To learn more about copyrighting your book, join Chandler on this FREE webinar! 

Let’s take a look at a topic that scares the jeepers out of most authors: how to copyright a book. A lot of us get caught up in a confusing haze of copyright laws, infringement, and wondering how to stay out of hot water with the law and angry lawyers [okay, maybe it’s not that dramatic]. But it is best to know what you can and cannot do regarding copyrighting when self-publishing your own book.

It’s Not Only About How to Copyright a Book…

With the explosion of self-publishing, indie authors must be aware of what they can and can’t do when it comes to quoting, borrowing, and publishing works from other authors. This post isn’t to “scare” you but give some insight into how you can protect yourself and your own work from being misused or stolen.

In this post we will also look at the 9 most common questions authors ask when it comes to copyright concerns, for both their own works and when borrowing from other sources.

But first, it all begins with creating the copyright page in your book.

Your Copyright Page

Open any old book that may be sitting by your desk right now. What do you notice within the first few pages? Whether the book is self-published or through a traditional publisher, there’s a copyright page inside and within the first few pages of every book. Typically, the copyright page will appear in your book right after the title page and just before the table of contents.

The copyright page should include some essential information in order to copyright your book. The main components to include in your book’s copyright page are:

• The copyright notice. This has the little © symbol or you can use the word “copyright.” So it would look like this: ©2017 Jane Doe
• The year of publication of the book
• The name of the owner of the works, which is usually the author or publishing house name.
• Ordering information
• Reservation of rights
• Copyright notice
• Book editions
• ISBN Number
• Your website [you want them to find you, right?]
• Credits to the book [cover designer, editor]
• Disclaimer

Take a look at this example from Chandler Bolt’s book Published. The Proven Path From Blank Page to Published Author.

A Note on Disclaimers

If you are writing a book on health and fitness, success as an entrepreneur, providing financial advice—anything that readers could fail at—an extended disclaimer is something you should consider.

If you give advice on earning a million dollars this year, and the reader ends up losing money, you could be blamed for their misfortune because of a promise you made. Consider putting an extended disclaimer in your book that comes after the copyright jargon to protect your opinions, advice and information. In other words, tell readers that they are reading your book and applying your advice at their own risk.

Here are some examples of disclaimers.

Fiction Disclaimer:

The characters in this book are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Nonfiction Disclaimer:

The advice and strategies found within may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that neither the author nor the publisher are held responsible for the results accrued from the advice in this book.

For further examples of a book copyright page and disclaimers you can check out Kindlepreneur.

The 9 Most Common Questions

Nowadays, with the massive expansion of self-publishing, it is more important than ever for authors, artists and creatives putting their work out there to ensure that it is fully protected.

When we borrow work from other authors, living or dead, we have to consider: 1. What can I actually use; and 2. When is permission needed? Here is the golden rule when it comes to copyright laws: Never assume that anything is free! Everything out there, including on the internet, has been created by someone.

Here are common questions authors have about protecting themselves, their works, and others they may have quoted in their books:

1. Do I have to register my book before it is copyrighted?

Your book is legally copyrighted as soon as it is written. But, to scale up your legal rights and protect your material to the fullest extent, register your book with the Federal Copyright Office. On the chance someone does attempt to pirate your book or portions of it, registering with the US Copyright Office will give you greater leverage if it comes to action being taken.

2. How many words can I quote from another book or source?

Generally speaking there are no set rules on how much you can actually “borrow” from existing works. But, it’s best to exercise common sense here and keep it short, as a general rule under 300 words.

Paul Rapp, a lawyer specializing in intellectual property rights, says that “if the quote drives your narrative, if you are using an author’s quote in your argument, or if you are giving an opinion on an author’s quote, then it is considered fair use.”

What is fair use?

A legal concept that allows the reproduction of copyrighted material for certain purposes without obtaining permission and without paying a fee or royalty. Purposes permitting the application of fair use generally include review, news reporting, teaching, or scholarly research.

If you use something published by someone else with the sole purpose of monetary gain, this doesn’t constitute fair use.

3. Can I write about real people?

Especially in works of nonfiction, real people are often mentioned to express an opinion or as an example to clarify the writer’s fact or opinion. Generally you can use the names of real people as long as the material isn’t damaging to their reputation or libelous. Stick to the facts and write about what is true based on your research.

4. Can I borrow lyrics from songs?

Stephen King often used song lyrics for his books including Christine and The Stand. He obtained permission for these works. King says, “Lyrics quotes in this book [Christine] are assigned to the singer most commonly associated with them. This may offend the purist who feels that a song lyric belongs more to the writer than the singer.”

Basically, song lyrics fall under strict copyright even if it is just a single line used. Try to get permission if you use a song. You can contact the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) or Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI). Once you find the rights owner, you have to ask for permission through writing.

5. Do I need permission to borrow material from a book that is over 100 years old?

Once the copyright on a book or material has expired, or the author has been dead for seventy years, the work enters into the public domain and you can use it without permission or licensing. BUT this does vary country to country. You can check the copyright office in the US here.

6. Are authors liable for content used in a book?

Yup. Even with traditional publishing houses, the author is still responsible for the content written and used in the book. In fact, traditionally published authors usually have to sign a waiver that removes the publisher from any liability pertaining to the material the author used if the writer included that material without proper permission. And you already know, as a self-published author, you’re on your own.

7. If I use an inspirational quote from another writer or famous person, do I need permission?

You don’t need permission to use quotes in a book provided that you credit the person who created it and/or spoke the quote.

For example:

“Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream” –Edgar Allan Poe

8. What is the best way to protect my work from being stolen?

Your work is copyrighted as soon as it is written. But you can register your work with the US copyright office. If you have a blog where you also post content, you need to have a Terms & Privacy disclaimer on your page. This would preferably be at the top where it is easy to see, although many writers and bloggers include this at the bottom of every page. You should also include your Copyright on your blog that protects your content from being “copied and pasted” into another site without permission or recognition.

9. A royalty free stock photo means that I can use it for free and don’t have to get permission, right?

Wrong. Most stock photos are copyrighted, even if they appear in search engines and we can easily download or copy them. If you grab a photo off the net and think you can slap it on a book cover or use it for free in your book, think again. It’s recommended you purchase photos through sites such as Shutterstock or Depositphotos.

Boring, Yet Cool Legal Terms You Should Know

I know, I know…we would rather write books, rake in the cash, and sign autographs than worry about technical legal jargon. But the more you know, the more time you can spend writing without wondering, “Is this legal?” Here are some legal terms to keep you informed on your rights as a self-publisher and protect your works:

• Copyright infringement
• Intellectual property rights
• Public domain work
• Plagiarism
• First Amendment
• Indemnification clause
• Fair use
• Libelous writing

Before you publish your next book, take a few minutes to read over this “brief” report from the United States Copyright Office. You can also check out this handy guideline for authors on what needs permission vs. what you can use without asking.

To learn more about how to get your book into more categories on Amazon, join Chandler on this FREE webinar!

When you browse through a bookstore, chances are you have an idea the genre of book you are searching for. If you are searching in the science fiction fantasy section, you might be checking out the latest Game of Thrones novel by George R. R. Martin. Looking to invest your money and learn about personal finance? You might want to check out David Ramsey’s book The Total Money Makeover in the Business — Personal Finance & Investing Section of the Barnes & Noble book store.

But how about kindle books? Well, similar to the browsing experience you’ll have at a Barnes & Noble bookstore, Amazon’s Kindle Store has thousands of categories in books to choose from, spanning across every variation of genre and subgenre.

For book browsers, a category is a place where they can go to to find the specific book they are searching for. For authors, we need to think strategically so that we can get our books in front of readers searching for the specific book to match their needs.

But, with dozens of categories and thousands of sub-categories to choose from, and so many books competing for attention on the Amazon platform, how can you choose the right category to make your book “pop” out when the reader is browsing through book titles? How do we know if our books are on the right ‘digital shelves’ on Amazon?

In this post, we will look at the strategies authors use to place their books in the best categories and, how to get your book into ten categories on the Amazon platform.

Amazon eBook Categories: How to Choose?

The categories you place your book in makes all the difference between a successful book launch and….well, a complete flop. So, selecting the best categories for your next bestseller is a critical decision that you arrive at through selective research and, crunching the numbers on the category page. To get your book in front of thousands of readers hungry for your next literary masterpiece, you should invest the time to research the best categories for your book.

We can think of our categories as the big, broad term that describes your book, and should say something unique about the type of book you are offering. For example, if you had written a book on Habit Stacking, I would expect to find it in the Amazon categories as follows:

Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Self-Help > Motivational, or;

Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Business & Money > Business Life > Time Management

But the category for self-help is broken down further into hundreds of other sub-categories, and they trickle down even further into niche-specific categories that are not available in the KDP dashboard. More on this in a bit.

So, where do we begin? Your journey into discovering the best categories for your book begins with the category paths, or, the Amazon browse categories.

BISAC Subject Codes

It’s good to know that when KDP is figuring out which category would best fit your type of book, they use a cataloging system called BISAC Subject Codes. When selecting the best browse categories in your KDP, Amazon translates your category choices into the best possible browse categories to help readers find the books most relevant to their search.

When setting up your Amazon categories, it’s important to remember to cross-categorize your book into two separate category paths for broader exposure. This provides more avenues for browsers to find your book. This means a better ranking when more readers download your book, and adds to your monthly royalties. We’ll expand on this more soon.

But first…

Category Considerations: What You Need to Know

When working out the best categories to target, there are four specific areas we need to consider.

• Competition: How competitive is your category? Is Anthony Robbins or Stephen King ranking #1? If you put your book in this category, can you beat them?

• Traffic: is this category very active? Do the books in this category have a decent sales volume?

• Earning Potential: Are the top ranking books making any money?

• Niche Placement: Is this category the best one for your book’s genre and content?

