These days, you can publish your work without making huge upfront investments. With the help of online publishing channels (e.g. Amazon’s Kindle platform), publishing books can now be done by the writers themselves. In this article, you’ll learn how to take advantage of online publishing.
Two Types of Online Publishing Services
- Single-Channel – With this kind of service, you will publish your work on one channel only. The KDP (i.e. Kindle Direct Publishing) program of Amazon belongs to this type.
- Multi-Channel – Services of this type sell books through various retailers.
Important Note: The Multi-Channel approach is not advisable if you are new to the self-publishing game. That’s because it requires considerable upfront fees and sale deductions. It would be best if you’ll start with a single-channel distributor such as Amazon.com.
Prepare Your Work
Regardless of the publishing service you’ll choose, you have to format your work and make sure that it has the right file type. With Amazon, you can use the following file extensions:
- MOBI
- DOC/DOCX
- ePUB
- KPF
- TXT
- HTML
The following tools can help you in formatting your book:
- Sigil – Use this free software if you want to format and/or edit your ePUB books.
- Calibre – This is a free program that you can use to convert your book files.
- Scrivener – This word processor offers powerful formatting features. It is a paid program, but its writer-friendly features will surely help you in writing and publishing books.
Create a Book Cover
This aspect is probably one of the most complex. Your book needs a cover that is both relevant and attractive. It would be great if you can design the cover yourself. If you don’t have the time, resources, or skills, however, you may hire someone to create a cover for you.
Make sure that your chosen cover looks great regardless of how it shows up in the reader’s device. That’s because people can change the color and size of the digital materials they are reading. For instance, a reader may view your book using a black and white screen.
Boost Sales
The following factors determine how much money you’ll get from online publishing:
- The book’s quality – If you wrote a great book, there’s a high chance that many people would want to read it and buy it.
- The book’s overall visibility – The term “visibility” refers to the book’s presence on the market. Obviously, you can attract sales if you will promote your book. For example, you may tweet about your book to let your Twitter followers know. By making your book more visible, you will have more chances of earning money from it.
- The book’s cover – It is a well-known fact that a book’s cover greatly affects its salability. If you want to sell a lot of copies, use an excellent book cover.
- The price – This factor is tricky. Selling your book at a high price might scare away potential readers. But that will make your book “premium”. Selling it at a low price point, however, will attract sales but might give the impression that the book is of low quality.
- The royalty percentage – Amazon offers two choices regarding royalty: 35% and 70%. The option you’ll pick will greatly affect your “take-home pay”.
Conclusion
You might be able to reach your dreams of becoming a popular author by publishing your books online. Amazon, one of the world’s most popular businesses today, can help you in publishing your book globally. The things you’ve learned from this book can help you greatly.
