SPA Girls Podcast – EP432 – What To Do When You’ve Finished The Book
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You are your own publishing house when you self-publish. There’s lots to do, and lots to think about, especially the first few times you publish a book.
That’s why we’ve created this helpful, back-to-basics SPA Girls Podcast episode – to help you go from rough manuscript to published book, with our notes on what you need to plan for and schedule, and how to figure out what you’re going to need to actually do to get your book published on all the platforms.
We haven’t given a specific order for these tasks to be done in – we know too many successful authors who get different aspects of the checklist done at different times. There are also tasks that can be done quickly and others that will take time. The important thing is to know what you need to do, to work out a schedule that suits you and your life, and then to actually do the tasks!
To help out, we’ve also created a handy checklist for you to download; just click the links below!
SHOW NOTES:
I’ve finished the Manuscript, what now?
- Take a break – it’s always good to give yourself a bit of time to get perspective on your manuscript.
- Edits – once you’ve had a bit of time off, you can dive back into your edits with a fresh eye. We’re talking both self edits and then a professional edit.
- Get a friend to read through or get beta readers to check it over. Sometimes it takes someone who is completely removed from the book to spot the little niggling errors.
- Identify the genre, and where it sits on Amazon bookshelf, and find comparable books to yours. This will help with your marketing and to figure out what your blurb and cover should look like.
- Blurb – look at other blurbs, know what’s right for the genre you’ve chosen, write it, get feedback. The blurb is often the hardest piece of writing for this whole project! Don’t be afraid to get feedback from author friends.
- Cover – find a cover designer, or get a pre made cover that fits the genre.
- Set up the business side of things – this includes taxes, bank account, postal address, sole trader vs company etc, and your author email.
- Author nuts and bolts – this includes choosing a pen name, deciding on wide vs exclusive, setting up your social media, creating your newsletter and website, writing an author bio, and getting a headshot.
- Uploading prep – this includes formatting, choosing your categories and keywords, setting up the various platform accounts, Author Central.
- Press the go button, Good luck to you all!
PLEASE NOTE: There are a million other things that could be added to this list, but in the interests of avoiding overwhelm, we’ve kept it simple. We’ve also very specifically avoided talking about overt marketing (other than cover and blurb etc), because we have many other podcast episodes that cover marketing off separately.
Free Downloads For Listeners : I’ve Finished My First Manuscript … Now What Do I Do?
💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us on Patreon. Thank you so much, we love our listeners and our patrons!
⭐ Join us at the $10 tier, and you’ll be invited to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things self-publishing, marketing and writing PLUS answer all your burning questions.
⭐ Get personal online coaching with the SPA Girls each month through our $100 tier. Spots for this are strictly limited and on a first-come-first-served basis.
All the info is at http://www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast
✍️ Visit http://www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com for our FREE self-publishing resources, podcast episodes and info
😊Watch our weekly show on http://www.youtube.com/c/SPAGirlsPodcast @spagirlspodcast
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen, so you don’t miss an episode!
SPA Girls Podcast – EP452 – Book Formatting Made Easy
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Got your final manuscript all ready to go, and wondering how to format it for publication? This is the SPA Girls episode for you! Welcome back to another 20 min SPA Girls mini-tips session, where we break down the basics of self publishing, just for you!
SHOW NOTES:
What is formatting?
It’s creating a file of your book so it’s delivered to readers smoothly, that it looks professional, meets the requirements of the publishing platforms and is accessible for readers with disabilities.
What you need:
Epub for digital / PDF for print.
Book cover.
Know where you’re publishing it
Wide versus exclusive to Amazon? Make the decision.
Final file should include:
Front and back matter
Front matter can include any (or all) of the following:
- List of your other books (optional)
- Copyright details
- Title page
- Dedication page
- Table of contents
- Foreword or Prologue
Back matter can include:
- About the author
- Note from the author (optional)
- Sneak peaks
- Other books by the author
- newsletter sign uP
Create the file using one of these options:
- Reedsy (free)
- Draft2Digital (free)
- Kindle Create (free)
- Microsoft Word
- Scrivener
- Vellum
- Atticus
- Adobe InDesign
You can, of course, hire a professional to do this (if it’s a one-off project, or a complex layout with a lot of illustrations, that’s definitely a good option). However, investing the time into doing it yourself will pay dividends in the long run!
We recommend and use Atticus and Vellum!
Vellum Link (affiliate link)
Other places to gather more information:
David Gaughran – https://davidgaughran.com/how-to-format-ebooks-for-free-ebook-formatting/
Reedsy – https://blog.reedsy.com/how-to-format-a-book
Kindlepreneur – https://kindlepreneur.com/how-to-format-a-book
SPA Girls Podcast: EP432 What to Do when you’ve finished the book https://www.selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/?s=432
💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us on Patreon. Thank you so much, we love our listeners and our patrons!
⭐ Join us at the $10 tier, and you’ll be invited to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things self-publishing, marketing and writing PLUS answer all your burning questions.
⭐ Get personal online coaching with the SPA Girls each month through our $100 tier. Spots for this are strictly limited and on a first-come-first-served basis.
All the info is at http://www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast
✍️ Visit http://www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com for our FREE self-publishing resources, podcast episodes and info
😊Watch our weekly show on YouTube @spagirlspodcast
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen, so you don’t miss an episode!