We can research this information in a matter of minutes with some basic strategies and advanced tools. I’ll get into such valuable tools as KDP Rocket and Kindlespy in a moment. But first, let’s get our hands dirty and start doing some digging to discover the best categories for our book.

Let’s take a closer look…

Category Competition

You can check out the competition by scanning the bestselling books on the first page. A category may have thousands of books with hundreds of pages stacked with titles, such as the self help section or business and Investing.

But we aren’t concerned with looking at thousands of books. We are only interested in the first page of any category, and more specifically, the #1 book on that category page. Why?

That is what our readers are going to be looking for. If you are looking for a book on how to become a minimalist, you can go to the Amazon bar and type in minimalism. You’ll land on the first page that features the top ranking books such as The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing and Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less.

When we look into any category, we want to know the top ranking books. Our goal is to be able to compete on the first page and, where possible, rank in at least the top 5 in that category.

Category Traffic

It may be possible to rank in the number one spot in a certain category, but what is the point if that category has low sales volume and weak traffic? We want at least two categories that are low-average in competition and are popular with browsers.

Category Earning Potential

Would you like to bring in several hundred dollars a month from your book? How about several thousand? The earning potential of your selective categories is something to consider carefully. For example, according to the ABSR [Amazon Best Seller Rank], the #1 best selling book in the category path nonfiction > Business and Investing is The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan.

And, according to KDP Rocket, the book is currently earning $12,496 a day at this ranking and price. This is good to know. Even if you could rank at #19 in the same category, such as Turn Your Computer Into a Money Machine in 2017 by Avery Breyer, you’d still be earning $5000 a month. There is nothing wrong with that.

Now that we know what to look for when choosing categories, let’s do a step-by-step on setting this up. Then, I’ll show you how to easily get your book into ten categories.

Amazon Category Rankings: A Brief Note

As we will see, placing your book in a category with low competition but has potential is key. But what would be considered a competitive rank? Well, I’ll make it simple. In any category, if the book is ranking under #1000, chances are it is a highly competitive category. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t place your book here, but just know that, if you do, be sure to have a strong launch pushing your book and a lot of verified, positive reviews. I would aim for the sweet spot with the highest ranking book around 3-7,000. You can also calculate how many books you would need to sell in order to outrank the highest ranking book in that category. Just use the Amazon Sales Rank Calculator to determine the amount of books needed to sell to compete.

Setting Up Your Categories in the KDP Bookshelf

It’s relatively easy to setup your categories in your bookshelf. Remember: Amazon allows you to choose from just two browse categories in the KDP Bookshelf.

Let’s walk through the steps.

1. Sign into your KDP Bookshelf.
2. Click on your Book Title.
3. Scrolling over the Promote and Advertise button, and click on Edit eBook details
4. Scroll down until you find the Categories section. Click Set Categories. These are the main browser categories. Choose two accurate, specific categories.

For example:

“Nonfiction > Self-help > Emotions”

“Nonfiction > Business & Economics > Business Communication > Business Writing”

5. Cross-promote your book. You want your book to show up in as many relevant, popular categories as possible. How do we know if a category is popular?

As I mentioned already, you can use a great piece of software such as Kindlespy. Wesley Atkins’ tool will walk you through the process for finding the best eBook categories, as well as how each category performs when it comes to profitability, popularity and competition.

The other tool that really gets down to the nitty-gritty in terms of stats and numbers, and provides you with not only the Amazon search rankings but Google as well, is KDP Rocket by Dave Chesson at Kindlepreneur.

But wait a minute. Not all of the category paths are listed in the KDP Bookshelf. As a matter of fact, Amazon has thousands of sub-categories that you can break into and have your book rank in special categories not found in the usual channels.

So, that brings us to…

Opening Up the Secret Batch of Amazon Categories

To discover these hidden categories, you simply add in specific keywords to your keyword list. You can also add the name of the category itself and this tells Amazon that book belongs in that specific category.

How do we do that? There are several ways you can find these categories.

1. Search for the titles that are similar to yours. You can find the browse categories assigned to those books by scrolling down to the book detail pages to the section “Look for Similar Items by Category.”
2. You can also search for relevant browse categories on the left of the category paths page under the Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks header. When you find the categories that are most relevant to your title, as we discussed earlier, check out the top three books and take note of the rankings. If it is a category you can compete in, contact Amazon to have your book placed in that sub-category. If you have already selected your two main browser paths in the dashboard, we can add up to eight more categories, so keep a list of the category paths specific to your book.
3. Breaking into the sub-categories. You want your book to rank in a more specific category? You can add Search Keywords relevant only to that category. For example, go into the Business & Money subcategory, locate the specific category you want on the left, and the targeted keywords are featured on the right. Plug the keywords [or the category path] into your keyword selection box in your KDP Dashboard, and it should tell Amazon to place your book there. If it doesn’t show up after a few days, contact customer support and they should get back to you within 24 hours.

Gaining Approval for Additional Categories

What if I told you that you could have up to 10 categories in your category selection?

Yes, that’s right, ten! Instead of being limited to the two browser categories that we’ve already discussed, you can have your book show up in eight additional categories of your choosing. But where do we find these categories?

It’s simple. Follow these steps.

Step 1: Using the same steps above for category placement, start with checking your competitor’s books and the category paths that books similar to yours are placed in. Again, you want to aim for low-average competition so, check the rankings of the first couple of books. Once you have found a category path that looks good, just copy and paste your category strings into an email.

• Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Education & Teaching > Teacher Resources > Education Theory > Philosophy & Social Aspects
• Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Counseling & Psychology > Cognitive Neuroscience & Cognitive Neuropsychology
• Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Counseling & Psychology > Mental Health > Emotions
• Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Counseling & Psychology > Pathologies

Step 2: Then, directly contact Amazon’s super-awesome support team with your category choices. With 24-72 hours, your book will appear, not only in the initial browser categories you selected in your KDP Bookshelf but, across eight more categories. These categories will appear in the “Look for similar items by category” at the bottom of the book page.

Step 3: To make any changes to any of the categories after Amazon sets them up for you, you will have to contact support directly to have any categories removed or switched up with another.

Yes, it really is that easy.

Amazon Magic Working For You

Your book starts ranking as soon as a browser becomes a buyer and downloads your book. When your book starts ranking, guess what happens? Amazon takes notice. Somebody says, “whoa!” this book is on fire. That is when they step in to help you out by promoting the book for you.

If you check out the Amazon page for Tim Ferris’s Tools of Titans, scroll down and you’ll see a section titled “Customers who bought this item also bought”. It is here that your book might appear depending on category ranking, browser traffic, and history of paid sales. If you’re running Amazon KDP Select Ads Campaign, you’re book could also be displayed in the “Sponsored products related to this item” section.

Getting Your Orange Banner

If your book is ranking #1 in one or several categories, it is a high probability you’ll get the #1 orange banner indicating you’re now a #1 bestseller. This also depends on whether your book meets a threshold of a minimum number of paid sales historically and recently.

Although the Amazon Bestsellers Rank shows how items are selling in relation to one another in each Amazon marketplace, the ranking is further divided into Free and Paid lists within each Kindle Store.

If you can place your book in the top ten on the first page of the category listings, you gain more visibility by browsers who generally won’t click beyond that first page. Most book browsers will check out the top ranking books [1-20] and then move on

Wrapping It Up

So there you have it. A set of strategies to help you set up your book in the right categories that get you ranked faster with maximum exposure in the search engines in Amazon.

Be strategic in your book launch and dedicate at least a few hours to researching the best kindle categories for your next bestseller. And remember, as soon as your book is live, contact Amazon with your list of eight additional categories for reaching your readers on a broader scale. 

Like what you read and want to learn more? We’re holding a FREE online workshop where Chandler is revealing the exact tactics and strategies he used to write and publish 6 bestselling books in a row… and use them to build a 7-figure business in less than 2 years. Click here to save your spot now!

To learn more about the cost of publishing a book, join Chandler on this FREE webinar!

“Remember to think of the cost of self-publishing as an investment, not a cost. [A book is] an asset that earns you money long-term.” – Joanna Penn

If you’re thinking of publishing your first book, you might have some concerns about how much it really costs to get it published. So…how much does it cost to publish a book?

Since the explosion of digital books on Amazon and various other platforms like kobo, ibooks, and smashwords, wanna-be authors and pro authors alike can write, publish and promote their books for less than $1000. On the other hand, you can spend as much as $20,000 on self-publishing and book marketing costs if you have that kind of budget.

Let’s breakdown the costs of the self-publishing process, and we’ll share some secrets to bring those costs down if you’re budget-conscious.

The Rise of Self Publishing

If you’re an author dreaming of making your books available to millions of readers, you can make it happen. You only have to invest your time, some money, and a little bit of sanity.

The sky’s really the limit. Self-publishing on Amazon has made it possible so that we can all fly with our books.

There are many factors that can affect the cost of publishing your book. What it really boils down to is this: How much are you willing to spend, and how well do you want your book to sell?

The reason I ask these questions is—if you go cheap on everything—you could end up putting out a low quality book that gets panned by bad reviews, and then it won’t sell.

On Amazon, quality sells. And yes, quality costs money. But there are ways you can creatively cut costs and still put out a quality book. Let’s take a look.

Crunching the Numbers: How Much Will it Cost to Self-Publish My Book?

To start, let’s look at a sample budget. Now, these aren’t the high-end numbers for self-publishing. You can spend as much money as you want—this is a list of budget-conscious pricing for getting your book done within a reasonable budget:

• Cover: $5-$100.
• Editing: $200-$400 [depending on word count, and whether it’s a line edit or a developmental edit. This pricing is for a 25,000- to 30,000-word manuscript.]
• Formatting [ebook]: $20-$60
• Formatting [Print]: $35-$60
• Promo Sites [Book Launch]: $40-$500
• Audio Book [optional]: $300-$900
• Author Tools: Courses, blog, domain names

I’ll go into each of these in more detail, with links you can check out for yourself and find what works within your budget. Take some time to shop around see where to get the best value for the best price.

