24 - 780 24 - 730 Not available (A4 paper size) (A4 paper size)

Kindle’s Minimum Margin Requirements Page Bleed Page Count Inside (Gutter) Margins 24-150 pages 0.375” at least 0.25” 151-300 pages 0.5” at least 0.25” 301-500 pages 0.625” at least 0.25” 501-700 pages 0.75” at least 0.25” 701-828 pages 0.875” at least 0.25”

I actually like an outside margin of at least .5” and sometimes more.

Bleed is 1/8” extra added on the 6” x 9” Trim size outside edges 6.125” x 9.25 Page size This extra 1/8” is trimmed off when the book is printed

78 You start by setting up your document to the trim size of your book. Whether you are using InDesign, MS-Word, PowerPoint, Apple Pages or something else. Something like 6” x 9”. Set up a ½” margin all around and you are ready to go. My preference for creating a book is using InDesign. If your book is mostly

Mosttext, like of these a novel instructions then MS-Word are also can covered work fine. in the help section of KDP.Ama- zon.com. You will see links for covers, interior, printing options, royalties, and more. Kindle also has some excellent pdf manuals along with video and instructions.

InDesign from Adobe is the top page layout software that you now rent for a reasonable monthly price. Most likely MS-Word already exists on your PC. If your book is a children’s book, picture book or coloring book you can create your book using PowerPoint.

You start by setting up a new document with the correct margins. Then drop- ping in the text, add photos, if you are using them, and then on to design, lay-

2 page interior layout of Publishing Manual using Adobe InDesign CC

79 6” x 9” Book Cover Layout for a 140 Page Black and White Book in InDesign for KDP.Amazon.com

Back Cover Front Cover

Total cover height Spine .125” + 9 + .125” = 9.25”

Covers 6” x 9” 140 pages x .0022 ppi = 0.308” (ppi=Pages Per Inch) Spine = .308”

Total cover width .125” + 6” + 0.308” + 6” + .125” = 12.558”

ISBN Barcode Location & Size 2” x 1.2”

1/8” bleed is on all four sides, White area is the live trimmed off at printing area for graphics

InDesign book cover layout for Kindle Paperback. Example (above) shows a layout for a 140 page, 6” x 9” Book. Includes 1/8” or .125” bleeds all sides. Overall cover file size = 12.558” wide x 9.25” high. The back and front covers are 6.125” x 9.25”. The bleed is .125” or 1/8” all the way around and will be trimmed off during printing. The spine is .308” thick. The spine is based off of how many pages there are in the book. Your cover artwork needs to run right to the outer edge so that is can bleed off. Artwork should be 300dpi or vector.

If your book is over 100 pages, you can add your title and author on the spine. If you are using the Kindle Cover Creator you will need to have a minimum of 131 pages.

80 is very doable. There are also online training. And plenty of freelance design- ersout, to and help proofing. you with I have your simplified project. this process but creating a published book

Photos for print must be 300dpi or dots per inch. This is the resolution of a hi-resolution image. Books are black and white or color. Any interior color and the entire book is color for printing purposes.

Creating Your Kindle Paperback Book Cover Creating a Kindle book cover can be a tricky thing to get correct. Kindle KDP covers are set up as a full spread with a back cover + spine + front cover + .125” bleed all around. Kindle also has an online Cover Creator option.

6”x9” sample cover layout, back, spine and front cover, including 1/8” bleed Paper thickness for calculating your spine White Paper Black & White Interior .002252” ppi Cream Paper Black & White Interior .0025” ppi White Paper Color Interior .002347” ppi

Once complete, export your InDesign file as a high res PDF and send to Kindle • Go to File > Export > Select PDF Print, hit Save. • In the next menu choose High Quality Print, hit Export

81 that you can use to build your cover. It does a decent job and can be a good, quick alternative to designing and laying out a cover. And there are plenty of freelance graphic designers to help you create your cover.

Can My Images Bleed Off the Interior Page? Yes, they can. This is a common question, especially with children’s and picture book authors. Authors want the images to bleed off the edge. Bleeding your images means the artwork runs off the page. When designing your book it is necessary to give the printer enough extra image to trim it off in printing. Kindle allows you to set up books for bleed but it is a little tricky. The pages have to have an extra 1/8” on the three outside edges. My recommendation for all the steps. Then work on creating a book with bleeds. It can get confusing. your first book is to not do this. Get the first book up and published and learn There are many ways to publish your book. But I recommend putting it on Amazon using KDP/Amazon.com as a print book or an e-book through their

Kindle alsoprogram. has excellent It becomes author a real prices book if that you people want to can order find, your order, book and in read bulk. it. If you speak or run workshops this is a great way to print and manage outside sales of your book. You can sell copies of your book from the room you are set up in or make it part of a workshop package.

RESOURCES: • KDP.Amazon.com Publishing Info, Kindle has excellent download-able pdfs, videos and instructions in their Help Section at https://kdp.amazon.com • Adobe Creative Cloud, Includes InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator, my favorite tools for creating books. They have different packages that you can rent. http://www.adobe.com/ creativecloud.html

82 9. Creating a Quick Print Book I added this in here because sometimes you want to create a nice, simple, little book. Like a business FAQ handout or a church fair recipe book, something like that. You do not have to go to Amazon to publish it. I have seen small businesses create a simple handout booklet. And use it as a lead magnet to help close a deal or to inform customers of their services, sales, even coupons. Does your competitor have a book? A Quick Print Book is a great way to get your customers up to speed. To see what is happening within your business and answer some key questions. Later on, this booklet can become a full published book, but this can be a good beginning step.

These books are usually half of a sheet of regular size 8.5” x 11” paper turned sideways and folded to 5.5” x 8.5” in size. They can be in color or black and white. Covers are usually cover stock. The binding is usually staples or they could also be spiral binding. In Europe, A5 is one half of a standard A4 paper size. These are easy and cheap books to get printed. Any quickie print or copy

shop can do it. Or an office supply store like Staples or OfficeMax for those Youfirst willcopies. want your page count to be a unit of 4. Something like 8, 12, 16, 20 to 24 pages works very well. 16 pages is a common size. Larger than 24 you will need to start thinking about creating a full-on book and publishing it on Amazon.

MS-Word can work very well for creating this kind of book. Go into Page Setup and change the page size to 5.5” x 8.5” with 1/2 margins. Add a header at the top with the book name and in the footer, add in page numbers and your web address or contact info. copy shop. The new copy machines can take the pdf and create a book for you. When done, save your file as a pdf and take it to your local quick printer or

83 Create Your Quick Print Cover Quick print covers generally need to be set up as a full spread with the back and front cover, minus the spine. If you do not have access to Adobe InDesign, you can also create a very nice cover using PowerPoint. Set your page/slide down menu. Assuming your book is in the 8-24-page range. Again, a local free- lancesize at designer 11” wide can x 8.5” help tall. out You with will your find cover. this inCheck Page with Setup your in the local File print pull- shop, they will tell you what they need.

You can create this book yourself or get the help of a local graphic designer. This is a great way to start a book project. Get some feel for your book, and then later expand it to a full book and publish on Amazon.

RESOURCE: • Staples or OfficeMax, a good option for creating a short run version of your book, like 5.5” x 8.5” or 8.5” x 11” if you just need a few. Add a spiral binding or if under 24 pages a staple binding. https://www.staples.com/sbd/content/copyandprint/booklets.html

84 Publishing Your Book

10. Uploading and Publishing Your Book publishing. Refer to each platform’s help area for more detailed instructions onPrepare uploading your bookyour book.files and upload them to the appropriate site for

1. Kindle E-book

For a Kindle e-book, you have two files. The book’ inside pages saved in HTML- linesor with starting Kindle on Create page as71 a and .kpf the file, Kindle and a Covercover Specsfile saved on page as a jpg.73. KindleUpload also both hasfiles more to Kindle details at KDP.amazon.com.in the KDP.Amazon.com Look at help Kindle section. e-book formatting guide

Are building your book in MS Word? The last task you do before saving your e-book as an HTML document is to create your book’s Table of Contents. If you have used H1 Header Styles in Word, you can create the TOC. On a PC, the links from the TOC to the chapter heads happen automatically. On a Mac, you will need to use bookmarks and hyperlinks to create your TOC. You manually create the links to make them clickable in the e-book.

One of the features of the new Kindle Create app is that it is very easy to create a table of contents for a Kindle ebook. I recommend downloading it and using as from a picture book, very well. It is very easy to add a table of contents to an e-bookit to do createdthe final from Kindle a pdf. formatting of your book. It also handles pdf files, such

85 RESOURCE: • Kindle, the main e-book site, an e-book reader, free, https://kdp.amazon.com • Barnes & Noble Press, https://press.barnesandnoble.com/ • Smashwords.com distributes e-books to over 80 outlets and devices, free, https://www.smashwords.com/ • Draft 2 Digital.com, free, https://www.draft2digital.com/

2. Kindle Paperback Print Book

Upload your book files to KDP.Amazon.com. Print and e-books are all under coverone roof spread. now. IncludingKindle print the books back cover,need twoa spine high-resolution (set up for the pdf number files. One of pagfor - es),the interiorand front and cover. the otherBleeds for around the cover. all four Your sides. cover See file page needs 79 tofor be details. a complete if possible. KDP.Amazon also has a Cover Creator option that you can use to makeFor the a cover.interior, A goodexport option your bookif you file are in not PDF able from to create your application, one using InDesign, high res Illustrator or PowerPoint. The Cover Creator works pretty well. But doesn’t al- low as much control over your layout as you would have if you use something like InDesign.

There are some more options that you can consider. If you want to be in bookstores and in the distribution system. Or hardcover, then look at IngramSpark. com for publishing your book. They are a print-on-demand printer and the world’s largest book distributor. I do not recommend starting with them though. They work best if you have some experience with publishing books. You are acting a little more like a book publisher when you are using them. They do have some fees.

I also recommend taking a look at Lulu.com. Lulu is a print-on-demand publisher like KDP.Amazon and IngramSpark. It kind of falls between these two. It offers a lot of binding options including spiral and saddle-stitching (staples). It also has several distribution options including Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Ingram. They are free to use. 86 For starting out and a great experience I choose KDP.Amazon.com. It is part of Amazon, has a great product and very easy to deal with. Once you know more and have some experience then you can check out the others.

