You ever want to write a book?I often find that girl bosses have beyond extraordinary stories to tell but in their minds writing a book is a far fetched intangible goal. Many of the women I encounter can't begin to think about how they would even start the process. In an effort to help girl bosses have their stories transformed into an actual body of work, I wanted to share with you how I have published my books. This way you can see that the process isn't as hard or pricey as you may think. Better yet, help you jump right into creating a new 2019 goal for yourself... Write and Publish your first book! Map out your thoughtsIn order for you to be able to make sure that you are writing a book that flows well from beginning to end, mapping out your thoughts by story boarding will help you do two things: 1. Identify the objective of your book 2.The flow per chapter from beginning to end . This is something that I do before I begin writing. It helps me to know how to go about writing chapters and allows me to make sure I'm sticking to the topic. Trust me when writing 150 pages you can get lost in your words. Having something to keep you on track and on topic is necessary for you my fab future author. Create a Writing ScheduleI had a writing challenge for the members of Prestige Society and our goal was to write a book in 90 days where we aimed to write 444 words a day. On the days where you felt like writing more you just went for it. That way, on the days where you just didn't feel like writing at all, you had a buffer and you were able to stay on track. Create a writing schedule that works for you. There are plenty of suggestions out there. Just Google, "Write a book in x amount of days" and you will see plenty of sites that will provide insight on how many words you should write a day to meet your goal. Find a self publisherSelf publishing is one of the easiest things to do. What I have found in using different publishers is the following: KDP Publishing has the lowest price for purchasing your book which means resale and commissions are great! A book with 150-200 pages may cost me 2.14 to purchase that will sell for about 20.00 in retail. No hardcover option paperback covers and ebook options only. Formatting can be beast so be sure to use their document templates to make it easier for you to get through the review process. Lulu makes self publishing BEYOND EASY. The turn around time for you to get access to your proof is literally in minutes not the 72 hour timeframe that KDP has. But nonetheless let's talk quality. I first published my Boss Academy planner with Lulu paperback and two things happened, color paper only came in gloss so pen would smudge very easily and as I would use the planner, the pages would literally fall right out of the binding! I couldn't believe it and realized from their online community that EVERYONE was having this problem EXCEPT for the hardcovers! If you are looking for a hardcover for your book, then Lulu is the best option for you but the pricing is more expensive. Remember if it costs you more to make then you are going to charge your customer more and what you are charging should be comparable to other books in your market. You can't sell a self help book for 40 dollars if everyone else is charging half that amount! When I purchase directly from Lulu the hardcover black and white 6x9 book costs me $17.00 to publish including shipping opposed to the $2.14 for the paperback at KDP. Book Baby is also a full service self publishing company including cover design services as well as publishing and marketing services. I have not used them so I can't speak to their quality but what I do know is that the cost of one book being published was extremely higher than the other two companies mentioned. The more books you print the lower the price per book. But if you are an author just getting started you may not want to put out as much capital for your work of art. 1 book purchased will cost you 71.00 for a 6x9 paperback but if you buy 100 the total cost will be $629.77 including shipping. As a result, if you deal with book baby it would be best to buy in bulk opposed to on demand printing. No matter who you go with, just know that all you have to do is upload your .pdf file for your book's content and have some fun creating a cover in Canva. Each company will give you the specs necessary to create clear files for printing. Don't just sell, speak!With self-publishing being a game where ERRRRBODY can be a player, you can't just create your book and think that you are going to end up killing the game as an author. If you use marketing companies to help you get placement that's one thing, but if you have a limited budget and you want to focus on organic growth, then you have to put in some WERK! Here is my word of advice to you. Please do not just vend with your book and think you are going to leave from an event racking up the dollars. On the contrary, people buy books from you at events if you speak and share your story. When I first wrote Rock Your Life, I learned the hard way that if I just was a vendor I would sell very few books. Heck there are times I remember not selling a book at all. But if I spoke... BABY that line would be sooo long and I would sell out every time!
Speak, create a book tour where you talk about your book, have a book launch party where you read pieces of your book. People need to hear from you and allow them to want to learn more . And that more is within the pages of your book. I hope that this gives you the courage and the information to start taking the steps necessary towards telling your story and writing your first book! Get to writing bosses!!! You have a story to tell that is going to bless someone's life!
1 Comment
Candice Valentine
2/9/2019 10:10:15 pm
thank you for you motivation and website
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AuthorNicole Doss is a mother, speaker, author, founder, and CEO of the Prestige Society and Girl Guess What is a compilation of thoughts ideas, and ah-ha moments all curated in one space for the girl boss! Read, have fun, and add a comment if you like! Archives
June 2020
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