How Much Does a Book Cover Design Cost?

The famous saying is “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, but we do it anyway. The design of your book can often determine whether or not people will actually pay for it and read it. Your cover will make or break your book right off the bat. If there’s any one cost you don’t want to go cheap on, this would be it. While it’s true you can outsource to someone on Fiverr and get a decent cover for less than $20, it pays to do your research and find a good designer that’s going to deliver a cover that sells your book.

Check out this video Chandler Bolt recorded on how to use Fiverr.com to outsource your book cover design.

I would recommend setting aside a budget of at least $100. This isn’t to say that spending tons of money will get you an awesome cover, but going cheap on it may hurt your sales in the long run.

How Much Does a Book Editor Cost?

A book should always be edited…by a real editor. Don’t try to cut corners here, this is a very important step in your book writing journey.  Even if you’re a professional writer or editor yourself with thirty years of experience under your belt, you need to outsource it to someone else, and that means another professional editor.

Trust me: a book that contains typos will get bad reviews and sales will drop flat. Love your book. Spend the cash on editing. You can find quality editors at Upwork. (Or you can find the editors we recommend in our Preferred Outsourcer Rolodex if you’re a member of the Self-Publishing School community.)

You can get a very short book (15,000 words) edited for about $150-$250. This is for line editing. Ghost writing, developmental, or structural editing will run you much more than that, upwards of $2,000 or more depending on the length of your book (up to 100,000+ words) and the depth of edits you require.

When it comes to your book production costs, there can be no end to the costs you can rack up if you have the cash to invest.

How Much Does Book Formatting Cost?

When it’s time to format your book, if you’re publishing on Amazon, you might want to get it formatted both for print and for Kindle. You can outsource the formatting of both your ebook and print book for around $60-$200. Fiverr has some great formatters at reasonable prices.

I’d also recommend asking fellow authors if they have any great recommendations for book formatters. Once you find a book formatter you really like, add them to your own rolodex for future reference.

How Much Does it Cost to Promote Your Book?

When it comes to spending cash on promo sites, you could empty your bank easily. It doesn’t have to come to this. Set a budget for yourself and go with the best of the best. I have recommendations below you can check out.

Budgets vary but I’ll spend $32 on the low end for Buckbooks and go as high as $1,000 if you add on a bundle of promo sites to launch your book.

Again, this is a major money suck if you’re not careful; you can throw thousands into it and get mediocre results. Choose your promo sites with caution and do your research.

For the best results on several paid launches I have used:

Bookzio [$19-29]

Robin Reads [$35]

Buckbooks [$32]

BKnights [$5-40]

ereader girl [$20]

Awesome Gang [$10]

Booksbutterfly [varied prices]

When it comes to paid promotions, you can spend as much as you want, but to get the best value for your dollar, do your research on the top sites that can generate a good return. Check out this detailed list of paid [and free] promo sites.

How Much Does it Cost to Record an Audio Book?

Creating an audio book can run you anywhere from $300 to $6,000 additional cost depending on the length of your book and who you hire to do it. Again, you’ll need to create a budget for this one to keep costs under control.

If you have a novel with multiple characters and want different people to read different roles, it can cost towards the high end of the budget (especially if you’re using high-end talent.)

If you have a good voice or acting experience and you want to give it a shot, you can purchase the basic equipment and record the audio book version yourself. Check out this blog post for setting up your recording studio and doing it yourself.

Additional Author Tools and Expenses

Author tools are a necessary part of your portfolio, and there are tools for every part of the publishing process. How many of these you decide to invest in is up to you.

Here are some of the basic tools of professional authors. This will add a price tag to your book, but many of these are just a one-time payment and then that’s it. Other tools will bill you monthly.

Book Publishing Courses

If you’re new to the game of self-publishing, take a course like Self-Publishing School or join our Mastermind community for everything you need to get started.

You could also look into taking multiple courses on Udemy. But again, you can spend a fortune on various courses. I would recommend sticking with one course until you complete it and then, after getting your first big win, look at branching out to learn other skills.

How Much Does it Cost to Build a Website?

Building an author platform is a serious consideration if you’re looking to expand your business, write blogs, and promote your work. Whether you’re looking to build your entire website as an author, or a landing page with a call-to-action to get users to opt-in, it’s a very important step for building your business. It’s also important to capture leads to build your mailing list. A lead capture form on your website serves the purpose of finding quality leads as well as help you determine your primary audience.

Here are some things you’ll need to look into in order to get started with building a website:

Hosting

You can sign up for hosting with servers such as bluehost or hostgator. The cost would be around $150 per year; very reasonable for website hosting. You will get a discount when you sign up for the first year, but pay full price when you renew.

Domain Name

You can purchase a domain name to secure your brand and start driving traffic to your site. Check out Name.com. The cost will run you around $10-$15 a year.

Email Subscription Services

If you want to collect email addresses, you’ll need to sign up with an email subscription service to manage your emails. There are several choices:

Mailchimp: this is free up to the first 2000 subscribers. If you opt in to use their autoresponder service or other upgrades, you’ll have to pay around $10 a month depending on the number of subscribers.

AWeber: regarded by most as the premium site for email subscriptions. Cost per month: $19 up to 500 subscribers.

Convertkit.com: a new kid on the block, Convertkit has tons of value. Price is based on subscribers, but starts at $29 a month for your first 1,000 subscribers.

How to Increase Book Sales

We all want to make CASH with our writing. It may not be the only reason we write, but self-publishing your own book is still an investment. And like any investment, it’s nice to get a return rather than taking a loss.

Here is a list of strategies you can implement to increase your book sales and get more eyeballs on your work.

1. Run a contest through Goodreads.
2. Reach out to podcasters and influencers in your niche and set up an interview. This has proven to be a big game changer for authors like Hal Elrod and Tim Ferriss.
3. After your book has been at regular price for a while, wait three months and then drop it to .99 again. Set up some paid ads every other day for one week. Try using the KDP countdown strategy.
4. Blog about the topics in your book. Set up a blog and get more traffic and interest in your work by writing about what you love. Traffic that lands on your page can be directed to your Amazon Author Page and that means…more book sales!
5. Write another book. Building a catalogue of books is a great formula for generating higher monthly income.
6. Apply for a spot on Bookbub. Bookbub is the big gorilla when it comes to book promoting. It’s expensive ($300 and up), but it’s a solid investment and you will make your money back on the promo costs. You can check out Bookbub here and sign up for an author account to get started.

3 Ways to Save Money on Your Book Costs

Self-publishing can be expensive if you let it. There is always something else to spend more money on and the more you spend, the less chance you have of making your money back. Here are a few hot tips to help you save on your book costs, both now and in the future.

Hot Tip #1: Save Money on Book Formatting [if you dare!]

Write your eBook with Scrivener. Not only is Scrivener the #1 author tool for writing and organizing your manuscript but, if used effectively, it can save you money in formatting costs. If you’d like to learn more about how it works, check out this Scrivener webinar hosted by Joseph Michael with Chandler Bolt.

Joel Friedlander’s The Book Designer.com also offers a bundle of Book Design Templates for both fiction and nonfiction. These templates are at a cost but will save you money in the long run from outsourcing. I have personally been using these to do the formatting for my books. It can be time consuming at first but once you get the hang of it, you’ll save money on formatting costs.

Hot Tip #2: Build a List of Email Subscribers

Although this topic deserves its own blog or (book), I’ll mention it here because if you build up an email list now, it can save you thousands of dollars in promotional costs down the road.

When you launch your next book, you’ll have hundreds or thousands of fans waiting for your next release. Not only that, but these are the fans who will leave reviews if they join your launch team and purchase your book the first week it comes out.

This shoots your rankings up, and this drives sales even further. Sound good?

You can start to build your email list by including a link to a lead magnet in your eBook. A lead magnet is an offer of a free, valuable piece of content that readers will get if they go to your website and subscribe to your email list.

Hot Tip #3: Write a Great Book!

This might seem like an obvious tip, but paying attention to the quality of your book throughout the writing process is going to save you money. The better your book, the less you’ll have to spend on editing.

You will also gain a solid reputation for someone who writes really well. This means loyal fans will spread the word about your book and your blog, your email list grows, and any future books you release will practically promote themselves. Well, almost.

We are in a great era of self-publishing. Anyone can turn their dream into a reality within just a few months, a bit of cash, and a great idea!

Are you ready to make a difference?

Like what you read and want to learn more? We’re holding a FREE online workshop where Chandler is revealing the exact tactics and strategies he used to write and publish 6 bestselling books in a row… and use them to build a 7-figure business in less than 2 years. Click here to save your spot now!

A little more than three years ago I was listening to Entrepreneur on Fire Podcast with John Lee Dumas a lot. Not only did I love the different interviews he was publishing on a daily basis with successful entrepreneurs, but I was fascinated with his process for creating podcasts and blog posts from interview content.

Dumas’s process seemed so simple. Each day Dumas would bring on a different entrepreneur as a guest and ask them the same series of 8 – 10 questions about how they started their business and along with their keys to success. Dumas would then publish these interviews daily through iTunes and write summaries of the interviews on his blog. Dumas’s success story has been well documented at his website EOFire.com and hundreds of other blogs if you’re not familiar with his journey and want to learn more. Fast forward to 2017 and Dumas consistently brings in over $200,000 in revenue monthly from his business through advertising revenue and product sales that are a direct result of these 1,500+ interviews.

Although Dumas’s business is a bit more complex today than it was a few years ago, the foundation of his business remains simple. Dumas finds experts, interviews them, and hits publish.

Interested in learning how to use interview content as the backbone of your online business? No sweat.

You Can Do This Too!

Inspired by the simple process that Entrepreneur on Fire used, I started my own iTunes podcast and blog called FoodTruckEmpire.com about three years ago. Since I knew literally nothing about the food truck industry at the time, I started to email different food truck owners and ask them if they could jump on a Skype call that would be recorded for a podcast. From there I asked a lot of basic questions about starting a food truck, like how to get vendors were able to raise the funds needed to start a mobile food business and the challenges faced operating this type of business.