RESOURCES: • KDP.Amazon.com, a division of Amazon.com, the number one print-on-demand site, https://kdp.amazon.com • IngramSpark.com, if you want to be in bookstores, go here, http://www.ingramspark.com/ • Lulu.com, similar to KDP.Amazon/Kindle but with more printing options, paperback, hardcover, spiral, saddle, free, https://www.lulu.com/

3. A Quick Print Book Usually, bound by staples or a coil or spiral binding. You will create two

InDesign. pdf files; the interior, which is usually done page by page with MS-Word or For the interior of the book, set your page set up to 5.5” x 8.5”. And the cover set up at 11” x 8.5” landscape. You can design your own covers or go through Fiverr.com, Canva.com or a local freelancer. PowerPoint also works pretty well andfor these staple projects. them to Create create thea booklet. two pdf The files, cover the interior,will be 8.5” and x the 11” cover, landscape and take if yourthem book to a local is under quick 24 print pages. shop for printing. Instruct them to run the files out

87 4. PDF Book To make a PDF book you can use the front cover from one of the other formats. If you have access to Adobe Acrobat, you will be able to insert a PDF of the cover as the first page of your book document. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat bythen going I recommend to the Print creating menu anda cover selecting as the PDF first as page your of printing your document. option. Create But you should be able to insert a cover into your PDF document. You create a PDF file or through email or sell on a site like Gumroad.com or Sellfy.com. This can makethe file a andgreat you little are product ready to to go. sell You on can your distribute website. your book on your website,

RESOURCES: Websites you can sell your PDF book from. Host the PDF here and link it to your site. • Gumroad.com, https://gumroad.com/ place to sell your PDF book • Sellfy.com, https://sellfy.com/ place to sell your PDF book • There are many others

5. IngramSpark.com the Bookstore Route

It is a bigger leap. If you are, then you will need to download the Ingram PDF I do not recommend going the bookstore route when you are first starting out. specifications. Creating your book is going to be very similar to KDP.Amazon. The key difference is color image files need to be in CMYK format instead of RGB and 300dpi. Like KDP.Amazon you will need a final pdf interior book file.- rect ISBN number, and the page count. From this, you can create and down- loadFor the a cover book template. cover file, The you cover will need templates to have are an in IngramSpark PDF or InDesign account, format. a cor The Cover Template Generator is in the Help Menu. Then Tools > Cover Template Generator. Once you have built your cover in InDesign you will save it in PD- F/X-1a:2001 format and upload it to IngramSpark.

RESOURCE: • IngramSpark.com, http://www.ingramspark.com/

88 Add Your Metadata for Each Book metadata.You will need Metadata to upload is the two description, pdf files if youauthor are bio, publishing categories, your keywords, e-book or and print pricing.book with Kindle/Amazon, or Ingram. The interior and cover files and all the

A. Set up your free accounts at Amazon, Kindle KDP.amazon.com,

C. FillUpload in all your the descriptionbook files to copy, KDP.Amazon/Kindle pricing, categories, bio, keywords, etc.

E. IfReview ok, push the the uploaded book live books on KDP. using You the are Amazon Published!!! proofing features.

Using print-on-demand technology, only books that have sold will get printed and shipped. There is no inventory. You do not have to do anything. No need right after someone purchases it. for a garage full of books. Kindle e-book files, download to an e-book reader If you are going the quick print direction, print what you need when you need it. When I have used this option, I have printed as low as 5-10 copies and up to 30 at a time. The goal is no garage full of books. Give them away to your customers.

Remember, also, that KDP.Amazon can print bulk orders of your book. Their author pricing is excellent and it is a great way to have a high-quality book to give away or sell in a store or event.

89 11. Launch, Market and Sell Your Book It is time to get your book out into the world. Use your platform and all your connections to highlight and showcase your book. Let people know your book is available. Launch and market your book through the popular social media channels. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, your website, your email list, and YouTube. Be sure to include a live web link from your posts or description back to the Amazon sales page. Make it easy for people to buy.

A. should include all the graphics assets you will need to promote your book. JPG images One ofof thethe firstbook things cover. I Yourrecommend headshot, is toand pull a good together book a andmedia author kit. This descrip - tion. A book trailer video for YouTube and your blog. Be sure you have a physical copy of the paperback version to hold up in photos and online.

B. Announce and launch your book through all the social media channels you have. Include your Facebook Page, your author/book web page or blog is a great place to start. Look for local media in your community like the newspaper; they love it when a hometown author releases a new book. Update all your online bios on all your social media sites. Create an event around the launch. See page 112 for how to run a best-seller book campaign.

C. Give your book out to current and potential customers. Books make great calling cards. People don’t throw them away. Make sure your contact info is in

D.the You back will of needyour somebook. kindMake of it web easy presence for people like to afind blog you. or website. Announce your book on your website with a direct link to Amazon so readers can buy your book from your websites. Add a thumbnail of the cover.

Your book’s content can make excellent blog posts and videos. Be sure to include Calls to Action (CTA) buttons. Include a sales line or a short bio line

Amazon. Let Google help spread your message. Wrap ads for your own book aroundwith a link your at own the bottomcontent of with each links post. to Drive Amazon. traffic to the book’s sales page on

90 E. All Amazon authors are eligible to join the free Amazon Author Central. This is your author home on Amazon. Add a bio (your Amazon Author Central bio becomes your author bio). Connect your book, connect your blog, upload pictures, and videos. https://authorcentral.amazon.com/

F. If you have a blog or website, set up a sign-up box to gather email names. Use a service like AWeber.com or MailChimp.com. Set up an auto-responder series that sends out emails with some of your book’s content. Have links to the book sales page on Amazon. Save your new book into chapters as PDFs and send them out attached to a series of emails. Think of it like an online mini-course based off of your book.

G. Update all your online and off-line bios with your new book. Anywhere you have a bio add an author line, “Mary Smith, author of My Great New Book, is the sales manager of XYZ Company . . . “ Be sure to add where you can buy the book and add a live web link if possible. Example: Available at Amazon.com, something like that. own website, Twitter, Pinterest look at them all. Update your company brochure,Look at organizations your profiles youon Linkedin belong to and and Facebook. anywhere Your else. company website, your

H. Run a Best-seller launch campaign. Read Making an Amazon Best-seller on page 112 in the Bonus section, on launching your book.

RESOURCE: • AWeber.com, https://www.aweber.com/ • MailChimp.com, https://mailchimp.com/ There are many companies you can use to manage your email list. • I go into much great detail in my book, Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishers, Available at Amazon.com https://www.amazon. com/Book-Marketing-Checklist-Self-Publishers-Complete-ebook/dp/ B01CJ9K4F0

91 Use the Power of Google to Sell Your Books One of my favorite ways to market my books is to wrap ads for my books around my book’s content. I let Google bring a reader to one of my book blogs or websites to solve a problem or answer a question. Let the reader discover my books.

AcousticMusicTV.com

All the pages from the book

All one graphic • Music page • Book thumbnail • Were to buy it

Image description Ads for the books connected to Amazon Page from Essential Chords for Guitar Mandolin, Ukulele & Banjo

92 Re-Purposing Your Book’s Content

12. Re-Purposing Your Book Content for Additional Products You have made your book, now what? What do I do with it? How do I make money from it? Your book is the beginning. Along with the general marketing you are doing to promote and sell your book. You can also re-purpose it into other products and services. Create it once and use it over and over for different products. doesn’t have to be only on Amazon and it doesn’t have to be only a book. You canTake take the thePDF pdf file and you create created a digitalfor your product. book and Add sell a couple it on your of videos, website. or Itan audio or add a workbook and you can charge much more than what a book sells for.

Book Content Can be Turned into Any One of the Following Products: • Physical Book from an e-book. • E-Book/Kindle form a physical book on KDP.Amazon or Kindle print. • PDF book. • Workbook, journals, worksheets, workbooks can sell for many times what a book sells for.

93 • An audio recording of the book, mp3, Look at ACX.com and Audible.com, the audio side of Amazon. http://www.acx.com. • Audio program or course built around the book. • PowerPoint presentations. • Record the PowerPoint presentation and make a video, preview on YouTube. • Annotated versions. • Webinar. Use some of these other products as a bonus or sell Seminars. • Using YouTube, Facebook Live, Zoom, Skype, conduct interviews with other authors or experts to discuss the book or topics. These videos can be used all over the web for promotion and additional products. Transcribe and make additional books and products. • Interviews and guest blog posts on your topic. • Video training courses around your topic. Each chapter becomes a video. • Cheat sheets, assessments, how-to sheets. • Take the illustrations and make a picture book. • Take the illustrations and use the art on sites such as CafePress.com, Print- ful.com, and Zazzle.com for products like t-shirts, mugs, clocks, pillows, etc. • Use as content to start a monthly membership site or newsletter. • Resell the content for Private Label Rights. • Book content can easily become blog posts or podcasts. • Build a resource list to go with the book, readers love resource lists.

• Build affiliate offers into your list.

94 Out of One Book Came All These Products I started with a book that recorded myself learning how to play guitar, mandolin, ukulele and banjo. I then re-purposed the book into all these products? What can you do with yours?

Flip the chords over and make a left hand version, suggestion by a customer from Australia. (on KDP/Kindle)

Take the pages and turn them into practice posters for students, Take the blank sheet music suggestion from a music school. pages from the back of the book and turn (on Zazzle) them into their own books. (on KDP/Kindle)

Take the art from the book and create t-shirts, clocks, mugs, hats and tote bags. (on CafePress and Zazzle)

95 RESOURCES: SITES TO USE FOR CREATING ADDITIONAL PRODUCTS

Take the artwork from your book and resell it on sites like Printful.com, Zazzel.com, Cafepress. com and many more. Turn it into mugs, hats, t-shirts, clocks, pillows, the list goes on and on.

Gift and Apparel Producers. With On Demand Manufacturing You Can Create Hats, Mugs, Poster, T-shirts, etc. • CafePress.com, http://www.cafepress.com • Zazzle.com, http://www.zazzle.com • Spreadshirt.com, http://www.spreadshirt.com/ • Printfection.com, http://www.printfection.com • Printful.com, https://www.printful.com/ • Redbubble.com, https://www.redbubble.com/

Product Fulfillment • Disk.com, single source for printing, manufacturing and fulfillment http://www.disk.com/ You can create bundled products and warehouse and dropship from Disc.com.

Creating Physical Audio, Video, and Print-On-Demand Products • KDP.Amazon.com, they are more than just books, https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/ • Speaker Fulfillment Services.com http://speakerfulfillmentservices.com/ • ACX.com and Audible.com, the audio side of Amazon. http://www.acx.com

Selling these New Products Each of the sites listed below has a way of setting up an online shop to sell your new products. • Gumroad.com for digital products, https://gumroad.com/ • Sellfy.com for digital products, https://sellfy.com/ • eachable.com for courses, https://teachable.com/ • Udemy.com for courses, https://www.udemy.com/ This list can go on and on.

