How to Self-Publish Your Own Book - Don't Wait for an Agent to Publish Your Book

I had recently stated in a forum that I had self-published my first completed novel back at the beginning of January 2011. Some fellow hubbers were interested to know the process I went about in self-publishing my own work. Hopefully, this hub will serve as a guide in the self-publishing process for yourself, but be warned I am no professional at this. I am just in the beginning phases of all of the publishing technicalities myself, so I in no way market myself as a pro at this. So, now you're warned...

First of all, I just wrote my story for over a year, really just for fun. I had no idea I would actually finish anything, but it all came together rather nicely in the end. Towards the end, I realized I wanted to have it published and I didn't want to wait for an agent to pick me up because I already had family members interested in reading my work right away. So, I actually came across a site called www.createspace.com which is in connection with www.amazon.com. When you go to the homepage of Amazon, at the bottom of the page there is a section that says something like 'Publish with Us' and that's where I found out about Createspace.

Basically, you go on the site, set-up an account, and follow the steps to creating your own published work. The only trouble I ran into was copying and pasting my work into one of their templates. I suggest before you start writing and if you know you plan on self-publishing through Createspace that you go ahead and download one of the sites templates and start writing in it because it takes up a lot of time trying to get everything right after you've already completed your novel in another format.

On the site, everything is free as far as the templates you use for the inside of your book, the front cover and the back cover. The site does offer some paid advice, but I didn't really believe it was needed. Everything is pretty self-explanatory.

In the end, the only thing you pay for is your proof. Once you have decided on how your finished novel should look when published, the company will send a proof for you to look it over and see if you like it. My proof only cost me a little over $10, so rather cheap. Once you receive your proof, you should read it through and mark any corrections you want to make. If everything looks great, then you can go ahead and let the site know your book is ready to be sold. Personally, I had them send me another proof because I found I needed to make more corrections. There are a lot of things you miss while working on a computer screen as compared to reading your work in the palm of your hands.

Now, that you like your finished published work, it's time to sell. There are a few different options which the site explains thoroughly. You automatically get your own createspace site that features your book. Customers can go to your website and purchase your book from createspace.com. This is how you make the most money. You can also have your book listed on amazon.com with a reduced percentage to yourself, but not by much. I found it easier to refer people to amazon then to my createspace site.

Promotion of your self-published work is really up to you. I suggest sending out your createspace site featuring your book on your social networking sites like facebook, myspace, hubpages, etc. so people you know will know you self-published a book! This is how I made my first few sales. The createspace website does offer some marketing tools that come at a price such as business cards and promotional letters. I made my own business cards. You can also pay a hefty price to have someone read and write up a review for you work that you could disperse to online marketing sites or to your local newspapers. Like I said, the price is steep, and there's a disclaimer about it - the reviewer is allowed to write a bad review about your book and you still have to pay for it. I wasn't willing to take the chance with that one.

So, promotion of my book has really been on my own finding ways that are free like posting a few chapters on hubpages to spark an interest.

If you are willing to pay the price, there is a site that came my way rather recently which will promote your book online by sending out promotional emails to users interested in receiving such emails. The site is www.bookwhirl.com which specializes in book advertising and marketing.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. I love to help fellow self-publishers!