Just like Dumas executed in the early days, I kept my content creation as simple as possible. I reached out to people I viewed as experts online in the food truck industry to request an interview. Then I published those interviews on iTunes and my blog.

After just over 3 years of publishing, FoodTruckEmpire.com is now one of the most authoritative and popular websites online on the topic of starting a food truck business. I’ve even been featured in popular magazines like Entrepreneur about the topic and sold thousands of digital products including e-books, live courses, and consulting services.

Although I’ve created a much smaller than the digital publishing business than Dumas has created with Entrepreneur on Fire, the foundation of my business was created in the same way using interviews to become an authority in my particular market.

In the rest of this post, I will share three specific ways I have leveraged interview content to not just build my brand, but also generate products and revenue for my own business. I hope you can find some ways you can use interviews (both audio and written) as the backbone of your own digital publishing business!

Start New Relationships

One of the benefits of publishing interview content is that you have an excuse to talk to anyone in your niche. If you have a blog about how to improve your writing, you can request to interview authors that you respect and ask them any question you want. I urge you… do not take this powerful tool for granted!

As you begin to interview more people in your industry over the coming months and years, you’ll be surprised at how many movers-and-shakers you become acquainted with. In my case I’ve had the opportunity to speak with not only food truck vendors, but founders of popular food franchises and other business owners that serve this industry as well. Although many of these relationships have started out as a simple interview, many have progressed and become business relationships overtime.

A couple real life examples of guests on my show that have eventually become clients or customers:  

• One business that I started by interviewing has now become a consulting client that I provide online marketing services for.
• Numerous interview guests I’ve have gone on to pay for monthly banner advertising on my website as a way to reach their target audience.

The first point of contact or the “ice breaker” to each of the above scenarios has been to schedule an interview.

Now one thing that I feel obligated to point out is that the vast majority of your interviews will not lead to any type of business relationship or direct revenue. Also, some of the folks I interviewed did not become customers until literally years after interviewing them for the first time. This is not a short-term strategy! You will need to take the longview on this strategy if you want it to work for you.

Building Evergreen Blog Content

Building evergreen blog content is the most common way that I’ve seen other bloggers and website owners leverage interviews. After all one of the fastest ways to get unique and valuable information for your website is to simply go out there and ask an expert how something works. (Note: By evergreen blog content, I simply mean content that will remain valuable and relevant for a long period of time.)

I won’t harp on the benefits of this bullet section too long since this is one of the most commonly used ways that publishers leverage interviews. Whether you’re doing an interview in an audio format though a podcast or a written Q/A style piece make sure to cover topics and questions that will be relevant to your audience for years to come.

Overtime, as you publish more information about a topic your audience and traffic will grow slowly assuming you publish consistently and high-quality interviews. If I had to put a number on it, I would estimate that around 75% of the content on my own website FoodTruckEmpire.com is made up of this evergreen interview content.

Incentivize Email Signups

This is an important one for me. I see a lot of new bloggers that worry spend a ton of time creating an incentive or bribe for people to sign up to an email list. Frequently used bribes that I’m sure you’ve seen before include Free Whitepapers or potentially an e-book on a certain topic. These type of bribes work well to collect email addresses, but here are a few other angles that you can use based on existing interview content that work great for me.

1.) Instead of just publishing a podcast interview on iTunes and summarizing in on your blog. Take the same audio and call it an Audio Lesson instead that people can signup for. If the interview content teaches your audience something this can really work well as a way to encourage email subscribers. I’ve found that if you list something as an “audio lesson” there’s a higher level of perceived value.

2.) Another way I incentivize email subscribers to join my list is to organize past interviews. One specific call to action is “Learn How 6-Figure Food Truck Owners Earn a Living–Register Here.” After a visitor opts-in they receive an email with links to five different past interviews from different food truck owners that generate over $100,000 in annual revenue. Best of all, this method of encourage people to subscribe does not take a lot of time on your end after the interviews have been produced, but they also provide a lot of value to readers.

I hope this post has helped get your creative juices flowing for how you could leverage the power of interviews on your own website. As super successful entrepreneurs like John Lee Dumas have already proved, you can build a profitable online publishing empire by mastering this single type of content.

Like what you read and want to learn more? We’re holding a FREE online workshop where Chandler is revealing the exact tactics and strategies he used to write and publish 6 bestselling books in a row… and use them to build a 7-figure business in less than 2 years. Click here to save your spot now!

Last updated December 2016: At the time of writing this post, I’ve self published 6 bestselling books on Amazon, sold tens of thousands of copies, and continue to collect thousands per month in royalty checks. The success of my books has been directly responsible for the success of my business, which I’ve grown to over 7 figures in revenue in less than 2 years. 

Less than five years ago, this level of authorship success would have been reserved only for those select few authors who were lucky enough to catch the eye of an editor at one of the “Big 5” publishing companies (a process that relied just as much on luck and “who you knew,” as it did on the quality of your book).

Today, however, all that is changed. Not only do you no longer need one of the “Big 5” companies to publish your book to have a successful book launch, but many successful authors are turning publishing companies down.

Why are more and more authors turning to self-publishing (and forgetting about “traditional” publishing)? Simple:

1. You have complete control over your book
2. It is significantly more profitable (unless you are a household name like James Patterson or Nora Roberts, most authors earn mere pennies for each book sold)
3. Traditional publishers won’t market your book for you at all (but they’ll still take a cut from each purchase)
4. “Vanity” publishers are expensive, and no longer necessary.

Frankly, unless your name is Stephen King or J.K. Rowling…there are very few reasons why anyone would want to be traditionally published in 2017.

Which is why, whether you are trying to grow your authority and your business by writing a book, or are trying to leave your mark on the world, self publishing is the best option for you. Read on for “How To Self Publish A Book in 2017″: the exact steps you need to take to write, publish, and launch your first best-selling book.

Here’s How To Self Publish A Book In 2017:

1. Decide WHY You Want To Write A Book

The very first thing you need to decide when self-publishing a book, is WHY you want to write a book in the first place.

What’s your why? What’s the book going to do for you?

Are you trying to build an asset that’s going to earn you passive income month over month?

Are you an entrepreneur or freelancer with a new business, trying to accelerate your growth and authority in your market by publishing a book?

Do you have an existing, well-established business, and you want to write a book to diversify your income streams and land speaking engagements?

Or have you already had a successful career, and want to build an asset that will share the knowledge and skills you’ve gained over decades of experience with those who come after you?

All of these are perfectly valid reasons to write a book, and we’ve had students at Self-Publishing School publish books that went on to be best sellers for each of those reasons.

2. Choose Your Book Topic

Once you’ve decided on your why, it’s time for you to decide on the topic of your book, not your title (that comes last). When choosing your book topic, there is only 1 rule to follow:

Use the rifle approach, not the shotgun approach.

When deciding what you want your book to cover, it’s tempting to try and make your book about anything and everything you know. This is a mistake I see many first time authors make, and it negatively impacts their book sales as a result. If you can’t summarize what your entire book is about in a few words, then it’s probably too broad of a topic (and sales will suffer as a result).

3. Write Your Book

You’ve decided what you’re going to write your book about, now it’s time to write it. Writing a book is a process that deserves its own blog post, so check out this post on how to write your book in 30 days.

After you read that, watch this video where I discuss the simple process I use to write over 1500 words per hour!

Not sure where to start? Check out this post for 11 ways to outline your book.

This is getting down into the weeds a bit, but people always ask which book writing software to use. Here is the best book writing software you can use to write your book.

4. Market Your Book & Form a Launch Team

It might seem backwards, but you should start your book marketing process before your book is even edited (it’s that important).

The most effective way to market your book is to create a launch page where you can collect email addresses for those who might be interested in reading your book, and build your launch team.

Then, send people over to that page using social media (we have an action plan in our Mastermind Community that provides a step-by-step template for this). Post about your upcoming book, post about the process you’re going through to write your book. Ask friends and family if they’d be interested in helping you promote. You’d be surprised how many people are willing to help make your book a success!

Tell people to visit your page and enter their email address to learn how to get your book for free or at a steep discount. Try ConvertKit for collecting email addresses.

Then, a few weeks before your launch, start reaching out to influential bloggers and podcasters in your market (there’s an Action Plan for this, as well!). If you think their audience would be interested in the topic, offer a free copy of your book, and ask them if they’d like to review your book or interview you.

For a more in-depth look at all the steps that go into successfully marketing your book, check out our post on the step by step guide to marketing your book

5. Get Feedback On Your Book

When writing your book, it’s important to get as much feedback as early in the process as possible. As writers, it’s all too easy to retreat into your cave for a long period of time, spend countless hours writing what you think is the perfect first draft, only to find that a) your draft doesn’t make sense to anyone else or b) no one else is as interested in the topic as you originally thought.

Not only can a fresh set of eyes on your book help you catch typos and grammatical errors, but a new perspective can give you ideas for tightening up your story and making the theme more clear. Giving your book to one (or more) “beta readers” before giving it to an editor can also cut down on the time and cost of paying a professional editor.

6. Choose a Title

Contrary to popular belief, you should never decide on a book title until after you are done writing your first draft. This is because choosing a book title first often results in you “writing yourself into a corner” into the title of the book, rather than writing the book that needs to be written.

Therefore, it’s not until after your first draft is written that you need to worry about a title for your book. Don’t make this more complicated than it needs to be.

It’s incredibly easy to get caught in “Book Title Land” when trying to come up with a title. Don’t fall into this trap. Don’t try to be too clever, or try to be “punny.” The truth is…the simpler the title, the better. As you’re brainstorming ideas, always remember to Keep It Stupidly Simple. As catchy or clever as you might think your title idea is…it will probably go straight over your audience’s head (and they won’t buy it as a result).