96 Self-Publishing Checklist

97 —SELF-PUBLISHING CHECKLIST —

You have a lot of options these days on how and where to publish our books. Let’s start with some key questions about your book before we dive into the checklist.

WHAT KIND OF BOOK ARE YOU PUBLISHING? _____ A paperback print book _____ A hardcover print book _____ An e-book _____ All black and white _____ Color

WHAT SIZE IS YOUR PRINT BOOK? Review and know the book specs of the places you will be publishing your book. Create a book that can be printed and distributed afford-ably. Check your publishing site specs. For children’s book authors, note there are limited landscape options in the self-published world. _____ Portrait (Tall) _____ Landscape (Wide) _____ Square _____ Wide x _____ Tall _____ Number of Pages

WHERE AND HOW ARE YOU PUBLISHING YOUR BOOK? • Do you want to sell paperback books on Amazon only? Look at KDP.Amazon.com. KDP/Amazon or Kindle is the print-on-demand side of Amazon. They only do paperback books, black/white or color. KDP.Amazon, formally known as CreateSpace, publishes print books and e-books. Free to work with. • Do you want to sell e-books on Amazon? Again look at KDP.Amazon.com, or known as Kindle. KDP.Amazon.com is also the e-book side of Ama- zon. Go with Amazon first before anywhere else. All the other e-book publishers use the epub format. Kindle is free to work with. • Do you want to sell hardcover, paperback, and e-books in bookstores and Amazon? Look at IngramSpark.com. Ingram distributes print books and e-books worldwide. Small fees. • Do you want to sell or distribute e-books on a wide variety of sites other than Amazon/Kindle such as B&N Nook, Kobo, Apple iBooks and OverDrive? Look at Smashwords.com, Bookbaby.com, Draft2Digital.com, BarnsAndNobelPress.com, and Ingram- Spark.com. These companies are connected to over 70 e-book distributors for e-book readers. • Do you want to sell or give away books at conferences and seminars? Look at KDP.Amazon and IngramSpark for wholesale and author printing. • Want more cover binding options, saddle stitch, coil, etc. Look at Lulu.com. • Are you creating high-quality art or photo books? Look at Blurb.com. IngramSpark, Lulu.com, and Blurb.com also all distribute on Amazon.

Bottom Line Are you just starting out and this is your first book? Work with KDP.Amazon for print and e-book. Both services are free and use Amazon for selling and distribution. 98 —SELF-PUBLISHING CHECKLIST —

WRITE YOUR BOOK _____ This one is on you, but you have to start. There are many great websites with tips for writing your book. One of my favorite resources is Steven Pressfield, http://www.stevenpressfield.com/ Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn is also excellent, https://www.thecreativepenn.com.

SET UP YOUR PUBLISHING ACCOUNT You can really do this at any time. But check out their specific requirements so you can prepare your book and art correctly. You will also need your bank and tax information to open an account.

_____ KDP.Amazon.com/Amazon for paperback print books, https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/ _____ Kindle/Amazon for e-books, https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/ Start with KDP/Amazon.com for print and for e-books. Below are some others to look at also. _____ IngramSpark.com for brick and mortar stores, hardcover, paperback, e-book, https://www.ingramspark.com/ _____ Barns & Noble Press, publishes print and e-books, https://press.barnesandnoble.com/ _____ Bookbaby.com, a wide range of publishing solutions, print, and e-book, https://www.bookbaby.com/ _____ Lulu.com has a wide variety of book styles and binding options, https://www.lulu.com/ _____ Blurb.com, high-quality photo and art books, hardcover, paperback, e-book, http://www.blurb.com/ _____ Smashwords.com publishes and distributes to e-book sites, https://www.smashwords.com/

EDITING YOUR BOOK Worth the money to have someone edit your book before being published.

_____ Produce a pre-release printed physical copy of your book. I usually do this after the first initial layout of your book from your layout designer. Take the PDF to a local Staples, Kinko’s or print shop and have it printed out with a cover and a spiral binding. It will amaze you to see and what needs corrections. There will be many changes from reviewing a physical copy. Some editors also edit from a physical copy of the book. I recommend doing this, you will end up with a much better book.

_____ Hire a freelance editor for your book. _____ Copy or line editing, correct spelling, grammar, punctuation, overall clarity, permissions, charts, and figures. _____ Proofreading editor, checks for problems, discrepancies, artwork, typesetting, and design issues. If you want to save money find someone who is a cross between a copy and proofreading editor.

99 —SELF-PUBLISHING CHECKLIST —

COLLECTING INTERIOR BOOK IMAGES If your book is black and white all images must be black and white. If it is color then you can put color everywhere in your book. KDP/Amazon image resolution is 300dpi, RGB or CMYK, IngramSpark image resolution is 300dpi and CMYK for color format.

Print Book Images Images should be 300dpi, black and white or color. Acceptable formats, jpg, tiff, Adobe Illustrator .ai or .eps images _____ Illustrations _____ Photos _____ Charts and Graphs

E-books Electronic Images E-Book images should be 72 or 96dpi, black and white or color, use color if you can. 900pixels wide works pretty well. Acceptable formats, .jpg or .gif, _____ Illustrations _____ Photos _____ Charts and Graphs (turn charts and graphs into a .jpg or .gif graphic)

For e-books, I recommend that you make the captions part of the illustration

• Amazon recommends a picture ratio of 9:11 • Pictures 900 x 1100 pixels, 9:11, old standard was 600 x 800 pixels, 3:4 • Kindle Fire HD 8.9 display 1920 x 1200, 16:10 • At 72 dpi 12.5” x 15.77” inches • At 300 dpi 3” x 3.66” inches • Kindle book format supports .jpeg and .gif • Up to 5mb per image, I find this way to big, keep under a megabyte if at all possible

TITLE OF YOUR BOOK Book Title______

______

Book Subtitle______

______

Do not fall in love with your book title, it will often change by the time you finish. Come back to the title after your book has been designed and laid out. Often your subtitle is the real title of your book and the title is the subtitle.

100 —SELF-PUBLISHING CHECKLIST —

BOOK DESIGN: PRINT BOOK AND E-BOOK, INTERIOR PARTS You may not have all of these, but good place to start. _____ Title page _____ The manuscript _____ Disclaimer and legal info behind title page, _____ Author bio _____ Copyright notice _____ Author services or products _____ Table of contents _____ Index, Resource _____ Introduction _____ Other _____ Acknowledgment _____ Dedication

BOOK DESIGN AND LAYOUT: PRINT BOOK INTERIOR

Book Size ______Width x ______Height Number of Pages ______

Page Margins; KDP.Amazon.com requires a minimum .25” margin on the outside edge and .375” for the inside margin or gutter. IngramSpark.com requires .5” margin all around. I recommend having a minimum margin of .5” all around. Your top and bottom margins will usually be bigger to fit the page numbers and any header or footer info. _____ Initial design concepts Top margin 1” for header _____ Sample chapter or page numbers _____ Revisions _____ Set up book template with paragraph styles _____ Initial book page layout, text and images _____ Review Layout _____ Revisions as necessary _____ Print out and bind a pre-publishing physical proof Margins .5”, left and right _____ Revisions and corrections _____ Final Copying Editing _____ Layout revisions and correction _____ Final layout and corrections _____ Finalize table of contents _____ Final proofreading Bottom margin .75” _____ Final corrections _____ Final Approval 6” x 9”, 2 column page 101 —SELF-PUBLISHING CHECKLIST —

BOOK DESIGN, PRINT BOOK, COVER PARTS _____ Title _____ Subtitle _____ Author _____ Front cover cut lines _____ Cover illustration _____ Back cover sales copy _____ Quotes _____ Author bio and photo _____ Contact Info _____ Publisher info Full cover spread _____ ISBN# space on the back cover, generally, lower right corner _____ Spine text, KDP.Amazon spine needs 131 pages to contain text _____ Spine logo

BOOK COVER DESIGN AND LAYOUT _____ Initial design concepts _____ Revisions, several rounds _____ Initial designs _____ Front cover proof _____ Test final designs on Facebook or similar _____ Back cover proof _____ Finalize your title _____ Revisions and corrections _____ Final cover design selection _____ Proofreading both covers _____ Final cover copy, images, ISBN number, _____ Final corrections and logos to designer _____ Final cover approval _____ Layout cover, front, back and spine

SAMPLE BOOK COVER LAYOUT FOR KDP.AMAZON Sample Cover Layout for a 140 Page, 6” x 9” Book, Includes 1/8”, .125” Bleeds All Sides Overall cover spread file size = 12.558” wide x 9.25” high. The back and front covers are 6.125” x 9.25”. The bleed is .125 or 1/8” all the way around and will be trimmed off by KDP when the book is printed. The spine is .308” thick. The spine is based off of how many pages there are in the book. Your artwork needs to run right to the outer edge so that is can bleed and be cut off. Artwork should be 300dpi or vector. If your book is over 100 pages you can add your title and author on the spine. If you are using the KDP Cover Creator you will need to have a minimum of 131 pages to put words on the spine. 102 —SELF-PUBLISHING CHECKLIST —

Back Cover Front Cover

Total cover height Spine .125” + 9 + .125” = 9.25”

Covers 6” x 9” 140 pages x .0022 ppi = 0.308” (ppi=Pages Per Inch) Spine = .308”

Total cover width .125” + 6” + 0.308” + 6” + .125” = 12.558”

Cover Spread Overall Size 12.558” x 9.25” ISBN Bar code Location & Size 2” x 1.2”

1/8” bleed is on all four sides, White area is the live trimmed off at printing area for graphics Setting Up Your Book Cover Spread for KDP.Amazon Book covers are set up as a spread; Back, Spine, Front and an 1/8”, or .125” bleed all around. The spine width is based on the number of pages times the paper ppi number.

Spine Calculation for KDP.Amazon Black and White Interior Books Color Interior Books White Paper: multiply page count by 0.002252” ppi White Paper: multiply page count by 0.002347” ppi Cream Paper: multiply page count by 0.0025” ppi

______Number of pages x (spine multiplier) = ______” = Spine Width in inches

Cover Width, see example in illustration above .125” Bleed + ____” Back Cover + ____” Spine Width + ____” Front Cover + .125” Bleed = ______”

Cover Height .125” Bleed Top + ____” Height + .125 Bottom = ______” Full Cover Size _____” Width x _____” Height If you are using IngramSpark.com you will need to download a cover template from their site based on the book size, and the number of pages. An account and an ISBN number is required. 103 —SELF-PUBLISHING CHECKLIST —

ISBN# NUMBERS All physical books, paperback, and hardcover and some e-books, require a unique ISBN number, it is how books are tracked and ordered through distributors. E-Books sold on Kindle/Amazon don’t require ISBN numbers. But some e-book distributors do require them such as Apple iBook. You will need to check with each specific site as to their requirements.

