3 rules for making money as a self-published author

The problem with being a self-published author is that you have to publish your books yourself. But you don’t want to be a publisher. You just want to write books.

Well, if you want to publish all your books, then you have to do it yourself. That’s why they call it “self-publishing.”

The good news though is that it’s not hard, and once you’ve done it, it’s easy to do it over and over again for all your books.

But before you do anything, there are 3 things you MUST do with every book you write if you want to be a successful published author. And these 3 things are so important that I have called them ‘rules’ because if you break any of them, you will be punished, with little or no book sales.

So here are the 3 rules you must follow:

1. Write a book that is good enough to submit to a publisher. By this I mean don’t write crap and expect people to buy it. Instead, write a book that’s so good that you know if you send it to a publisher, they’ll think it’s so good that they’ll offer you a big advance. That’s how good your book must be.

2. Write a ten point marketing plan and do it. If you sent a copy of your manuscript to a publisher, they would expect it to come with a list of 10 ways you plan to market it. Publishers always expect authors to do their own marketing and you should too for your self-published books because marketing is really important. It is the decisive difference as to whether your book sells well or not. So have your plan ready BEFORE you write your book so you also know exactly who your target readers are.

3. Publish print and digital books. It’s very easy, and free, to set up your book as a POD print book and an eBook (free) using online services like Amazon’s Kindle Digital Publishing (kdp.amazon.com). Not only can you set up your book to be printed on demand at no cost to you, but they also have free cover maker software and will automatically create a digital copy of your book as well. Offering your book as both a print edition and an eBook helps open it up to a much broader market.

And those are my 3 rules.

Write a book so good that publishers fight over it.

Have your 10-point marketing plan ready.

Offer a print and eBook edition to readers.

And remember:

Break these rules at your own risk.