For example – if you’re writing a book about Home Renovation, the title “7 Steps to Flipping Profitable Homes” is much better than “Zen and the Art of Restorative Architectonics.” The former is simple and to the point (and most importantly, people will know exactly what the book is about). The latter is fancier, but most people have no idea what that means.

Once you’ve narrowed down your book title to a few possible options, send out an email to your friends, family, and audience (if you have one), or put a poll up on Facebook and ask for an opinion. You might be surprised what your audience’s favorite is.

Tim Ferriss took polling his audience to another level when writing his first book which went on to become a bestseller, The 4-Hour Workweek. Tim set up a split test in Google Adwords and spent $200 testing 3 titles for his book:

• The 4-Hour Work Week

• Broadband and White Sand

• Millionaire Chameleon

Companies like Pickfu.com also offer very simple and affordable polling services…you can even define your audience demographics and have your poll answered by people who match those demographics!

Follow these steps if you need more help creating the perfect book title.

6. Hire a Great Editor

Hiring a great editor can mean the difference between writing a bestseller, or a mediocre book. Therefore, it’s important to take as much time as necessary on this stage of the process.

To find an editor for your book, begin with your personal network. Do you personally know any English teachers or others in the editorial field? Start there. If you don’t, then do you know someone who knows an editor?

If you don’t have any luck finding an editor within your personal network, don’t worry! Depending on your budget, you can either hire a professional book editor, or hire a more budget-friendly editor from Upwork. Self-Publishing School also has a Rolodex of approved and vetted book editors who all do a great job.

No matter how you find your editor, make sure you’re a good fit before committing to the full book by paying them a small sum ($25 or so) to edit a few pages or a chapter of your book. Make sure the editor is interested in the subject matter, that they can get your whole book edited in 3.5 weeks or less including back-and-forth revisions, and that their edits are both accurate and make sense to you. If you don’t feel you’re a good fit following a sample edit, then let that $25 go, and find an editor that’s going to work out rather than sinking more money into a relationship that might be a mistake.

Whatever you do, don’t give up during the editorial process! If one editor isn’t working out for you or meeting your needs, find another.

7. Design a Book Cover that Converts

Despite the saying (and contrary to many writers’ beliefs) people absolutely do judge books by their covers…especially books on Amazon. Your book cover design is very important and needs to look professional. 

You don’t have to like it, but the truth is if your book doesn’t have a cover that looks 100% professional, people are simply going to skip it and look for something else. Which is why taking the time to purchase a professionally designed cover that converts is so important.

Unless you’re a graphic designer, you need to hire a professional to put the cover design together. However, before you approach a cover designer, you should have at least a rough idea of what you want your book cover to look like so you can give your designer a brief. This helps prevent wasted time and money on covers that don’t fit your vision.

One easy method to spark some ideas when creating your design brief is to take a look at other books in your market (especially other bestselling books). You’ll notice that in most genres, book covers tend to follow a design theme, and these themes are what your audience expects. While you certainly don’t want your cover to be an exact clone of another design, you also don’t want it to look completely out of place. A good designer will help you to find this balance.

To find a designer, check out Fiverr.com or Upwork.com. Make sure your designer has experience meeting the specs for an Amazon book cover and plenty of positive reviews. You may wish to pay more than one designer, and choose the best design from all of them. The choice is up to you, just make sure the end result is something you’re proud of. It will be your reader’s first impression of you!

7. Format Your Self-Published Book

If you’re on a budget, there are plenty of resources online that can tell you how to format your book yourself for free. You can start by looking at Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) forums where there are plenty of discussions on book formatting. You can also use KDP’s free resources to help format your book. Formatting can be a frustrating experience for the uninitiated though, so if you have a few bucks to spare, you might consider paying someone to help you.

Here are 5 book formatting mistakes to avoid.

If you want to pay for formatting, Liber Writer is a low-cost, effective option for converting a Microsoft Word file to Amazon’s Kindle format. If $60 is too much, you can also find people on Fiverr to format your book for Kindle. No matter what option you choose, preview your book using the Kindle previewer to make sure there are no formatting errors.

8. Self Publish Your Book

When you feel confident your book is ready for the public, you can create a KDP account and upload your book. You should be just about ready to transform into a published author, but you aren’t quite ready to publish yet, so hit “save as draft.”

Create your Amazon author central account after uploading your book. Include a bio, photo, and link to your website or blog to help you stand out among authors. After a few more steps, you’ll be ready to publish your book, at which time you’ll click “save & publish” in your KDP book dashboard.

Amazon allows you to select 7 keywords or keyword phrases to make sure your intended audience can find your book when searching on Amazon. It’s highly recommended you also select two different categories your book might fit into so you can reach a broader audience. To select keywords and categories, look at other best-selling books in your niche and notice what keywords and categories those authors chose.

9. Decide on a Price

You’re almost ready to hit publish, but there’s just one more step before you can do that: price your book. This is not a “set it and forget it” process. You’re going to select a list price, but then you’re going to choose a discounted launch price by clicking “Promote and advertise” within your KDP dashboard.

Amazon crosses out that higher list price and shows how many dollars buyers will save. This lets users know they are getting more bang for their buck during your discounted launch, which will tempt more readers to buy. Now you can hit publish! (Doesn’t that feel good?!)

10. Reach out to readers and influencers

Now it’s time to really leverage the launch team you created in step 4. As soon as your book goes live on Amazon, the time is right to reach out and let your email subscribers know that your book is available.

Sending as sales email can be scary, but you’ve got to do it for two reasons: first, these people signed up to your list because they want to know about your book! And if you’re launching it for free or a discount, then they’re going to be very happy to hear about your deal. Furthermore, these people have been with you and have been following your success since early on in your book launch process. They want to help you!

The initial sales generated from your launch team will help push your book up Amazon’s rankings, and will increase the chances of Amazon’s algorithm recommending it to shoppers, which will drive even more sales.

During this time, it’s also a great idea to follow up with any influencers you’ve made contact with and firm up plans to promote your book. You might offer to give away a free copy of your book to a winning audience member, or make some other offer to sweeten the deal.

11. Celebrate! (Now, decide what’s next)

Publishing a book is just the beginning. Depending on your goals for your book, self publishing can get you more customers, free publicity, and establish you as an expert in your niche. This can help you land speaking gigs and build a business within your area of expertise. Your book sales can also help fund your lifestyle with passive income.

Dream big about what you want your book to do for you. When you have a vision for where you want your book to take you, it will be easier to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. Getting clear on what you want will also help you to be more effective when expanding your network along on your journey.

So there you have it…that’s how to self publish a book. If self publishing a bestseller is something you want to do, and you’re serious about changing your life and your business for the better by getting your book out there in the world, then you need to watch this free 4 part video training, where I walk through the exact steps I’ve taken to write, publish, and market 6 of my own best-selling books (and how I’ve helped 1,000’s of students do the same).

Like what you read and want to learn more? We’re holding a FREE online workshop where Chandler is revealing the exact tactics and strategies he used to write and publish 6 bestselling books in a row… and use them to build a 7-figure business in less than 2 years. Click here to save your spot now!

It’s officially launch day of my new book, Published.! This has been a long time coming and I’m so excited the day is finally here. Haven’t heard about it yet? Let me tell you a bit about this new book…

Are you tired of just “thinking about” writing a book (even planning on making it a New Year’s Resolution), but never actually doing it?

Are you looking for a map that will take you from blank page to published author as fast as possible…without the frustration, the heartache, and the dreaded “staring at a blank page” syndrome?

Are you curious what the “secret sauce” is that’s responsible for over 264 bestselling book launches (and millions of dollars in revenue and business growth)?

Then on behalf of myself and the entire Self-Publishing School team, it is with great excitement and anticipation that I’m announcing the release of my 6th and most recent book: Published. The Proven Path from Blank Page to Published Author.

And if you answered “yes,” to any of the above questions…I wrote this book specifically for you.

What is Published.?

Published. The Proven Path from Blank Page to Published Author is my most valuable book yet, and is a complete compilation of everything I’ve learned writing, publishing, and launching 5 bestsellers (and teaching over 1,000 students at Self-Publishing School to do the same).

Published. is not just another boring “how to” book on how to write & publish your first book…

Inside this book, I’m giving you the exact systems, tactics, and blueprints to become a successful bestselling author, even if you’ve never written a book in your life.

In this book, you’ll learn…
My 3-step method that takes you from blank page to complete rough draft in less than one week (or how to write a better book than you thought possible in 1/10th the time!)
How to save $1,000’s of dollars in your book editing and production process (or how to publish a book as good as or better than most “traditionally-published” books…on a budget)
My proven “Pre-Launch Buzz Blueprint” that will guarantee your book launches with a bang
How to leverage your book to maximize your product and service offering sales

In Published., you don’t just get a 204 page book packed with tips, tricks, and hacks…you get a SHORTCUT to becoming a best selling author.

I’ve Never Done This Before…

Whether you are a beginning entrepreneur trying to grow authority in your market and build your business…

Or an accomplished pro, looking to create something that will leave your mark on the world…

I know from first hand experience that writing a book is the best way to accomplish your goals.

But I also know that writing a book can be a frustrating, painful process…even if it’s your sixth book (and especially if it’s your first!)

I’ve watched from afar, feeling bad for the people who struggle through this process. They take months – even years – just to finish their first book….and then ultimately launch to the sound of crickets.

I’ve also seen firsthand the success, ease, and joy my students at Self-Publishing School experience…and how each book they publish changes their lives.

Which is why I’m doing something with this book that I’ve never done before.

I’m giving it away for free.

That’s right – no strings attached. This book retails for $14.95, but I’m buying it for you. We simply ask that you help us with the shipping/handling costs in order to receive it.

How To Get Your FREE Copy

To claim your free copy of Published., simply click here to fill in your shipping information, and we’ll have your book sent straight to the address you provide – free of charge and no strings attached.

I hope that by giving you this book, you’re inspired and empowered to finish your own.