ISBN numbers are purchased from MyIndentifier.com. Some publishing platforms, like KDP.Amazon, supply the numbers for free for use on their site only. Most sites will generate the barcode artwork wither it is theirs or you are supplying the ISBN number. Free ISBN numbers, such as from KDP.Amazon, cannot be used on other publishing sites.

Easiest Way to Get an ISBN# for Your Book _____ KDP.Amazon free ISBN number: Supplied by KDP when you upload your book files, the publisher will be listed as “Amazon Digital Services LLC.”

_____Lulu, Burb, and other print-on-demand publishing platforms also supply free ISBN numbers. The number is applied to the book at the time you upload your interior and cover pdf files.

_____ You can also purchase an ISBN# from many platforms at a reduced rate so that your book will have your own publishing imprint name associated with it.

If You Plan to Pursue Bookstores and a Global Market You Must Purchase an ISBN number If you are selling your book in bookstores you will need to purchase an ISBN number. Unites States ISBN numbers are purchased from Bowker thru their site, www.myidentifiers.com, Outside of the US you will need to contact your countries national ISBN agency. Purchased numbers can also be used on any publishing platform. In the U.S. ISBN numbers start at $125 each but can be bought in packages for less. You may need to supply your designer with the bar code artwork if your publishing site doesn’t generate the art. Your publishing company will be the imprint name for the book.

Kindle e-books do not require ISBN numbers, but some e-book sites do, like Apple iBooks. Check with the particular site on its requirements.

_____ Using free ISBN from publishing platform, select this option when you upload your book files _____ If no then purchase ISBN from myidentifiers.com, https://www.myidentifiers.com/isbn/main _____ Purchase barcode artwork if needed, most sites just need the ISBN number

104 —SELF-PUBLISHING CHECKLIST —

BOOK DESIGN: E-BOOK _____ Review your e-book publishing platforms specifications _____ Amazon/Kindle html, Mobi, .kpf _____ ePub, Apple iBook, Kobo etc. _____ PDF

E-BOOK INTERIOR DESIGN, LAYOUT AND FORMAT _____ Print out and bind a pre-publishing physical proof copy of your book from your MS Word file for review. Staples or OfficeMax will work well for this _____ Review copy _____ Final copying editing _____ Revisions and corrections _____ Final proofreading

_____ Layout and format on a standard MS Word or Google Doc file _____ Initial design concepts (keep formatting simple) _____ Set up book template with paragraph styles _____ Format a sample chapter _____ Revisions _____ Initial book layout, text and images, include captions in images _____ Build a Table of Contents using Bookmarks and Hyperlinks _____ Review Layout in Kindle Previewer https://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000765261

_____ Or download Kindle Create and use this app to format your book (recommend) https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/GHU4YEWXQGNLU94T _____ Revisions and corrections as necessary _____ Final layout, formatting, and corrections _____ Final proofreading _____ Final approval _____ Table of Contents will build out as you assign chapters

105 —SELF-PUBLISHING CHECKLIST —

E-BOOK COVER DESIGN AND LAYOUT, FRONT COVER ONLY _____ Open an account with Canva.com or with freelance designer _____ Select cover template, or share ideas with designer _____ Initial design concepts _____ Review initial designs _____ Test final designs on Facebook or similar _____ Final cover design selection _____ Final cover copy, images _____ Layout cover _____ Revisions, several rounds _____ Front cover proof _____ Revisions and corrections _____ Proofreading _____ Final corrections _____ Final cover approval

• The longest side of your cover must be minimum of 1000 pixels, shortest side 625 pixels, or 13.8” x 8.7” at 72 dpi. Ideally, the height/width ratio is 1.6:1. • For best quality Amazon recommends a height of the cover image is at least 2,500 pixels. Ideal dimensions for cover files are 2,560 x 1,600 pixels at 72dpi. • Cover size: 9” tall x 6” wide at 300dpi or 2700 pixels x 1800 pixels works very well also • The cover file should be in RGB format and saved as jpg or tiff files. • The file must be less than 50mb in size

ISBN Number, You May Need Barcode Artwork, Check with Your Platform Only for e-books that need it, Kindle e-books do not need an ISBN number, check with your publishing platform. _____ Purchase ISBN, https://www.myidentifiers.com/isbn/main

CHOOSE BOOK PRICE _____ Price for print book $______Price for e-book $______

106 —SELF-PUBLISHING CHECKLIST —

PUBLISHING YOUR BOOK

Set Up Your Publishing Accounts _____ KDP.Amazon/Kindle, IngramSpark, etc. _____ Bank info _____ Contact info _____ Tax info

CREATE METADATA FOR YOUR BOOK _____ Book title _____ Illustrator _____ Subtitle _____ Book description _____ Author _____ Author bio

Print Book (KDP.Amazon.com) _____ Book Category (1)______

_____ Book Keyword Phrases (7 keywords, up to 25 characters each)______

______

E-Book (KDP.Kindle.com) _____ Book Categories (2)______

_____ Book keyword phrases (7 keywords, up to 25 characters each)______

______

107 —SELF-PUBLISHING CHECKLIST —

FILE PREP FOR UPLOADING Print _____ Creating hi-res pdf of book interior per your publishing site’s requirements _____ Creating hi-res pdf cover file per your publishing site’s requirements

E-book _____ Create final HTML file with images per your site’s requirements or a .kpf file from Kindle Create _____ Cover image per your site’s requirements

UPLOADING OF YOUR BOOK FILES _____ KDP.Amazon, Ingram _____ Click on Create a New Title

_____ Kindle e-book _____ Click on Create a New Title

Follow the Upload Prompts _____ Finalizing Your Books Meta Data _____ Book description _____ Book categories _____ Book keywords _____ Book price _____ Distribution channels _____ Order a proof copy, I highly recommend getting a printed proof _____ E-book review online proof,

PUBLISH!!!!! _____ Hit the publish button, you are a published author!! _____ Order a copy from Amazon to start the ranking _____ Open and set up your Amazon Author Central Account (can be the same as your Amazon Account) https://authorcentral.amazon.com _____ Link your book to your Author Central Account

108 —SELF-PUBLISHING CHECKLIST —

LAUNCH AND MARKETING YOUR BOOK It is time to get your book out into the world. Use social media and all your connections (your platform) to highlight and showcase the book. Let people know your book is published. Be sure to include a live web link from any posts back to the Amazon sales page so people can buy your book. Here are some basic steps you can take.

_____ Pull together your media kit with all the graphics assets you will need to promote your book. JPG images of your book cover, your headshot, a good book and author description, a book trailer video for YouTube and your blog. Have a physical copy of the paperback version to hold up in photos.

_____ Announce and launch your book through all the social media channels you are connected to. Include your Facebook Page, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube. _____ Look for local media in your community newspaper; they love it when a hometown author releases a new book story. _____ Update all your bios on all your social media sites. Create an event around the launch. _____ Give your book out to current and potential customers. _____ Announce your book on your website, add a direct link to Amazon so readers can buy your book from your websites call to action buttons. Include a thumbnail of the cover (from your media kit). _____ Blog or post your book’s content, let Google help spread your message. If you don’t have a blog or website, start one. _____ On your website set up an email sign-up box to gather email names. Using a service like AWeber.com or MailChimp.com, you can set up an auto-responder series that sends out emails with some of your book’s content and links to the book sales page on Amazon. _____ Save your new book as a pdf file and use it as a lead magnet and give your book away in exchange for someone signing up to your email list. _____ Update all of your online and off-line bios with your new book. Anywhere you have a bio add something like this; Mary Smith, the author of My New Great Book, is the sales manager of...(fill in the blank). Add where you can buy the book and a live web link. Example: Available at Amazon.com. _____ Add a short bio line at the bottom of every blog or web post you create. Look at your profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, company website, your own website, Twitter, Pinterest, your company brochure and anywhere else you might be.

Resources • AWeber.com, https://www.aweber.com/ • MailChimp.com, https://mailchimp.com/ There are many companies you can use to manage your email list. I go into much great detail in my book, Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishers, Available at Amazon.com https://www.amazon.com/Book-Marketing-Checklist-Self-Publishers-Complete-ebook/ dp/B01CJ9K4F0 109 110 Making an Amazon Best-seller

111 — PART 3. BONUS SECTION —

Making an Amazon Best-Seller

How to Make an Amazon Best-Selling Book meansMaking you the haveofficial built New a very York large Times presence best-selling or platform book. Or in even the market. break into You the are alsotop Amazon at the top best of yourselling game book with list youris very marketing. difficult. ABut once making in a lifetime a #1 Amazon event. It category Best-Seller is not that hard. Authors do it all the time. It is surprising how few books you actually have to sell. The theory for producing an Amazon category best-selling book. Is drive as many people as you can to buy your book. Through the narrowest time frame in a book category that doesn’t have very many books in it. You want to pick a category that doesn’t have a popular best-selling author. Or a big selling book at the top that you have to take on.

This is why building your platform is important; you need fans to do this. If you can do this, it is very likely that you can create a short-lived category best selling book. Even a #1 category best-seller. It does not last long. So be sure to screen capture the Products Details area of the Amazon sales page for your marketing. Generally, this technique works best with Kindle books because you can lower the price down to $.99. But, I have seen it work with paperback books. But, the per book price will be much higher and it is harder to get that impulse buy.

I know authors, who created a self-publish printed bestseller on Amazon. They created a buzz using blogging and social media. They put in the time to build an audience and get them ready to buy their books.

112 Step 1. Research Your Categories • Look at your competitor’s books for category ideas.

Amazon• Select specific has been book moving categories these categorythat have numbers under 5,000-7,000 around. So bookslook on in the them. book searchEven better results if youpage can for find them. one with low thousands or even hundreds of books. Product Details, scroll down the Amazon sales page to locate Overall Amazon book rank

Book categories

Amazon sales rank. Also look for categories that do not have a superstar writer• Try or celebrityto find a categoryat the top. that It is doesn’t almost have impossible books in to the beat top them. 2,000-5,000 If so, look general for different categories.

