Waxing nostalgic, today I’m taking a stroll through all that got me here, so please come along as I admit that a lot goes into writing a book. And since I’ve become an Indie Author, I’ve discovered that more goes into the decisions and process of bring a book to publication. Depending on what you chose to have others do, and what you decided to do yourself, if you want to do everything yourself, which I wouldn’t advise, some of the key factors are:
Editing the story for its arch, readability, and making sure that the facts you used are accurate.
Creating enough tension to keep your reader engaged, which usually means having a lot and at least one subplot.
Developing memorable characters, by finding something bad within your protagonist, and something likeable or good within your antagonist.
Making sure that each time your reader turns the page eager to find out what will happen next.
Then there’s the need to have good mechanics because when you submit your work to Kindle, Amazon’s Create Space, Smashwords, and most likely at all online publishers, each book is read and can be rejected because technically it’s not up to par. Also the savvy soon to be published writer yearning to have the title of author is well advised to make sure that their work is:
Proof your work, and I must add that although you can do this with your word program it doesn’t pick up every error in spelling and punctuation. Furthermore, if you’ve several languages that system may have trouble switching languages in mid-sentence.
To make your work more appealing select a professional layout for their work since readers seldom buy and have been known to return books that are a visually unappealing.
Shoppers are attracted to cover art, so make sure that yours will catch their eye. A wonderful blurb on the books back cover in which you will grab the reader’s attention by sharing an important tidbit as to why your protagonist is doing what they are doing. And do be sure to have your picture and a little bit about you as well, since people seldom buy a book from an unknown author providing these things is critical.
Since reviews matter, and you can use a stellar one on the back of your book, ask people to read and review your work before it is published.
Pricing is critical, for once you set the price you cannot change it. If the price is to low you’re stuck. Set it the price to high and you’re book may not sell. So I suggest that you first publish your e-book at Smashwords because they let authors lower the price when they choose. Although the full price of your book won’t change when you lower the price there that price will lowered by the other online booksellers they are affiliated with. You cannot change the price for your Kindle book on Amazon. However, since Amazon checks pricing they will most likely lower the price for your book as well. Please note that Amazon can choose to put your book at full price while the discount is still in effect.
In closing, I want to thank you for dropping by. I hope what I shared is helpful because while moving from being published by a publisher to becoming an Indie Author, I had a lot of help, which made my transition easy and the results a blessing.
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