Here’s the link to claim it: http://self-publishingschool.com/s/published

Like what you read and want to learn more? We’re holding a FREE online workshop where Chandler is revealing the exact tactics and strategies he used to write and publish 6 bestselling books in a row… and use them to build a 7-figure business in less than 2 years. Click here to save your spot now!

We’re in the age of podcasts, radio apps, and audiobooks, and now couldn’t be a better time to convert your eBook into an audiobook. You don’t need to feel intimidated by the process or cost, creating an audiobook today is just as accessible to the self-publishing community as anyone else. Here are the steps and our suggestions to creating an audiobook.

1. Prep Your eBook Content for Audiobook Recording

If you’re starting from the beginning, you may have no idea how to convert your manuscript from writing to audio. Your first step will be to prep your eBook content for audiobook recording. Here are a few tips to move the process along:

• Delete hyperlinks
• Delete captions
• Delete visuals
• Remove any calls to actions or click here prompts
• Add opening and closing credits
• Create a table of contents
• List chapter numbers and chapter titles
• Read through and make sure it all makes sense in audio form

2. Recording Your Audiobook

The next step in the creation of your audiobook is actually recording the book. You have two choices for this step: You can hire someone to record it for you or you can record the book yourself in a studio.

Option 1: Hire a Freelancer to Narrate Your Audiobook

Most authors find that hiring a professional to record their audiobook is the most expeditious and least painful route.

You may be concerned about the cost of hiring a pro for voice work, but you may be surprised to learn that the cost for this service can be quite reasonable. In fact, converting your self-published book into an audiobook using a pro can cost less than half the price of doing the work yourself. Many freelancers will quote a price of under $500 for a full eBook to audio conversion; so don’t let the perceived high cost deter you.

If you’ve never worked with a freelancer before, you might not be familiar with the steps necessary to find the right talent.

First, you’ll need a proposal. The purpose of your proposal is to help delineate the work that’s needed. You’ll want to make sure to include the scope of the work and terms of your offer in your proposal.

Your second step is to create a sample audio clip to share with potential freelance narrators. This clip is called your “retail audio sample.” The purpose of your retail audio sample is two-fold: 1) it can be shared with potential narrators during the freelance-hiring phase and 2) it can later be shared with your future audience on Amazon to peak their interest in your book.

Have some fun creating your retail audio clip—it can be anything you want it to be! You may opt to read a full chapter, or simply condense a summary of plot highlights. The ultimate goal of your retail audio sample is to intrigue both potential narrators and your potential audience. If you can capture their collective attention and peak their interest about your book, they’ll want to hear more.

If you’ve never worked with a freelancer, check out Voices or Upwork for a list of narrator pros.

Option 2: Self-Recording in a Studio

The second path to creating an audiobook is self-recording. Realize that self-recording may be more costly in terms of effort, time, and financial output. The largest cost for self-recording will be the paid time to use a pro recording studio.

We recommend that you block out a significant amount of time to complete your self-recorded audiobook.

Here’s our general production timeframe for a self-recorded audiobook:

• Book your recording studio three weeks ahead of time.
• Record your book in-studio. Plan for up to sixteen hours of recording studio time.
• Plan for at least two weeks of post-recording editing.

Of course, these times are just guides; the time frame may change once you start your project. Obviously, a longer book will take longer to record and edit. Plan accordingly, and give yourself plenty of time to polish, edit, and finalize a professional product.

3. Upload Your Audiobook to Amazon Creative Exchange

Now that you’ve recorded your book, either by yourself or with the help of a freelancer, you’ll need to upload your book to Amazon Creative Exchange (“ACX”). While there are a lot of steps, uploading is a user-friendly and self-explanatory process.

Here’s a step-by-step guide of how to upload your audiobook:

1. Go to the ACX website.
2. Log in to your Amazon account.
3. Click “Add Your Title.”
4. Search and find your book then click on “This is My Book” prompt.
5. Click on the “I have this book in audio and I want to sell it” prompt.
6. Choose your territory and distribution.
   (Note: We recommend the “World” rights options with 40% royalties for the best results.)
7. Choose the language(s) you’d like to sell the book in.
8. Agree to the “Audiobook License and Distribution Agreement” terms
9. Complete the “About My Book” section.
   (Note: You can duplicate the content from your Amazon page or create original content.)
10. Complete the proper copyright information.
11. Complete the info about the narrator, audiobook publisher, and any reviews.
12. Click the “add audio file” prompt.
13. Go to browse for the first section of your audiobook to ensure it was added.
14. Continue this process until your entire book is uploaded.
15. Don’t forget to change the chapters and section titles as you go.
16. Finally, upload your book cover.

Make sure all info from your printed book matches that of your audiobook. Your author name should be the same and the book cover should the same as appears on your eBook. ACX will not allow you to continue if there are discrepancies in identifying information.

Also, a quick heads up: Your audiobook will not post immediately. ACX will hold your submission to confirm that all is in order before it posts you audiobook. Don’t be alarmed if you see an ACX note telling you “This title is: Pending audio review.” That’s a normal part of the process and not something wrong on your end. When ACX approves your book, you’ll then have the green light to sell the audio copies online.

For a detailed, step-by-step explanation of the entire process—from production to distribution—check out ACX Author’s page.

Even if you’ve never done it before, technology makes the process of creating your audiobook easier than you can imagine. A well-produced audiobook can help you expand your fan base and earn you new readers. Don’t be deterred by the idea that creating an audiobook is outside of your wheelhouse—we promise it’s not! With pro help (or even a little elbow grease on your part), you can have a completed audiobook within weeks, and be on your way to boosting those book sale numbers!

Like what you read and want to learn more? We’re holding a FREE online workshop where Chandler is revealing the exact tactics and strategies he used to write and publish 6 bestselling books in a row… and use them to build a 7-figure business in less than 2 years. Click here to save your spot now!

Have you ever seen an Amazon Book description that looked absolutely stellar? Nice big words, perfect layout, well structured?

Well, there’s a secret to how self-publishers are making it look that way. They’re using Amazon’s approved HTML. That’s right…they’re coding it to look that way, and you could too.

By adding a little code to your book description, your sentences can now be bold, underlined, or even bigger in size.

As you can see, there is a clear difference between a well-structured book description using Amazon’s HTML and a book description that doesn’t use HTML.

And it isn’t as simple as writing it in Word Document and copying and pasting…nope. That well-formatted beauty requires a little HTML love.

So, in this article, I’m going to show you exactly how you can tap into this even if you know nothing about HTML or CSS—and I’ll also introduce you to a free book description tool that will help you build beautiful, eye-catching descriptions so that your book will stand out and get even more customers.

Amazon Book Description Tips

Lucky for us, Amazon allows us to use special snippets of code to access their font styles…all you need to do is type the right things around your book description sentences to make your book description words stand out and look great.

To do this, let’s first look at what you’re allowed to do:

Don’t worry if you don’t know what all that means because I’ll show you.

To get your words to do the above, all you need to do is sandwich your sentence or words with the <fill in the code> above and end your sentence or word with <fill in the code/>. (Don’t write “fill in the code”—instead, use the cheat sheet above to see what letters will make the change you’re seeking.)

HTML Examples for Each Tag

Now that you know how to wrap each tag around a sentence and which HTML tag you can use, let’s go through each, how it’s applied, and how it will look on the US Amazon Market.

Header Font Size:

To get the words to be larger, you’ll need to use the Header Tags which are <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, <h5>, and <h6>. The H1 tag is the largest with H6 the smallest.

Let’s see what they look like when wrapped around a word:

Bold

To make a sentence or word bold, all you need to do is wrap that word or sentence with <b></b>

Like this: Self-Publishing School is <b>amazing</b>.

Italics

To make a word in italics, you can use either <i> or <em>

Like this: Self-Publishing School is <i>amazing</i>.

Underline

Underline uses <u></u>

Like this: Self-Publishing School is <u>amazing</u>.

Horizontal Lines

If you want to separate some text with a horizontal line, all you have to do is add <hr> and it will look like this:

Lists

There are two types of lists: Ordered lists and Unordered lists. Ordered lists are numbered 1, 2, 3, etc. Unordered lists are bullet point lists.

Unordered are denoted at the beginning using <ul> and their structure looks like this:

<ul>
<li>Unordered Item One</li>

<li>Unordered Item Two</li>

<li>Unordered Item Three</li>

</ul>

Ordered Lists are denoted by the <ol> and their structure looks like this:

<ol>

<li>Ordered Item One</li>

<li>Ordered Item Two</li>

<li>Ordered Item Three</li>

</ol>

Free Amazon Description Generator Tool

Hand coding your own book description can be tedious. That’s why I designed a special free software that lets you see real time what your description will look like. It’s called the Amazon Book Description Generator.

Just type in or copy and paste your book description, highlight a section, and click the button to make it look the way you want it.

Once you’ve gotten it the way you like, then just click the button “Get My Code” and it will automatically create the HTML code you need to make your description look like you designed it.

Then take that code, go to the KDP bookshelf and update your book’s description.

Examples of Well Formatted Book Descriptions

So as to help you get your creative juices flowing, here are some examples of other books who have used book description formatting and taken it to the next level:

Chandler Bolt’s Book Launch: Clean, and effectively uses the bold feature to highlight the most important words. That way, those that skim the description will immediately see the parts that Chandler wants you to see.

Patrick King’s Conversion Tactics: One of the most effectively uses of underline as well as neatly organized information with bullet points. One thing I really think that Patrick has rocked with this is his final sentence, the Call to Action (CTA). It leaves a strong lasting impression and how can you NOT see it?

Steve Scott’s Learn Email Marketing Blueprint: Again, a well laid out description that highlights the right spots and makes it easy on the eyes. But my favorite part about his book description is the first paragraph. That paragraph shows up even before the person clicks “read more.” Basically, Steve has made it so that his most catching hook is highlighted, and featured right smack dab at the top of his sales page. Nice move.

