How to self-publish your books
Hello, and welcome!
Today, I’m going to show you how you can bring your books to life by self-publishing them.
When you self-publish your book, you use your own resources to have your book published. You can format the manuscript yourself or have it formatted by someone else. You can also create the cover image on your own or you can hire a professional designer.
However, this comes at a cost of course in terms of time and money and sometimes mental health.
So far, we have self-published the following titles on this website
- Salt No More: This is an English novel that is set in Malawi. It is about a proud and once-powerful man who has to deal with a family scandal involving his two daughters and a son-in-law.
- A2 Short Stories in English (Vol. 1), Beginner Level: This is a collection of ten short stories. They are very easy to read and understand. One of the short stories is called “When Lions Come to Town“.
- The Departure Lounge: This is an advanced short story about a girl who is at the airport. She is going to France after spending some time in her home village in Malawi. However, something happens at the airport and the girl has to muster all her courage to deal with that situation.
- The Pinnacle of Irresponsibility: The main character of this advanced short story is Lawrence Gondwe. He is middle-aged and lives a somehow comfortable life. However, he dos not like to talk about his past. One day, his life changes when a badly-beaten teenager is found in his compound. Who is this boy? What does he want from him?
- The Perfect Present: Learn more about the present perfect tense with this advanced short story. It is about an immigrant couple. The wife has given a present to her husband on Valentine’s day but he does not want it. What will happen next?
Step 1 (How to Self-Publish your Books): 6 Golden Rules
I have prepared 6 tips that will help you avoid the mistakes I did and save you a lot of time.
- Polish your work so that it reaches publication standards. Have it read by at least three different people with excellent analytical and language skills. You can pay for this service or simply ask friends or relatives. Many people will be willing to help you. However, do not waste too much time on this. At some point, you need to let go and start looking for ways to publish your book. It took me nine years to publish my first book!
- Outsource your work as soon as you can. I currently work with youtbooks.com. They are very efficient, reliable and highly experienced. Their pricing is fair and you will be able to get a beautiful product in a minimum amount of time. They will give you precious advice regarding how the industry works and you will really, really save a lot of time because they know the industry better than you or I. You can also work with a team of graphic designers. They will do a much better job than you in a faster period of time.
- Before you contact professionals, make sure you have taken care of the basics: formatting your manuscript with Microsoft word and having a general yet specific idea of how you want your book cover to look like. Canva offers free access to many types of book covers. You can also look at the covers of your favourite authors’ books and get inspired. Study all those covers very well so that you can know what to say to your cover designer.
- Know publishing terminology so that you will speak the same language with the person who is going to format your book or design your cover. You have to understand words such as ‘trim size’ or know the difference between ‘ePub’ or Kindle format. In a nutshell, study the industry so you know what you are getting yourself into.
- Use Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing to print and sell your e-books and paperbacks. Their platform is huge and your books are available worldwide. You just upload your manuscript and book cover and they take care of everything for you.
- Learn how to solve problems as soon as they arise (working relationships, book formatting, cover design, etc). It is important that you respect the person who is working with you and vice-versa. Be honest and accountable and do not hesitate to take initiatives.
If you cannot outsource your work, below are several tools that you can use in order to create your book cover or format your manuscript.
The examples below were done by professionals (youtbooks.com). These covers show you what the final product can look like.
Step 2 (How to Self-Publish your Books): Tools for Creating your E-book or Paperback
Cover Design
You can create a free account with Canva and use one of their templates to create your design. You can also express your creativity by creating a new cover from scratch. This platform offers many creative possibilities, so you can definitely give it a try.
You may also want to try PowerPoint. This tool is easy to use as well and you will have fun creating your first cover.
If you want to use the Amazon KDP platform, you can use Cover Creator within the platform. However, it is not that easy to use and the results are not very satisfactory. On top of that, the templates that they provide are not very appealing.
Remember that with paperbacks, you need to create both the front and back covers.
Paperbacks
You can format your manuscript using Microsoft word of course. Amazon KDP provides excellent templates for different book sizes. These templates are either blank (with no content) or filled with sample content. You can change the font and the way the pages look in general but Amazon will already have done the basic formatting for you.
E-books
There are two detailed tutorials here and here that show you how to create an e-book using Canva. I think that this is the easiest way to format an e-book because of the many templates that are readily available on this popular platform.
You can also format your e-book using Kindle Create if you are planning to sell on Amazon. It is really simple to use and you can also watch a few YouTube tutorials to get you started if you need extra help. If you have specific questions regarding how Amazon KDP works, you can ask them here. In this space, you will find solutions to many of the problems that you will encounter as you create your book.
It is equally possible to use PowerPoint to make your e-book. Look at this great tutorial here which shows you how to do that.
I hope you found this information useful. If you have any questions, you can ask them in the comments section below.
Good luck with your future project!
Further Exploration:
Download worksheets:
Read:
Watch: How to Self-Publish Your Books (Tips)
Shop:
About the Author
Thandi Ngwira Gatignol is the founder of Learn English With Africa. She was born on June 11th, 1981 in Blantyre, Malawi. When she was 19, she left her country of birth for France. She currently lives with her two daughters and husband in Poland.
Thandi holds a Bachelor’s degree in English studies obtained at the Université Paris X Nanterre in France and a Certificate in Journalism from Malawi. She has taught English as a French Ministry of Education certified teacher both in France and in Poland. She speaks six languages fluently, including French, Polish and Italian. She is now learning Kiswahili, German and Spanish. Salt No More is her debut novel and you can find her other books here on the website or on Amazon.
Course Title: How To Self-Publish Your Books Today (6 Golden Rules) Level B1-B2© Learn English With Africa, April 2021
2 Responses
Thanks for the great comments about our YouTbooks as well as the detailed information for the self-publishing authors.
We look forward to working with you on more projects going forward.
Our intention is to help self-publishing authors get their book into live at an affordable cost.
Thank you very much for the feedback. It is always a pleasure working with you. Looking forward to the next project as well:)