• When you upload your book, select the BISAC codes for your book’s categories. Try to get as close as you can to the Amazon categories. Be sure to work into your description your keywords and the categories that you want to be in.

You are helping Amazon figure out where your book should sit. Step 2. Pre-Launch Your Book The goal here is to drive as many sales as you can through the narrowest time frame. Have as many people buying your book, as you can.

• Build up your platform. Your platform is the places that you connect with people. It is your e-mail list, social media, and friends. Also your family, local media, where you work, organizations you belong to. Look for and connect

113 your platform will pay off more than almost anything else you do. with influencers in your market. This can be a 3-to 6-month effort. Building • Build a street team around your book launch. These are fans that you have their networks. This can be huge, even a couple of people with a good size fol- lowingthat support can make you. aAnd huge will difference. buy the first copies and will share post though out

• Set up a virtual book tour. A virtual book tour consists of articles and interviews about you and your book. These host on other people’s blogs and websites. Start early and build these relationships. Look for people that have a

•bigger E-mail audience your list than and youannounce do. Remember on your blog your and influencer’s. social media that you are launching your book. Tell them you would love their support. Give them the book link and instructions on when to buy. Make your book easy to buy.

• Lower your Kindle price to $.99. Have a few friends buy a copy of the book and write several positive reviews. You want to make sure everything is working sales wise. It is ok to have the book live, only keep it quiet.

• If releasing a paperback lower your price as much as you can.

RESOURCES:

Free PR Sites • PR.com, https://www.pr.com/ • 24-7 Press Release.com, http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/ • iNewswire.com, https://www.newswire.com/ • PRLog.org, https://www.prlog.org/

Paid PR Sites • PRWeb.com, http://www.prweb.com/ • PR Newswire, https://www.prnewswire.com/

114 Step 3. Launch/Release Your Book To create a best-selling Amazon category book you want to drive as many people as you can to buy your book. In the narrowest time frame in a book category that doesn’t have very many books in it.

• Announce your book is live on your social media sites, including a cover shot and the link to Amazon.com.

• E-mail your list that your book is now live.

• Announce your book is live on your blog, websites, make a book trailer video and host on YouTube and all your sites. Any and every place you have expo- sure to the world, announce your book is live.

• Get your street team to announce that your book is live through all their social media sites. Have live links for the book to Amazon.

• If you are giving away a free bonus gift tell everyone how to get it.

• Conduct a Virtual Launch Party on Facebook Live, Belive.TV, YouTube, and Google Hangout.

• Release your Virtual Book launch and tour.

• The key is to post your progress in your social media accounts. What is going on during launch day, how exciting it is. Make it an event. Encourage others to join in. Get your fans involved to get you over the top to a #1 position on Amazon.

• Grab screen captures of your Amazon ranking as you climb. Do not try to guess at the results or when you will reach the top. Keep recording the screen during the day. Your sales rank information is in the Product Details section of your Amazon book sales page.

115 • Amazon updates the sales rank on an hourly basis. Sometimes nothing happens for hours and then it starts to roll. you will need to pay attention and watch for at least 24 hours. Having a few fans in other time zones can help out with the watching. It makes a big difference.

Step 4. Re-Release/Announce the Book Release at the End of The Day • Re-email your list and repost in Social Media about your launch, be sure to not burn out this list with to many emails.

• You can push books over the top during the night by letting readers know how close you are to #1.

• Watch what is happening the next day, some countries algorithms may take a day or so to catch up to the #1 ranking.

Building relationships with fans in other countries is very important. This turns• International you into an best-sellers International can Best-seller.happen with as few as three to five book sales.

• Check your rankings often. Screen capture your Amazon page when you hit the #1 Best-seller list and Hot New Releases.

Step 5. Thank Everyone for All the Support • Thank everyone for the support and help they have given. Especially thank your super fans. And anyone that reposted through their networks for you.

• Update all your bio information on all your platforms. Let the world know about your new best-selling #1 status.

• Post the screenshots of the new rankings and the success. You will find peo 116 ple will buy your book because of its success. It will surprise you to see that people will still be buying. People like successful books.

• Have your book cover updated with a best-selling burst or banner.

Be sure to take screen shots of your Product Details stats as the book climbs to reach #1. It doesn’t stay there long so you have to stay on top of it during launch day.

117 10 Lessons I Learned from My International Best Selling Book Launch for Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing

#1 International Best Selling Book!!! Yea, I got it!!!

What a great day, book launch day was, very exciting. A huge thank you to everyone who helped me launch my new pub- lication. The Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing. It became a category international best selling book overnight in the US. Hitting a total of 3 #1s, #1 in the US and Australia and the next day hitting #1 in Canada. Plus making the best-

with a video course tie in that links from inside the book, makingseller list for in a the cool UK, bonus. and Germany. This was my first book

What did I learn from the launch of my new book, Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing?

• Your platform is super important, build that mailing list. Having a Face- book open group and being part of other Facebook groups is a huge help. Big chunks of sales came from Facebook Groups. Check out my Facebook group, Facebook.com/groups/How to Publish Your Book

• Have a written game plan of what you are going to do and the sites you are going to post on and connect with. It can be handwritten, but launch day is crazy busy and it is hard to keep track of it all.

• Have help. I had someone step in and help with all behind the scenes stuff during the launch. They pushed me to keep promoting, looking for lists and connections that I didn’t realize I had. Single sales make a difference when you are moving up the rankings. Think about a team, even one extra person makes a huge difference.

118 • Have some kind of bonus or tie-in for the book for the launch. I have a video course linked from inside the book. I actually didn’t promote as well as I could but I still have a bunch of new sign-ups in my How to Publish Your Book School. Offer something, a pdf report, bonus content, some videos that you have on a page on your site, any of these will work. Link them from inside the book to your website.

• I need to be much more conscious about asking for Amazon book reviews from people who bought. I got four excellent reviews but could have gotten more if I had asked a little better.

• Look for sales in other countries, it is much easier to rank in Australia and Canada than you think and all the #1s add up. Build some connections in your Facebook groups to people in other countries.

• How much time it all takes to do this, all the posting and linking and connecting. I need to do much more pre-prep next time. I spent several days getting ready. And I continued spending time with all the follow up afterward.

• Don’t forget the next day. Sales will still go on. Promote, promote, promote and remember to go look at the sales ranking.

• Be sure to screen capture all your ranking numbers in Amazon’s Product De- tails area on their sales page. Remember some of this happens in the middle of the night, your extra person can help with this.

119 — BEST-SELLER CHECKLIST —

_____ Step 1: Pre-Launch: Write Out Your Launch Plan.

_____ Step 2: Pre-Launch: Pick categories and keywords for your book.

_____ Step 3: Pre-Launch: Make sure your book is live on Amazon and can be purchased, buy a copy.

_____ Step 4: Pre-Launch: Prepare a media kit with launch graphics; cover shots, author headshots, text, and links to your Amazon book sales page.

_____ Step 5: Pre-Launch: Research some other book launches and their descriptive text for inspiration on how to write yours. Google “recent book launches.”

_____ Step 6: Pre-Launch: Set up an MS-Word document with your description text and links to Amazon.

_____ Step 7: 9:00am Launch: Release your new book, we begin.

_____ Step 8: Launch: Post your book launch notices everywhere you can.

_____ Step 9: Launch: Thank your fans for buying your book, build social proof.

_____ Step 10: Launch: Record your progress on Amazon rankings with screenshots.

_____ Step 11: Launch: Continue to post updates during the day, post screenshots of any progress on Amazon in your social media sites.

_____ Step 12: Launch: In the evening do another round of launch notices. Encourage people to push you over the top.

_____ Step 13: Launch: Be sure to screen capture all results. The rankings Do Not Last that long on Amazon. You will need these for marketing.

_____ Step 14: Post-Launch: Thank your fans again for their support. Post the results of how high you got in the rankings. Did you get bestseller?

_____ Step 15: Post-launch: Update all your bios with your new best-seller status.

120 Top Ten Technique for Creating a Book

121 — PART 3. BONUS SECTION —

Top Ten Technique for Creating a Book

Do you want to spread your message to the world? Do you want others to see as the authority on your topic? Do you want potential customers to pay more attention to you? Is your answer yes? Then how do we do this, you ask. We do it with a book. Books are the new calling cards. People treat books with rev- erence. Books position you as the authority and expert in your topic. Books make fantastic marketing tools. Books get opened, read, and saved. Books also give you something to anchor yourself to. You can refer to them in your marketing and in your presentations. They make great gifts for a new or current customer. People do not throw them away. Books are easy to create and publish. Publishing a book these days can make you an authority on your subject matter. You can become a published author in no time.

The Top Ten Technique is about sharing the lessons you have learned in your career and business. Passing them on to your employees, customers or the world. A great way to do this is to create a book. A book can be great for opening channels. You can introduce yourself and your subject matter to others. Books can be given away. They are a fantastic replacement for business cards. People will remember you on a grander scale, thereby creating a lead magnet for your business. Treat your book as if it is your business card. A business book is simple for you to make and easy to produce. To do this we will use a technique I have developed called the Top Ten Tips Technique for Creating a Book. Ten steps to take you from creation to publishing to marketing.

122 How and Why Do I Want a Book for My Business, How Do I Use It? Your book establishes your authority and expertise in your market. You are not writing your book to make money from royalties, though it is nice if it happens. You make money by giving your book away to potential clients. Your book becomes your new business card or brochure.

• Your book and the title focus on what you do and the services you offer.

• You are an author, not a writer, we are doing this pretty quick, but we do edit.

• We make our books logical, informative and instructive. Focus on the subject matter you are proficient in. bring to the table. • Your book centralizes your ideas. The table of contents are the benefits you • Your book is a gateway to your products and services; this is your back-end.

• Your book’s content is also used for more products, videos, podcasts, and blog content.

• Your book is a call to action for your current and potential clients.

Write Your Biography or a How to Book We are focusing in this section on writing a business book. But this technique is also used to write a wide range of books. I have taught it for how-to-books, FAQ books for a service, even an autobiography. It is a method of breaking connecting it all together. your story down into small, easy to digest elements. Then fill in the details and

123 The Top Ten Tips Technique to Write and Publish a Book Overview Below is an overview of the steps needed to create your book. This section will be a quick read. I go into more detail descriptions shortly.

1. Write down the 10 best tips or lessons on or about your business, or your expertise. These can also be key moments in your life. Keep these to one or two sentences each. #1 is your best question or tip then follow with 9 more.

