The trick is to do your study, assemble the tools, and have your mind clear.
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| (photocredi: AlicePopkorn) |
There are 3 points to successful publishing.
1. Do Your Study. 2. Assemble the Tools. 3. Clear Your Mind.
There are many good books on how to publish. Of course, I consider my own to be the best (even if it undersells some of the others.)
Reason being - you can start from next to nothing, needing only an Internet connection. All free tools ready for the download. LibreOffice, Sigil, Gimp, Calibre.
You also have to study what makes a good book and what you think you are doing in this heady world of publishing.
They are all interlocked, and will improve with use and application.
Of course, I cheated. And that makes me a scammer? Not really. You see, I spent 3 months learning what there was to build ebooks from free tools by downloading and reading and testing what was out there. Of course, I also went down some very false trails led by celebrity-types (see "J'APE.")
Earlier than that, I was seriously scammed by a bunch who made me agree to not talk about them - but they've pretty much disappeared these days, as their crimes caught up with them...
But I spent years learning graphic design, and more years learning web design. So I had a head start when I started self-publishing. (Oh, and I was publishing on Lulu years before these epub's hit the modern scene - they just accelerated my income.)
In all this publishing I found, not too oddly, that publishing - not writing - is where the money is. I now have 173 books up on Google Play alone, which is close to what I have on iTunes, Nook, and Kobo. (Amazon and Smashwords, well, not so much. They don't like public domain or PLR.)
While one book I re-published (re-titled, and re-covered) is just now finally starting to take off on Amazon, for months I was making twice or more on my other distributors than there.
Writing is what brings you bliss.
Publishing is what pays your bills.
Know those two. Your head will have to be in the game of writing. I suggest Dorothea Brande's "Becoming A Writer" and Stephen King's "On Writing." Once I get some time, there are some other books in the public domain about writing that I want to bring out again - an essay by Poe, for instance. Those two books will get you writing well.
Both King and Brande tell how to set your schedule and simply crank out some writing.
Part of your schedule has to do with publishing. Marketing your books - making them discoverable - is part of publishing. It's not all this fol-de-rol about having huge social networks. Yes, you network. Yes, you take care of your audience. Yes, you answer emails.
But you work smarter, not harder, or longer.
I cover some basic points of this with my "Just Publish." You are going to have to spend some time in the trenches to get your own world sorted out and forge your own success.
This post has been boiling around for awhile. And now you have it.
- - - -
Reason for this sudden out-pouring is that I'm updating my site with a new look. Actually, I've found I can move it to Blogger and get both free hosting and probably some better SEO as a result. (I owe you a technical background post "how-to" once the dust settles - on a different blog.)
SEO doesn't really matter. It's a dying scene, anyway. Spammers have taken care of that, plus evolution in general.
What makes your success is plenty of writing, and plenty of perseverance.
What makes your sales is plenty of distributors. Do NOT put all your eggs in one basket, unless you are going to watch that basket very, very carefully. In general, Amazon is a trap. Underperformers are buried in the muck at the bottom. If your book sells regularly, consistently, at low volumes, then it will move up. If you have a huge following, you can then become an "overnight" success. (But that fact doesn't make the celebrities any less a fake.)
The point, which Napoleon Hill makes very well, is to have your Vision (his "Burning Desire") and persevere regardless of anyone and anything in your environment.
That last statement is what this site is all about.
You and your success.
All the books you see here have that one goal in mind: to help you with your success.
That's the Golden Rule. Help others to get any help you need. Help open-handedly, not ever expecting a return, and everything you want or need comes to you even faster and more abundantly.
Just the way life is. Life isn't a hard-scrabble existence. It's a constant joy.
Sort all this out for yourself and - as Dorothea Brande covered in her other bestseller - you will only succeed from there on out, since there is no other option.
Hope I've given you enough hints on how to make your writing and life a complete success. Have fun with this.
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