Conclusion

So, now that you know what is allowed by Amazon, how to code HTML for book descriptions and a cool tool that is completely free that will do it for you, it’s time you get started in creating your book descriptions.

Once you’ve created a savvy looking book description, comment below with your book’s link, and I’ll check it out and respond.

Like what you read and want to learn more? We’re holding a FREE online workshop where Chandler is revealing the exact tactics and strategies he used to write and publish 6 bestselling books in a row… and use them to build a 7-figure business in less than 2 years. Click here to save your spot now!

So you’re thinking about writing and publishing a book, but approaching a traditional publisher can be daunting. In fact, you’ve probably thought, “Why would a traditional publisher ever look at me—a first-time author?”

Before the age of the internet, the only way to get your book in front of millions was to send off a book proposal to a traditional publisher and hope that whoever the gatekeeper was that day

• Had drank their morning coffee,
• Had woken up on the right side of the bed,
• And, had actually given your book proposal more than a 10-second glance.

Unfortunately, the likelihood of that happening was fairly low.

This resulted in brilliant people—like yourself—being denied the opportunity to share their experiences, their stories, and their knowledge.

The publishing industry is shifting.

Thankfully, this is no longer the case.

With the development of online marketplaces, like Amazon, you can distribute your book to everyone, regardless of what some traditional publishing house may think about your idea.

You have a book inside of you, and the world needs to read it!

Why self-publish?

Here are 7 reasons why self-publishing is the best route to take—and why you’ll never bother with traditional publishing again.

1. You don’t have to wait for permission.

When you self-publish, you do not have to wait for anyone to give you the green light.

• You decide when and how to publish a book.
• You decide whose hands your book gets into.
• You decide how successful you are.

You don’t have to convince any gatekeepers to allow your book to reach the world.

“But, don’t traditional publishers have a good idea for what will sell or not? I mean, if they reject my book, they’re probably right that no one would want to buy it.”

WRONG.

Have you ever heard of Tim Ferriss’s book, The Four-Hour Workweek? It has been a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller for over four years! It sold nearly 1.5 million copies and has been translated into 35 different languages.

Oh, and get this: it was rejected by the first twenty-six publishers that it was presented to.

Now, just imagine all the other authors out there that stopped after the first ten or twenty doors slammed in their faces, believing the lie that they didn’t have a profitable idea.

You cannot allow other people to determine your success. And self-publishing gives you the avenue to do that! You and your readers decide the worth of your words, rather than a single person at a traditional publishing firm.

2. You can publish your work quickly.

If you were to take your book to a traditional publisher, it would take years to publish your book.

For example, it may take up to six months for you to even hear back about the book proposal. And assuming they accepted your proposal, it would take at least another year before the book was actually published.

With self-publishing, you can produce your content as quickly as you want. And in the Amazon Kindle Store, you can publish a new book whenever you want. That way, you can share your work as quickly as you create it!

3. Bring home the bacon.

With a traditional publishing deal, an author will typically be paid an amount of money upfront. But once the sales come rolling in, you only get a small cut of the earnings.

Why? Because you have to pay the publishing house, the editor, the marketers, the designers, etc.

When you self-publish, you take in most of the earnings (save for the money you actually choose to spend on marketing and book production and publishing.)

4. You form invaluable connections.

Self-publishers around the world have gathered online and in-person to provide a community that supports one another in publishing their work.

These connections become priceless as you meet other up-and-coming influencers like yourself.

“Wait—so where would I meet these people?”

Because self-publishing requires that you find your own editor, cover designer, formatter, and launch team members, you connect with people throughout your whole writing experience.

Self-published authors also gather on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, etc.

The camaraderie allows people to expand far beyond what they could have done on their own, or what they would have been limited to with a traditional publisher.

5. You control your objective.

So much of a book is influenced by the motive that fuels it.

• Is your motive to make money?
• It is to launch a new career?
• Is it to share your story?
• Or, is it simply something to cross off your bucket list?

When you self-publish, you are able to preserve the dignity and genius of your objective. No one is pressuring you to sell more books, or to taint your message so that it will reach wider audiences.

You are not pigeonholed, or made to do or become someone that you’re not comfortable with.

You write as you, and for you. And that is invaluably liberating.

6. You control your creative concept.

There are horror stories about authors whose ideas and voice became unrecognizable after their manuscript was finished with a traditional publisher.

When you work with a traditional publisher, you don’t just sell them your manuscript, you sell them your idea.

So, your book may become something you are not comfortable with. Or, your dreams for a sequel or a revision may be completely squandered if it does not comply with the motives of the traditional publisher.

But, when you self-publish, you can create what you want to create!

You are free to be expressive with your work! You are free to be vulnerable and controversial. You are free to be you.

When you self-publish, you also control who you write for. Because you determine your marketing efforts, you—if selling via the Amazon Kindle store—can choose (and then tweak) your categories and keywords.

And, with 45% of eBook sales going to Indie (or self-published) authors, audiences are showing that they respect and want to purchase the ideas of everyone—not just those endorsed by traditional publishers.

(Credit: AuthorEarnings.com)

7. You control your future.

Most people looking to write a book want to earn more money, gain more freedom, or have a platform to share their ideas.

When you self-publish and have complete ownership over your ideas, you also have complete ownership over your future.

There is no traditional publishing firm to stop you from selling a supplementary online course that includes material from your book, starting a speaking career, re-releasing your book with a hardcover or audiobook, or even releasing an updated version of your book.

You determine the trajectory of your book, ideas, and career when you self-publish.

Even “Big Names” Self-Publish

Though there are some benefits to traditional publishing, even some well-established authors admit that the joys of self-publishing outweigh a traditional publishing deal.

So much, in fact, that big name entrepreneurs who have large followings and could easily get a traditional publishing deal, are opting to go the self-publishing route.

These people include Pat Flynn, Jeff Goins, Joshua Miburn & Ryan Nicodemus, Johnny B Truant, and James Altucher.

Self-publishing will change your life.

Self-publishing allows you the freedom, money, community, and control to shape your life to become one you adore.

So, start writing your own bestseller today.

Like what you read and want to learn more? We’re holding a FREE online workshop where Chandler is revealing the exact tactics and strategies he used to write and publish 6 bestselling books in a row… and use them to build a 7-figure business in less than 2 years. Click here to save your spot now!

If this is your first time writing and self-publishing a book, then working with a book editor may be novel ground. (Pun intended. Hardy-har-har.) Let’s get one thing out of the way: we encourage all self-published authors to hire a book editor. Nothing will tank a book faster than a whole bunch of reviews complaining about typos.

A good book editor can help turn your book from a ‘ho-hum’ draft into a polished manuscript. So give your book the best chance of success that you can, and get a pro to get your manuscript into tiptop shape before publication.

A lot of first-time authors make the mistake of editing their book to death, never progressing far enough to finish their book and getting to the publishing phase. Others think they can toss a messy draft at an editor and expect them to fix everything. There’s a happy medium between making your draft good enough for an editor—and trusting when it’s time for your editor to step in and take over.

With that in mind, in this article, we help you navigate the process of getting your book edited—both by you and your editor—so you can get published faster. Here are seven tips for getting your book through the editing phase:

1. Edit Quickly

If you make the mistake of editing extensively, especially while you’re still actively writing, you potentially set yourself up for a major headache, which can delay publishing your book.

Look at the example of Scott Allan. Before he joined Self-Publishing School, he spent two years working on a voluminous self-help tome. His first draft clocked in at an impressive 90,000 words. He spent months perfecting each word. In the blink of an eye, six more months had elapsed, and he had not only sucked himself into the drain of editing, he hadn’t written anything new since he became stuck in self-edit mode.

For one year, he wrote (and rewrote!) the book three times. Why, you might wonder? In his words, “I suppose I didn’t know any better, first of all. That was before I learned the expression ‘Done is better than perfect.’ I was under the impression that it wasn’t done until it was perfect.” 

Months later, he found an expensive editor to take on his book, but the author couldn’t stop tweaking the material. Tweaking lead to rewriting…and the book which had been so carefully drafted, then rewritten, then tweaked, never saw the light of day. The book was never actually published.

Allan says, “Painful lesson learned: Unpublished books don’t make money!”

Eventually, the author went on to write Pathways to Mastery and publish it on Amazon. Using the lessons learned during his first failed self-publishing attempt, the author spent just eight months writing and only two months editing this time.

Since writing Pathways to Mastery, Allan has gone on to write and publish three more books, with a significant reduction in writing and editing time for each successive book. His latest book was in the editing phase for only three weeks.

Key Takeaway: An unpublished draft won’t earn any money or build your author name. Keep it simple: Draft first, then edit quickly.

2. Accept Imperfections

Letting go of perfectionism is one of the hardest things to do. It sounds doable in theory, but in practice? It’s a challenge.

Many writers strive for perfection—the perfect grammar, spelling, and choice of words. Especially when the story we’re putting out there is our first book, or about an intensely personal topic, it ups the ante significantly. We’ve been there, and we get it.

Here’s what you need to remember: Nothing in life is perfect. No person, book, nor writer. You can spend forever and your book still won’t be 100% “perfect.” The editing phase can be rough because of the personal investment and attachment we have to our books.

Key Takeaway: Instead of striving for the mythical unicorn of book perfection, strive for a reality-based “as good as this book can be.”

3. Do a Quick First Revision

Before you give your book to your editor, you want to do a read-through to catch any glaring errors. Say this with me: rip off the Band-Aid. Make your first revision fast.

Here’s the best way to make that change of phase from writing to editing: when you’re done with your first draft, circle back and do a quick-and-dirty first revision. This involves a rapid read of the book, just to get a feel of what you’ve written.

Brace yourself. This phase might just be the most painful part of the editorial process. This is because it’s the first time you’re looking at your book with a critical eye and reviewing the results of your first draft.

You need to make sure your book makes sense and that it doesn’t miss any words that would confuse a reader to the point that they don’t understand what you’re trying to say. This will reduce the back-and-forth hand-offs between you and your editor and will shorten to overall editing phase.