2. Write out one paragraph for each tip or lesson, only one paragraph.

3. For each lesson, expand that 1 paragraph to 3-4 paragraphs. Flush out the concepts by making bullet points. Expand upon each bullet to achieve information. the desired information flow. This also helps to cut down on unnecessary 3B. Add an author bio along with a photo and contact info at the back of the book. Add a resource list at the back of the book. Add an intro to the front, a table of contents and any more info that might apply to your reader. If you offer programs or consulting, drop that in also, give readers a call to action. We are talking 28-36 pages when done. This isn’t a manifesto but a quick look into

4.what Have you your offer book as an edited expert andwithin proofed. your field One of of expertise. the most important things you can do for your book is getting it copy edited and proofread. It will im- prove quality.

5. Print out a pre-edited paper proof of your book, at the correct size and bind it with a spiral binding. This will give you an excellent sample of your book. It will amaze you at what you see in a printed version of your book.

6. Select a format for publishing your book. An E-book or print-on-demand

You don’t have to do all these. I recommend a printed version, either KDP/Kin- bookdle or on quick KDP.Amazon.com print. Give them or outuse toa quickpeople. print shop like Staples or OfficeMax.

124 7. Create an Amazon/Kindle e-book and cover. Format the insides of your book in MS-Word or similar word processing application. Such as Google Doc, Pages, or Scrivener for Kindle. Work with the regular document and keep the formatting simple. For an e-book/Kindle, create the front cover using Canva. com or InDesign. KDP.Amazon also has an online Kindle Cover Creator. I have found 6” x 9” at 300dpi, jpg works very well. Check out the new Kindle Create app. Makes it much easier to create a Kindle book now.

8. Create a KDP.Amazon print book and cover. Using Adobe InDesign or MS- Word set up your book page at 5.5” x 8.5” or 6” x 9” with ½” margins. Format your MS-Word document in InDesign or in Word. Then add images and publish your book through KDP.Amazon.com. For a printed book on KDP/Kindle, set up a full cover spread with the back, spine and front covers plus a 1/8” bleed all around. Your book needs to have at least 24 pages. Try for 36 pages and you cover layout. will do fine. KDP.Amazon also has an online Cover Creator that can simplify the 9. Create a Quick Print book and cover. For quick print books that you create through a local copy shop or Staples, set your page size up at 5 ½” x 8 ½”. This is an easy size to get printed at a quickie print shop. Adobe InDesign works very well for creating a printed book if this option is available to you. A using a local quick print shop like Staples you can leave out the spine. Set your coverlocal designer spread up can with help a backwith thiscover stage. and frontCreate cover a PDF at file8.5” for x 11”.printing. If you are

10. Uploading and publishing your book. If you creating an e-book for Kin- dle on Amazon, then save your MS-Word file as an HTML file for the web. Or KDP.Amazon.com.download the new If Kindle you are Create going application to print your and book, format then the you Word will file. create After an interioryou have and formatted cover for your your book book. you Once will completeupload the you interior will export and jpg the cover interior file to also the print-on-demand, self-publishing side of Amazon.com. Once uploaded, and cover as pdf files and upload them to KDP.Amazon.com. KDP.Amazon is

125 you will add descriptions, author bio, categories, keywords, and price. KDP.Amazon also has cover creator applications. These work for both the e-book and paperback books. If you are doing a quick print version take the book. two pdf files to a local quick print shop. Have them assemble and print your 11. Launch and market your book through the popular social media channels. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, your website, your email list, and YouTube. The chapters you have created for your book can make great videos and blog posts. Give your book out to potential clients and current customers. Make the book available on your website as a free or paid pdf download. If your book is on Amazon then add a thumbnail of the cover to your website. Link it to Amazon so people can buy it. Have it sitting in your lobby and always carry some copies with you to hand out. Don’t make these precious, give them away.

12. Re-Purpose your book content. Your Top Ten Book can make great blog posts and videos. Each chapter can be a blog post or a video. The script is already written, it is your book’s content. Take each chapter one at a time and use it for the description for your YouTube videos. Add a few questions with some lines for writing and you have a workbook for a seminar or workshop. Each chapter can be short video course. Publish the workbook on Amazon and reference the videos. As you can see you can do all kinds of things with this content.

126 — TOP TEN TIPS TECHNIQUE IN DETAIL —

1. Write Down Your 10 Best Tips, Lessons or Life Moments Write down the 10 best tips, questions or lessons on or about your business, or your expertise. Keep these to one or two sentences each. #1 is your best then follow with 9 more.

A. Write down your #1 best business or experience tip, lesson or question you get asked. If you are working on an autobiography type of book write down

Carrythe top a definingsmall notebook moments or infolded your paper life. The in yourtransition pocket. points. Write down every question you get asked for the next month or so. Do not edit them, write them down. At the end of the month compile them and pull out the top ten most popular. Your Number 1 question is what your book is about, the other 9 are the other chapters.

B. You have written your #1 tip, now write down nine more lessons, questions or moments. Keep these to a sentence or two. No paragraphs. Only the lessons.

C. Use the Google Top Ten tips technique to search (next page). Use Look In- side on Amazon books to look at Table of Contents. Read Amazon Book Re- - views. views to find and flush out your ideas. Pay attention to the 4 and 2-star re These are the main tips, lessons or questions from your experiences. The expertise that you want to pass on to the next person or that might be useful to a will most likely know all these right off the top of your head. I usually start this processcustomer. by This asking, is the “what core is of your your number book. This 1 tip first or questionpass is a quickyou get exercise. asked?” You Do not do a lot of thinking on this; only write down your number 1 tip. OK, now write 9 more and you’re done. You can always change these later, but these tips are usually the things you tell people all the time.

127 Tips to Come Up with Your List Collect customer comments over a period of time. This is a great way to pull together a list of Frequently Asked Questions. You can write these into a book for your business. Look for the common questions and summarize them.

• The #1 question you get asked and then 9 more, this is the most powerful.

• The FAQs or questions that you know people should ask.

• Step-by-step instructions of something, step one, step two, like this article.

• Lessons you have learned over your life, legacy, life tips.

• Major points and transitions in your life, great for an autobiography.

TIP: The Google Top Ten Technique. Google this phrase, Top 10 Tips on XYZ, with XYZ being your subject. You will have a good list of search results copying, but you are trigging your own ideas. with other Top Ten lists that you can use to fill in your own list. You are not Type in the search box in Amazon, YouTube or Bing, or any search box will generate instant results. Watch what shows up to help you come up ideas.

TIP: Use the Amazon “Look Inside” feature on any book. Look at the Table of Contents of similar books for more tips and ideas. Add in some ideas from the Book Reviews. You can create a list of business lessons or whatever your topic is for your book pretty fast using these tips. Look at Amazon book reviews, this is where the gold sits; what readers like and don’t like. Look at both 4 stars

Whenand 2-star making reviews a How-To for ideas Book, to photograph flush out your the ideas. steps for completing a process. Write out captions and longer descriptions for each step. Add your bio plus any other info you feel pertinent and you have a book. Autobiography, look at the moments that defined your life. 128Not, I was born and then I did this and that. But look a the points that defined you and write about those, the rest will 2.fill Write in. Out One Paragraph for Each Tip or Lesson, Only One A. Write one paragraph for each tip, not two, one.

B. We are not concerned with editing here, writing out the paragraph.

C. To complete your paragraphs information. Use the sites that you referenced for information to flush out more details. This is a key part of the process of creating your Tips book. For Step Two write out one paragraph based on the tip or question. In Step Three we will expand it but the goal here is to get down some basic ideas. The tendency at this stage is to start writing out the entire book, do not do this. It is pretty easy to get bogged down and never complete it if you do. We want to keep everything moving at a steady pace so concentrate on one paragraph.

Writing Tips This is a good step to look at when reviewing the sites you pulled up yesterday on Google from the 10 Ten Tips search. If you are a little low on ideas, see what others have written. You should be able to write at least a paragraph from the information you have gathered.

RESOURCES: One of the easiest ways to get the words down is to dictate your them. You can speak them into your phone or computer; audio or video. A great way to do this is to create a series of questions and have someone interview you. Record it, transcribe and edit. A great place to do this is while you commute in your car. You do it every day and there is no one to bother you. Both of the services below can take audio, video or a link from a video. • Rev.com, a fantastic service for transcription, very accurate, $1.00/minute, https://www.rev.com/ • Temi.com, audio to text transcription, uses speech recognition software, $0.10/minute, https://www.temi.com/

129 3. Each Lesson, Expand the 1 Paragraph to 3-5 paragraphs, Flush Out the Concepts A. Expand each lesson to 3 or 5 paragraphs

B. Again no editing, only writing

C. The cooking timer method is very effective for pacing yourself. Getting your text completed. Set your timer for 5-10 minutes and start writing. You cannot stop, you cannot correct, you cannot edit, you keep going. If you cannot think of anything write blah, blah, blah until your brain catches up. Come back tomorrow and do the edits. one. Personal stories and experiences can be a great addition to your book. We doIn Stepnot need 3, we to fill go out deeper. each ofWe the are 10 not lessons. writing Write a manifesto 3 to 5 paragraphs but instead for a quickeach set of lessons about our chosen topic. We want our reader to come away with some great actionable lessons. Lesson based on expert advice.

Writing Tips Use the cooking timer method: Set the timer for 10 minutes and start writing with no editing. You cannot stop until the timer goes off. No correcting, no editing, no stopping. If you do not have anything to write, start writing gibberish until something pops in. Write today, edit tomorrow. lessons. YouTube videos, related blogs, and books make great resources to referAgain, to searching at this stage. on the Look top at 10 the tips Amazon of your book topic reviews. is a great Especially way to flush the 4out stars our and the 2-star reviews. Remember we are looking for experience and lessons here. Amazon’s book reviews are an excellent way to see what people are say- ing in other books on the same topic. You will discover topics you have missed or a subject that you may need to include in your book.

130 3B. Flush Out the Balance of the Book, Author Bio, Resources, and Services The general structure of a book Even page number = left-hand page, Odd page number = right-hand page

Page 1. Title Page, repeats what is on the front cover

Page 3. Table of contents, be descriptive, these are your benefits

Page 4. Good place for intro, or acknowledgments, front matter content

Page 5. Chapter 1 begin your book

Back of the Book Author Bio, products and services, resources, index, more info.

Kindle e-books do not have page numbers, print books do.

Add an author bio along with a photo and contact info at the back of the book. Add a resource list at the back of the book. An intro for the front, a table of contents and any other info that might apply to your book. If you offer programs or consulting, drop that in also, give readers a call to action. We are talking 28-36 pages when done. This is not a manifesto.

