How To (Self)Publish Books On a Budget
By: Tommy Ueland
Tags: Publishing, Self Publishing, Marketing, Writing Tips, Authors

A good copy editor will not only flush out all the mistakes you didn’t know you had, but also suggest better wording, small structural (on a paragraph level) changes, and bump your manuscript up to the next level.

A small warning that has nothing to do with budget — Don’t think your returned manuscript from the editor is ready to be published. Make sure you have planned out enough time to go through the edits. You might have to go a second round as well. Again, trust me on this one…

A professional cover designer

No disclaimer here. This is a universal truth. Don’t be cheap when it comes to the cover design.

I have tried and failed, big time. As writing this, eight days of the publishing date, I am in the middle of inquiring a professional typographist to fix my cover. I am stressed out, big time.

Update: Editing this, I am four days off the release. I got a professional to fix it. But I will get it the day I have to upload it. No time for edits. I have to go with what she gives me. Nerve-wracking!

Cover sells.

It doesn’t matter what you think is pretty. You have made a product, and the buyers of those products are expecting a certain package. Are you writing a cozy mystery, well then you better be making a cozy mystery genre-specific cover. *Cozy mystery writer waving at you*.

These are the two big ones. A professional editor and a professional designer.

If I was to go back, I would have spent $500 on edits, and $300 on the cover.

What you SHOULD spend money on

These are things you can do yourself but will take a lot of time and frustration to get done right.

Keyword, categories, and competitor analyses.

Keywords and categories are extremely important to make your book visible to people that search for your type of book. In KDP (Amazon), you have two (but really ten if you ask nicely) categories. You also have to insert seven keywords. These are words or phrases people search for to find your type of book.

Competitor analysis is important to know who you are competing against. It’s important for keywords, categories, cover design, and target marketing.

I spent about $50 on all of this. And it wouldn’t surprise me if this will earn its way back to my pocket within not long. Since I am writing a series, I can also use this on my next books. A good investment, I am sure. If not, I will come back here and tell you.

Description, aka Blurb

The description is your sales pitch. Your 2–300 words to get potential buyers to press the button. It’s almost as important as the cover, but only almost.

“Tommy… Tommy, Tommy… I am a writer, surely I can write my own description!”

Yes. You probably can. But don’t think it’s that easy. I did. Eight pages full of bad blurbs later, and I squeezed out 50 good words. Then I got professional feedback that it was way too short.

You can write it yourself. But remember, this is the second to most important thing people look at when deciding to buy or not.

I am practicing blurbing, and one day I will be there. But right now I am not, and I was out of time, so I got someone to write it for me.

P.S.: I punched the air when I got the description back. It was so good that I wanted to buy my own book.

Proofreading

This is also in a way defined as editing. This is the final quality check before it gets published. If you have friends/family that are writers and/or vivid readers and preferably typo-hunters, you can use them.

If not, it can be a smart idea to spend some dough getting someone to proofread for you. Another thing about professional proofreaders (who often are editors btw,) is the professional feedback. Friends and family often have a problem being frank with you.

The real readers are not only frank (or John, Alice, Marie, Stephen…), but brutal. Be prepared.

What you CAN wait with

This is what you probably shouldn’t spend any money on out the gate. Especially if you are writing a series and this is the first book.

Ads (AMS, Facebook, etc)

I have spent a good chunk on marketing, learning the ropes. But I will not spend much on it before I release book number two. I learned that in the twelfth hour, ready to pull the trigger.

If you market book one aggressively, the readers won’t have a next book to read, and the cost/profit margin will be hard to keep in the black.

When you release book two, you can use deals to promote book one and get spillover to book two. Now the needle can start to move a little.

On book three, you can do book one free, book two at a discount, and book three at full price. Now you have what we call in board gaming an engine that can.

Don’t go crazy with marketing unless you have money to go crazy with. I am going to practice marketing in February. I know I will lose money, but it is a calculated loss for possible future earnings.

Promotional sites

The same as ads. Many promotional sites require you to have reviews. You will probably don’t have that off the gate unless you have a review team or a huge following.

Save the money, and go hard on book two, harder on book three.

The best way of promoting your book is always to write the next.

Good luck

I wish you the best of luck publishing your book. Please comment with the link if you have just published. If it’s one of my favorite genres, I will read it and review it if I like it :)

I know how hard it is to get reviews, more on that in next week’s post.

Did I deliver any value with this post? I hope so, if not — please let me know.

If you are feeling unsatisfied, here is a bonus tip. It will be golden in the long run:

Get a newsletter.

Make sure people that like your book have a place to hang out with you. That way you can start a relationship with your readers (no, not the angry wife/husband kind of relationship).

Remember; readers follow you, not the book you wrote. Be genuine, don’t use your newsletter as a sales pitch. At least not obviously.

If you would like to know more about me, the book, and/or the publishing journey I’m on, look at my site: tommyueland.com and sign up for my newsletter at the bottom there. I promise you nothing less than a rimed beard and a real Viking ship if you do…

Thank you for reading!