If you notice any major problems, like plot holes or missing information, make a note of them but save these bigger edits for the next round of revisions.

Your mental game needs to be strong here. You’re going to think, “I really suck. I hate writing, I hate my book, and I’d rather watch Netflix than ever look at this crap again.” The Buddha once said: “All things must pass.” Namaste, my friend. You’ll get through this phase and eventually love yourself (and your writing!) again.

Key Takeaway: Give your book the chance it deserves. Right now, it’s just you alone with your book. Make this first revision quick.

4. Read Your First Pass Out Loud

During your first pass, it’s necessary to read your book out loud to yourself. Your ear processes words in a way that your eyes may not so this gives you sense of pacing, chapter structure, and tone.

While you’re reading out loud, try to read through the eyes of a reader. Imagine what your ideal reader looks like and how they’d feel reading this. Visualize their experience with your book.

During this read-through, don’t stop to make large corrections. Just use a red pen or highlighter to take notes of the obvious mistakes. Simply mark or circle these errors to come back to later.

Put yourself on the clock when you do this. Time yourself for ten-twenty minutes per chapter and keep reading the whole draft through to completion.

Key Takeaway: Reading out loud during your first pass can help with tone and pacing. Do this quickly, with a timer. 

5. Delve Deeper With a Second Pass 

Your next step is to go back to the beginning of the book and do a second pass. Your second revision should delve deeper.

As you read, stay alert to passages that have “holes” or sections of the book which need to be filled out more. Think of the analogy of building a home: First the frame goes up, then you build the walls. Keep adding to your book until your story and message is clear.

Some of us have a tendency to change our voice from one paragraph to the next. Tone shift is something that a strong editor will pick up on, but to the extent you can make things consistent, you should.

As this point, your book should be more polished. Your book still isn’t perfect (remember we cautioned against perfect!) but at this stage, you should have a working manuscript which should be close to publishable.

Key Takeaway: Your second pass should fill in the gaps in your story or chapters, and keep tone consistent.

6. Hand Over the Reins to an Editor

One of the hardest parts of the editorial relationship is handing over your passion project to a complete stranger.

You may be thinking, “What? I’m giving it to a complete stranger who doesn’t know me—and doesn’t understand the blood, sweat, and tears that went into this—just so they can mark it up and tell me about all the things I did wrong?!” There’s a reason the editor-writer relationship can feel fraught. It’s because while your book is deeply personal to you, whereas for the editor, it’s just another day at the office.

Your editor’s job is to care about the flow of the book, the grammar, spelling, and in some cases, content. They will take your draft and elevate it to a readable manuscript. Try not to take it personally or push back at their criticism.

Your editor will shape your draft into a “good” book to publish. Notice the deliberate choice of words—we didn’t say perfect! A “good” book is enjoyable, useful, readable and publishable.

Key Takeaway: Don’t take your editor’s constructive criticism personally. You have the same end goal: a good book!

7. Impersonate a Certain Disney Princess 

Time to just Let it Go.

Send your draft off to your editor and celebrate. Put up your feet and queue up your Netflix binge. You’ve certainly earned it!

By the time you’re done with your own revisions and have added and subtracted material, your editorial return time shouldn’t take more than a week—or two, max. 

Key Takeaway: Just get your draft into the hands of your editor! Let them worry now. You’ve done the heavy lifting.

It’s easy to get bogged down in perfection, and it’s tempting to hold on tightly to your work. It can be a natural reaction to pouring your heart and soul into your dreams. But the quicker you can move your first draft through to the editing phase, the sooner you’ll achieve your dream of a published book.

Like what you read and want to learn more? We’re holding a FREE online workshop where Chandler is revealing the exact tactics and strategies he used to write and publish 6 bestselling books in a row… and use them to build a 7-figure business in less than 2 years. Click here to save your spot now!

There are many benefits to self-publishing your book versus a traditional publishing deal. One aspect in favor of self-publishing is the control you have over all aspects of your finished manuscript—including book formatting.

However, one downfall of the self-published author is a messy manuscript. Your book’s formatting is a crucial part of your readers’ experience. An unprofessional looking book layout will both distract readers—and make you look like an amateur. You want your completed self-published book to convey professionalism in all aspects.

The 5 Most Common Book Formatting Errors

In this article, you’re going to learn what the most common book formatting errors are and how to avoid them. If you’ve got a completed manuscript with botched formatting on your hands, this article will teach you how to fix it using Microsoft Word.

1. Just Say “No!” to Hard Indents

A hard indent is when paragraph indentations are created by manual use of the keyboard’s Tab key. Many of us learned how to type using the Tab key to create an indent at the start of each paragraph, so this can be a tough habit to break. When it comes to book formatting, use of the Tab key is a no-no, because it results in an indent that’s far larger than you need.

When it comes to writing fiction, you want to have just a small indent at the start of each paragraph. If your book is non-fiction, generally speaking, you want to use block paragraphs rather than indents, unless your book is a memoir or historical fiction. (More on that in tip #2.)

If your book is fiction, you may be wondering how to create paragraphs without the Tab key. The fix is simple: In Microsoft Word, set the Paragraph settings to automatically create indentations for the first line in each paragraph. This simple auto fix will make your book formatting process way easier.

If you’re wondering how big to make your indents, my advice is pull your favorite book off the shelf, open it up, and take a peek. How big are the paragraph indents? Experiment with making yours larger or smaller, printing out the page, and comparing them to the book in your hand.

But what if your 535-page tome has already been drafted, using the dreaded Tab key for each and every paragraph? No need to set fire to your laptop! Here’s what to do to clean it up:

• Use the Find and Replace
• Enter ^t in the Find (This will help you find every “Tab” in the document.)
• Leave the Replace field blank.
• Hit Replace All.

Going forward, set your Paragraph settings so that you don’t have to remove hard indents again. Presto! You now have a much prettier, easier-to-convert document through the magic of technology.

2. Choose Carefully: Indentation vs. Block Paragraphs

Works of non-fiction today typically don’t use indentation, except for some notable exceptions we will discuss momentarily. Rather, a popular format for modern non-fiction books is the block paragraph.

What’s a block paragraph? A block paragraph doesn’t have indentation on the opening line, but instead uses a horizontal line of white space beneath each paragraph. This helps to delineate separation between paragraphs.

The reasoning behind whether you should use indentation vs. block paragraphs is this: in works where one thought should flow smoothly into the next, such as in a novel, paragraph indentations are used with no line spacing between paragraphs. In books where complicated information is being consumed, having a single line space between paragraphs aids the brain in processing one piece of information before moving on to the next.

An exception to the block paragraph for non-fiction / indents for fiction guideline: non-fiction narrative, such as a memoir or historical fiction, should use the same indent style described above in tip #1.

In non-fiction works where some information should flow, and other sections require more brain power to comprehend, some authors decide to mix formatting types and use indentation where appropriate and block paragraphs where useful. But in general, to avoid confusing the reader and to make your book look uniform, clean, and as if you didn’t make a book formatting error, it’s best to choose one style or the other and stick with it throughout your book.

However, if you insist on getting crazy and mixing it up, knowing how and when to use block paragraphs versus when to indent results in a more professional manuscript. 

3. Avoid Double Spaces After Periods

Here’s the truth: Two spaces after a period is wrong. Period. (Ha!)

Just as with the good old-fashioned Tab key indent, two spaces after a period may have been the norm back when you were learning to type. This is because with typewriters, characters were all the same width, so the two-space rule allowed for greater readability. With modern computer fonts, the characters all fit closer together in proportional fashion, thereby eradicating the need for that one additional space.

Most major style guides—including the Chicago Manual of Style, which is used by traditional publishers—now formally recognize the more modern single-space rule. From an aesthetics angle, one space looks neater, which your readers’ eyes will appreciate.

Before you convert your manuscript, change all double spaces to single spaces. The result will be a better formatted, stylistically correct book. You’re going to use that super handy “Find and Replace” function again:

• Enter two spaces in the Find (This will help you find every double space in the document.)
• Enter a single space into the Replace field.
• Hit Replace All.

Voila! Like magic. 

4. Be Cautious With Hyphens

Improper hyphenation is a common error that may be harder to stay on top of because the rules of hyphenation differ depending on the grammatical situation. Generally, keep these three rules in mind while you write to stay on top of your hyphens:

• Two or more words that, together, function as an adjective are joined with a hyphen. For example, dark-pink skirt or two-way street.
• Two words or more that form a number are joined with a hyphen. For example, twenty-one.
• Compound words, which are two words that are joined together to make a single word, do not require a hyphen. For example, toothbrush or starfish.

When in doubt, look it up! For a more detailed treatment of the hyphen, here is an important source to consider: Elements of Style.

5. Know When to Use Quotes vs. an Apostrophe

Few things scream “new writer” like punctuation errors. You want to make sure you’re using quotes and apostrophes correctly so you don’t lose credibility with your readers. Here are a few quick rules of thumb:

Use of Quotes 

• When you’re quoting someone, use quotes! This means either a person is speaking—like in fiction—or you are borrowing material verbatim from another source, like in non-fiction.
• Use of quotes is rarely needed for common expressions.
• Ironic terms can be set off in quotes.
• Overuse of quotes can get annoying, so be judicious in their application.

Use of Apostrophes

• Use an apostrophe for possessive form (except the word its). For example: The cat’s toys are blue.
• Use an apostrophe for contractions, such as it is. For example: The cat’s playing with its toys. It’s a happy cat.
• Avoid using an apostrophe for plural forms. For example: Five cats ran past her.

Again, the rules can be complicated such as when to use an apostrophe when dealing with an acronym, so when in doubt, look it up.

Conclusion

Of course you want your book to stand out because of its invaluable content and amazing writing. Don’t let book formatting or grammar errors hamper your book’s success. You have all the tools you need to produce a flawless manuscript, so take the time to review your book—and hire an editor—to make sure your book formatting is perfectly professional.

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