A. Add your author bio including a photo, contact info, and resources. In the front add your introduction, front matter, table of contents (the 10 points). Also add legal info, copyright, and title page.

B. Add in any products, consulting, programs, or other info that your reader might find useful. Add in back cover copy.131 C. Add in your book title and subtitle, make this one of the last things you do. Do not fall in love with the working title. Be descriptive with your title.

How Long Should This Book Be? This is Not a Manifesto, But Here are Some Guidelines. • Kindle/Amazon e-book shoot for around 8,000-12-15,000 words.

• KDP.Amazon paperback books, you need to be a least 24 pages, 36 works better and 70-100 pages makes for a decent size book. These are quick books, you can expand and go for more. This book is too long for this. It is over 25,000 words.

Even 8 or 12 can work very well as a quick print book. These become easy to hand• A quick out. print book needs to fit into a unit of 4 pages, so 24, 28, 32 pages, etc.

If you are a consultant, a tips book can be an essential part of your marketing. In the back of your book, highlight your programs and services. Make this to have a Call to Action to your website, a pdf download or a YouTube video series.section You very want clear your so readers reader tocan do find something. it. Add in For a nice them photograph to contact and you, be hire sure you, invite you to speak at an event, or make things clearer. The goal of a book like this isn’t for big sales, though that might be nice. The goal is to support your marketing and help develop leads. Customers love getting a free book, so be very open to giving them away. Sometimes you are selling this book, sometimes it is a free giveaway for signing up to your mailing list.

Jump back to Section 4. Editing Your Book, Page 57. Continue from there and create your book.

132 Publishing Resources

133 — PART 3. BONUS SECTION —

Publishing Resources

Audio Books • ACX.com, is like KDP/Amazon/Kindle but for audio. It is a division of Amazon and handles their audiobooks. The books themselves are sold through Audible.com. You can create your own or hire a professional reader from ACX for your book. http://www.acx.com/ • FindawayVoices.com, an alternative to ACX and a way to create and distribute audio books to multiple retailers. Great for indie authors. https://findawayvoices.com, they have an excellent Help page which describes the process, https://my.findawayvoices.com/help-and-resources

Distributors • iTunes, https://www.apple.com/itunes/ Main podcast site • Stitcher.com, https://www.stitcher.com/ radio shows and podcasts, phone and tablet

Hosting • Libsyn.com, https://www.libsyn.com/ complete podcast hosting and publishing platform • SoundCloud.com, https://soundcloud.com/ online audio distribution platform for audio in all formats, podcast hosting • Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income.com has information on how to get started, https:// www.smartpassiveincome.com/podcasting/

134 Creating Audio Files for Pod Casts and Audio Books • Audacity, Free open source digital multi-track, audio recorder and editor for PC or Mac. Often people’s first choice recording application for creating audio, https://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/ • Garage Band, Part of the iWorks suite of Mac products. It is a full-featured digital audio recording studio for iPad and Mac computers. Used for recording music and podcasts. Comes with a wide variety of loops and DJ features. Usually comes pre-installed on the Apple device or available in your App Store

Microphone • Blue Yeti USB Microphone, a great microphone for recording podcasts, interviews, video. Multiple pattern selections, PC or Mac. Just a great all-around mic. About $129 at Amazon. There are many USB microphones that also work great, The Blue Yeti has been around for a long time and is very popular.

Book Production and Creation Tools • Adobe Creative Cloud, Includes InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator, along with many other programs. InDesign is my favorite program for creating books or any kind of design project. Adobe has different packages that you can rent. If you are serious about publishing then Adobe CC is what you will use, http://www.adobe.com/creativecloud.html • Adobe InDesign, the premier page layout and desktop publishing program • Adobe Illustrator, top of the line illustration program • Adobe Photoshop, the number one photo editing application • Apple Pages, Pages is a free app from Apple used for word processing and document layout. It is part of the iWork group of applications. • Canva.com, a free and subscription online graphics program. Check out the Kindle Cover Templates, they are excellent. A great resource for making social media and many other graphics. https://www.canva.com/ • MS-Word works just great for writing and creating your text. You can also create Kindle e-books and if saved as pdf and you can use it for a KDP.Amazon printed books. • PowerPoint, it actually works very well for creating picture books, children’s books and journals. Customize your page size in Page Setup and you are ready to go. Save as a PDF and upload to KDP.Amazon.

135 Kindle Books Kindle has a variety of apps to help you create e-books and illustrated graphic books. The apps work with PC and Mac • Kindle Create, a new app for creating Kindle e-books and converting pdf files to Kindle digital format. You can format MS-Word files, style, update, build a TOC, it has different themes. Can import PDF files, move them around and build a TOC. I like this program a lot and now use it all the time for formatting my e-books and Kindle picture books. https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/GHU4YEWXQGNLU94T • Kindle Kid Creator, great for creating books with illustrations, import PDF file, jpg, png, tiff. Add pages and text to imported PDF files. https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201562880 • Kindle Textbook Creator, create and publish educational material for Kindle devices and reading apps. Convert PDF file of existing textbooks, study guides, reference material. You can include audio, video, hyperlinks and image popups. https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201642070 • Kindle Comic Creator, the original Kindle app, designed for graphic novels and comic books. Support for panels, imports, PDF, jpg, png, and tiff formats. https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200735480 • Kindle Previewer, if you are using MS-Word to create your Kindle book then download Previewer from the Kindle site to review the layout. It mimics a variety of Kindle devices.

Formatting a Kindle Book Especially with Kindle Create App above, you might not need these books anymore • Kindle PC, Building Your Book for Kindle, available at Amazon • Kindle Mac, Building Your Book for Kindle Mac edition, available at Amazon • Google Docs, word processing, and document creation software by Google. Part of the Google Drive service of office products. Available online for free. Requires a Gmail email account. PC or Mac, https://www.google.com/docs/about/ • MS-Word, word processing, and document creation software by Microsoft. The world standard for writing and editing. Part of the Office Suite. Works on all platforms. Most likely already on your computer, PC or Mac. Perfect for writing your book, but you can also use it for laying out a file that can generate a pdf. Many authors use MS-Word documents to create their books. Use the Page Set-Up feature to set your page size.

136 • PowerPoint, the leading presentation software from Microsoft is also pretty good for creating a picture, children’s and journal books.

Proofing Your Print Book • Staples or OfficeMax, great places to print a PDF proof of your book out for review and editing. Also, good for creating a short run version of your book, like 5.5” x 8.5” or 8.5” x 11” if you need a few. Add a spiral binding or if under 24 pages a staple binding. https://www.staples.com/sbd/content/copyandprint/booklets.html

Online Photo Editing Some of these have a free and a paid version • Pixlr.com, https://pixlr.com/editor/ jpg • FotoFlexer.com, http://fotoflexer.com/ jpg • Lunapic.com, http://www.lunapic.com/editor/ jpg and tiff • Fotor.com, http://www.fotor.com/ jpg • PicMonkey.com, http://www.picmonkey.com jpg, subscription • Canva.com, one of the best image creating sites, https://www.canva.com/

Drawing tablets and apps • Wacom Intuos Draw CTL490DW Digital Drawing and Graphics Tablet. There are many different kinds of tablets, WaCom, Huion, Ugee, all available at Amazon.com • Symmetry Labs drawing app for iPhone, iPad, and Android, check App store • Article from Digital Trends, The Best Drawing Apps for the iPad Pro, https://www. digitaltrends.com/mobile/best-ipad-pro-drawing-apps/

137 Book Writing Resources Online Book Writing and Publishing Info • Steven Pressfield’s blog, an excellent resource on how to write, fiction, non-fiction and the process of writing, http://www.stevenpressfield.com/ • Joanna Penn of the CreativePenn.com, just great all-around info on being a self-publisher, https://www.thecreativepenn.com • How to Publish Your Book Facebook Group, over 3,000 self-publishing authors. https://www.facebook.com/groups/HowToPublishYourBook/ • BruceTheBookGuy.com, my blog on all things publishing, http://brucethebookguy.blogspot.com/

How to Write Books, Available at Amazon • Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, this is a classic • The War of Art, Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield. Steven Pressfield has an entire series of excellent books on writing. • On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft, Steven King • On Writing Well, William Zinsser • The Writing Life, Annie Dillard • How to Write Bestselling Fiction, Dean Koontz • The Elements of Style, Strunk and White • Write, Publish, Repeat, By Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant. This book is a must on how to manage your writing and build a career and income from your books. This is one of the best I have read on how to structure your books to lead your readers from one book the next. I recommend reading this book.

Software for writing books • MS-Word, word processing, and document creation software by Microsoft. The world standard for writing and editing. Part of the Office Suite. Works on all platforms. Probably already on your computer. PC or Mac • Google Docs, word processing, and document creation software by Google. Part of the Google Drive service of office products. Available online for free. Requires a Gmail email account. PC or Mac, https://www.google.com/docs/about/ 138 • Scrivener, a word processing program and out-liner designed for authors. Inside of it you can manage your documents, notes, and graphics. PC or Mac, https://www.literatureandlatte.com/ and other places.

Copyright Office • U.S. Copyright Office, https://www.copyright.gov/ • And an excellent FAQ page, https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/ • US Government Trademarks and Patent Office, search their database https://www.uspto.gov/

Editing Resources • Editorial Freelance Association, Excellent source of info on finding editors and giving you an idea of how much to pay and the process. https://www.the-efa.org/rates/

Online Editing Resources • ProWritingAid.com, https://prowritingaid.com/ • Grammarly.com, https://www.grammarly.com/ • AutoCrit.com, https://www.autocrit.com/ • SmartEdit.com, http://www.smart-edit.com/

Fonts Pay Font Sites • Fonts.com, https://www.fonts.com/ • Adobe.com Fonts, http://www.adobe.com/products/type.html • Myfonts.com, http://www.myfonts.com • FontSpring.com, https://www.fontspring.com/

139 Free Fonts Sites • 1001Fonts.com, http://www.1001fonts.com • Fontsquirrel.com, https://www.fontsquirrel.com • Google Fonts, https://fonts.google.com • Dafont.com, http://www.dafont.com/

Freelance Resources • Fiverr.com, https://www.fiverr.com/ • Freelancer.com, https://www.freelancer.com/ • HireAnIllustrator.com, https://www.hireanillustrator.com/i/ • UpWork.com, https://www.upwork.com/ • 99Designs.com, https://99designs.com/

ISBN Numbers • To purchase an ISBN number: https://www.myidentifiers.com/

Marketing • Everything I Did to Launch a Bestselling Book article by Side Hustle Nation, https://www.sidehustlenation.com/amazon-book-launch/ • Kindle Launch Schedule of an Amazon Bestseller, by Rob Cubbon, https://robcubbon.com/kindle-launch-schedule/ Some excellent book marketing articles by Tim Grahl • Book Marketing Plan the Definitive Checklist by Tim Grahl, https://booklaunch.com/book-marketing-checklist/ • How to Build the Ultimate Author Website (in 1 Hour), Tim Grahl, https://booklaunch.com/how-to-build-the-ultimate-author-website-in-1-hour/ • How to Create the Perfect Book Media Kit, Tim Grahl, https://booklaunch.com/how-to-create-the-perfect-book-media-kit/ • An excellent set of marketing books for publishing from Tim Grahl https://booklaunch.com/best-book-marketing-books/

140 • Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing, by J. Bruce Jones, available at Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Book-Marketing-Checklist-Self-Publishers-Complete/dp/1530067065 • How to Market Book, Joanna Penn, an excellent book on marketing, available on Amazon.

