The Skills I’ve Learned While Self-Publishing My Books
In my last blog post, I wrote about some of the things I’ve learned since self-publishing my children’s books. Today, I want to go more in-depth about all the skills I have had to learn to go along with publishing.
There are so many things to consider when publishing on your own. I think I do 10% actual writing and 90% designing, illustrating, formatting, marketing, website management, and all the other miscellaneous tasks that need to be done.
Now, if you have the means to hire people to do this for you, your workload will be significantly less. But for those who may be starting out, you might have to do many of these jobs yourself.
Also, just a disclaimer, I will be talking about certain products that I use regularly or that I recommend. None of them are paying me to talk about them. They don’t know me. This is just me talking about what I use and how I use them.
Formatting
You’ve probably heard about Canva before. It’s a great tool that I often use to format my books. Amazon’s KDP has their own formatting software called Kindle Create but I find Canva to be extremely user friendly. I’ve been using if since 2020 and they keep improving it so I would highly recommend trying it out if you’re just starting out.
I use Canva to put my books together, create social media posts, design banners for my website, and much more. It serves me in many ways, and I probably use it almost every day. It’s not a complicated software but there are many features to explore. You can use the free version, but I pay for the Pro version as I like the added options.
Illustration
This is for authors who illustrate their own books like myself. You obviously don’t need to illustrate your own books; I do because I am often looking for a particular illustration style and of course I have a passion for drawing. But if you are not the artsy type, there are several great illustrators out there who you can hire. Check out Fiverr for a variety of illustrators.
I have illustrated all my Piper books using Procreate. It’s something I have also been using since 2020. You do have to pay for the app but it’s a one-time purchase, fortunately.
For me, Procreate took a while to figure out but once you get the hang of it, the possibilities are endless. There are a lot of helpful videos on YouTube when getting started with the app. Do keep in mind that you can only use Procreate on an Apple iPad or Procreate Pocket on the iPhone. It doesn’t work for Android.
Marketing
This is going to be a big section.
I have a website that I pay yearly for. Why should you have a website? Think of it like a portfolio. It’s a great place to showcase your work, announce upcoming projects, or start a blog.
Now, there are a lot of options when it comes to websites. There are websites where you have to know a bit of coding to design it. There are some that have ready-to-use templates. It all depends on what you are comfortable with. Personally, I like being in control of adding new content to my website, but I don’t know how to code so I went with a template-ready website builder.
I use Squarespace and it wasn’t too difficult to learn how to use it, but it is limiting in some ways. Squarespace does make it easy to implement SEO.
Then there’s social media marketing. They say you should choose 1-2 social medias to really focus on when starting out. There’s Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, X, etc. Just choose 1-2 that you want to use regularly and go from there. Use Canva to create social media posts, write a good description, add a few hashtags, and there you go. Some blogs would suggest you post at certain times of the day or certain days of the week.
Paid targeted ads are a bit complicated to explain. Many social media platforms offer paid ads if you have business accounts. I would suggest doing more research in this area as every platform is different in what they offer.
Here are some more marketing ideas to consider:
Newsletter on your website
Goodreads Profile
Collaborating with other authors
Getting your books in libraries
Podcasts or speaking gigs
Book fairs/festivals
I might just write a blog post on all the ways to market your books.
Miscellaneous
Then there are the miscellaneous things you need to consider. I’ve condensed it for clarification:
Buy ISBNs from Bowker.com (it can be expensive but they are the only official source of ISBNs in the United States). I bought an ISBN from someone on Fiverr for my first book. Don’t do that. Just go to Bowker and buy in bulk. Trust me.
Get your correct cover sizing from Bookow.com
Always copyright your books at Copyright.gov. Here is a helpful blog for that.
Know basic grammar. This is a great skill to have when writing but I highly recommend hiring a professional to also edit your books. You can find some great (and affordable) editors on Fiverr.
These are just some of the things I’ve learned in the past few years while self-publishing and I’m pretty sure I didn’t include everything. I’ll be sure to update this blog post whenever I think of more things. It’s a steep learning curve when you are just getting started. I can remember spending hours reading hundreds of blogs and watching YouTube videos trying to figure everything out.
One thing I know for certain, you got this! If you are passionate about getting your books published (especially when you don’t have a lot of money to get started) you can definitely get it done on your own.