Public Relations Free PR sites • PR.com, https://www.pr.com/ • 24-7 Press Release.com, http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/ • iNewswire.com, https://www.newswire.com/ • PRLog.org, https://www.prlog.org/

Paid PR sites • EReleases.com, http://www.ereleases.com/ • PRWeb.com, http://www.prweb.com/ • PR Newswire, https://www.prnewswire.com/

Re-Purposing Your Book Content for Additional Products Gift and Apparel Print-on-Demand Sites to Use for Creating Additional Products • CafePress.com, http://www.cafepress.com • Zazzle.com, http://www.zazzle.com • Spreadshirt.com, http://www.spreadshirt.com/ • Printfection.com, http://www.printfection.com • Printful.com, https://www.printful.com/ • Redbubble.com, https://www.redbubble.com/

141 Self-Publishing Resources E-Book Publishers • Kindle, the main e-book site, an e-book reader, free, https://kdp.amazon.com • Barnes & Noble Press, formally Nook Press, a new, revised publishing platform from Barnes & Noble, now offering print an e-book options https://press.barnesandnoble.com/ • Smashwords.com distributes e-books to over 80 outlets, free, https://www.smashwords.com/ • Draft 2 Digital.com, free, https://www.draft2digital.com/

Print-on-Demand Paperback Books • KDP.Amazon.com, paperback, print-on-demand, a division of Amazon, free, https://www.kdp.Amazon.com/ We also call this Kindle

Combination of Paperback, Hard Cover and E-Books These companies offer a variety of options including e-book, print, spiral/coil binding, saddle stitch/staples and pdf with distribution options • IngramSpark.com, print-on-demand, world’s largest book distributor to bookstores, fee, http://www.ingramspark.com/ • Lulu.com, similar to KDP.Amazon but with more printing options, paperback, hardcover, spiral, saddle, free, https://www.lulu.com/ • Barnes & Noble Press, formally Nook Press, a new, revised publishing platform from Barnes & Noble, now offering print, e-book and a possible relationship with their stores if you can sell 1,000 books over a year. https://press.barnesandnoble.com/ • BookBaby.com, a variety of different pay packages, fee, https://www.bookbaby.com/ • Books-A-Million D.I.Y. with BAM! Publishing, write, publish, print and distribute in print or e-book, http://www.bampublish.com/ • Blurb.com, photo and art books, free, http://www.blurb.com/

Book Printer with Access to Bookstore Distribution • IngramSpark.com, print-on-demand, world’s largest book distributor to bookstores, fee, http://www.ingramspark.com/

142 Websites You Can Sell a PDF Book, Host and Link to Your Site • Gumroad.com, https://gumroad.com/ place to sell your PDF book • Sellfy.com, https://sellfy.com/ place to sell your PDF book

Book Printer • 48 Hour Books.com, print paperback, hardcover, and coil/spiral bound books, foil stamping, also format e-books fast, not a distributor. This is a pay service with a lot of options, https://www.48hrbooks.com/

Figuring Out KDP.Amazon Royalties • KDP.Amazon Royalties calculator, https://www.KDP.Amazon.com/Products/Book/

Stock Photos, Clip Art Sites • AnimationFactory.com, http://www.animationfactory.com/en/ • ClipArt.com, http://www.clipart.com • CorbisImages.com, http://www.corbisimages.com • Dreamstime.com, http://www.dreamstime.com/ • FotoSearch.com, http://www.fotosearch.com/ • GettyImages.com, http://www.gettyimages.com • iStockphoto.com, http://www.istockphoto.com/ • JupiterImages.com, http://www.jupiterimages.com • GraphicsFactory.com, http://www.graphicsfactory.com/ very affordable yearly fee, almost unlimited uses, unlimited downloads • Shutterstock.com, http://www.shutterstock.com/

143 Online Free Photos • Pixabay.com, this site is filled with royalty free photos, vectors and art illustrations that you can use for all kinds of things. https://pixabay.com/ • Pexels.com, more free images, https://www.pexels.com/ • Unsplash.com, Free High-Resolution photos, all of the photos are copyright free under the Creative Commons Zero license. Pretty cool images, https://unsplash.com/ • VisualHunt.com, a very cool site with commercial, non-commercial, public domain photos of all kinds, https://visualhunt.com/ • 99Designs Free Images, 99 Designs.com has put out a fantastic list of 30 public domain photo websites. You always need to check to be sure but this is a great place to start, https://99designs.com.au/blog/resources/public-domain-image-resources/

Selling Your Content Online • Gumroad.com, https://gumroad.com • Sellfy.com, https://sellfy.com/ • Teachable.com for courses, https://teachable.com/ • Udemy.com for courses, https://www.udemy.com/ This is just a sampling, there are a great many sites to look at.

Transcription Services One of the easiest ways to write your book is to dictate your book. You can speak it into your phone or computer; audio or video. A great way to do this is to create a series of questions and have someone interview you. Record it, transcribe and edit. A great place to do this is while you commute in your car. You do it every day and there is no one to bother you. Both of the services below can take audio, video or a link from a video. • Rev.com, a fantastic service for transcription, very accurate, $1.00/minute, https://www.rev.com/ • Temi.com, audio to text transcription, uses speech recognition software, $0.10/minute, https://www.temi.com/

144 Writing Style Manuals • Wikipedia List of Style Manuals, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_style_guides • Chicago Manual of Style Online, style, usage and grammar in an online format, reference for writers, editors, proofreaders, indexers, copywriters, designers, and publishers. http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html • The Associated Press Stylebook Basic, AP Manual, Available at Amazon • The Business Style Handbook: An A-Z Guide for Effective Writing on the Job, Helen Cunningham and Brenda Greene, available at Amazon • The Elements of Style, By William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White also called “Strunk and White” available at Amazon

Video Chatting Software for Creating Videos Interviews • Zoom.us, Excellent video chatting and conferencing application. Records video and audio, free and paid options, https://zoom.us/ • Belive.tv, Excellent app for Facebook Live. Various options including interviewing and screen share, https://belive.tv/ • Facebook Live, part of Facebook, phone, and desktop • Facebook Video Chat is located at the top of the Messenger window

145 — J. BRUCE JONES —

J. Bruce Jones is a #1 International Best-Selling Author. Graphic designer, and product developer. Bruce writes, speaks and consults on publishing, blogging, video and general marketing. Bruce is the creator of the World of Maps collection. A collection of editable PowerPoint and Illustrator map. Used for business, sales presentations, and education worldwide. The author and creator of over 40 books. On geography, music, business, publishing, children’s and coloring. Also practices Tai Chi when I get a chance.

I have been teaching and consulting on self-publishing and indie books for many years. The Publishing Manual is my latest book. Inspired by all the questions I get in my How to Publish Your Book, a Facebook group. Designed to help new authors navigate the maze of self-publishing.

Looking for a speaker or guest to interview, I talk on self-publishing. Reach out and contact me on Facebook or give a call 781-492-0742.

To learn more about what I am doing please check out my publishing blog, BruceTheBookGuy.com http://brucethebookguy.blogspot.com/

Come over and join the How to Publish Your Book Facebook Group, we have a great group of authors publishing books every day. https://www.facebook.com/groups/HowToPublishYourBook/

146 — SOME OF MY BOOKS —

147 — PUBLISHING MASTERY ACADEMY — Learn How to Create, Publish and Sell Your Own Book with Publishing Mastery Academy Courses PublishingMastery101.com

Step-by-Step course for making Step-by-Step course for making Learn how to use Indesign to create and selling Journal Books, includes and selling Journal Books, includes your book. Step-by-step instructions. InDesign and Powerpoint templates. InDesign and Powerpoint templates. Includes Picture Book Challenge

Learn my secrets on how I sell Making a children’s pictured book Everything you need to know to 3,000-4,000 books a year and selling it on Amazon has become create and publish a Kindle book easier than ever Courses Now Come with Full Book and Cover Templates Open the template, add your content, Learn how to write, design, publish Using Goggle Blogger Blogs you can Publish! and market your book. quickly have a blog for your book

— PUBLISHING MASTERY 101 — Join the Publishing Mastery 101 Membership Group and have access to all the Publishing Mastery Academy courses. One monthly subscription for full access to everything. Including all Master Classes and all new courses.

PublishingMastery101.com

148 Transform Your Dreams Through Publishing

Holding your own book in your hands is a powerful feeling. Sometimes even transformative. Something we can all do now. The tools are there. But where do you start and what do you do? How do you publish your book? These are big questions with a lot of different answers. So, let’s dive in create your own book.

Part 1. Key Question to Ask Before You Begin Part 2. Writing, Creating and Publishing Your Book 1. Writing Your Book 2. Collect Your Graphics Assets, Images, Pictures, and Charts 3. Key Elements that Your Book Should Have 4. Editing Your Book 5. Pre-Edit Printed Proof 6. Six Different Options for Publishing Your Book. 7. Creating a Kindle e-book, Including a Kindle Formatting Guide 8. Creating a KDP.Amazon/Amazon Print Book 9. Creating a Quick Print Book 10. Uploading and Publishing Your Book 11. Launching and Marketing Your Book 12. Re-purposing Your Book Content for Additional Products Part 3. Bonus Content Making an Amazon Best-Seller • Best-Seller Checklist • Top Ten Technique for Creating a Book • Publishing Resources

J. Bruce Jones is the author and creator of over 40 books. BruceTheBookGuy.com PublishingMastery101.com 150