Get Ready to Have Your Book Published for the World to Read
Do you want to get a book published? Congratulations, that’s an amazing goal and I have high hopes for your success! The publishing world is not what it used to be in the days of Dickens or even the start of Stephen King and J.K. Rowling.
The past few years have seen drastic changes to the ways of publishers and the potential of self-publishing success. It’s an exciting time for publishing a book.
But what if you are still writing your novel, novella, or book of short stories and are nowhere close to stepping into the dark, unknown waters of the publishing realm? Should you be even thinking about preparing to get your book published?
Yes!
In fact, you are in the perfect place to start implementing steps to give you a head start on the publishing process. When you are still writing your story is the best time to get a jump on the publishing world, build up your connections, and start your author platform.
So take a deep breath, because this blogpost was written for you : )
I’ll be walking through six ways you can begin building up your skills, connections, and author platform in preparation for getting your book published. But first, a quick review on what an author platform is.
How do Author Platforms Help to Get Your Book Published?
Whether you are considering self-publishing or traditional publishing, an author platform is highly recommended, if not essential, to your publishing success. Simply put, an author platform is the home base for your work, a place where people can find you, and the foundation on which you can build your readership.
The most common and wide-reaching way to create an author platform today is with a website. From this starting point you can add a mailing list, outlets for reaching people and bringing them back to your site, and eventually an audience you can present your published book to.
There are different resources and tools you can use to build your platform and express your creativity through. Once you get going, it can be a fun adventure connecting with strangers and trying new mediums of communication.
Why it’s important to have an author platform is it proves to publishers that you have an established audience already, and for self-publishing it means you already have an audience you can directly sell your book to.
One misconception is that if you are going to traditional publish you don’t need to do all the platform and even social media marketing. Nowadays it doesn’t matter If you are traditional or self-publishing, you need to do the website, social media, and that kind of work yourself. So an author platform is a valuable asset to have before you go looking for a publisher or begin self-publishing.
Now, onto the steps you can take to prepare for getting your book published.
31 creative writing prompts to challenge you to pursue fiction writing every day—even if only for ten minutes.
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1. Start a Website and Blog
As I said above, a website is a great foundation for our author platforms. The internet is a powerful tool for writers, and to be a professional on the internet we need a website to produce content and a place to send people we meet online and offline to look at our work. Think of your website as the home for all the work you’ll do in the future.
Now there is over a billion websites in the world right now, and most of them we will never visit. So, how do we get our websites noticed by potential readers with all this noise? There are a lot of answers to this question, but one of the simplest is to start a blog.
Having a blog page on your website is a really handy tool to consider. For one, you can create fresh content to share with readers and build up interest in your work. Plus, search engines love a website that produces new content every few weeks, so a blog is a great tool to achieve both of these goals.
But how can saturating the internet with even more content help you prepare to get your book published?
1. We create bomb content people will love and want to share.
2. We share that content on other websites and on social media for others to see, and then lead them back to our website.
There is a lot more I could go into, but that is for later blog posts. Right now all you need to understand is having a website and blog is an extremely powerful yet simple tool to use, and you can start today for little cost.
To answer your questions about starting a website and blogging as a fiction writer, I’ll drop a couple great related blog post below for you to check out.
Related: “7 Insanely Helpful Blogposts for Beginner Bloggers”
Related: “Author Website: Examples, Templates, and How-To Build One” by Tim Grahl.
2. Email List
The blog content you share on the internet should bring traffic (readers) back to your website where they can get to know you and your work better.
When a reader really likes your writing and what you’re all about, you will want an email list which they can subscribe to. An email list allows one-on-one communication between you and your ideal reader. When a reader subscribes, you can build a relationship with them by contacting them directly through their inbox, and give them exclusive updates, news, encouragement, inspiration, and helpful information.
How cool is that?
Email lists are one of the biggest assets writers can have in today’s world of publishing, so the sooner you can get that list up and running, the better.
You’ll want to email your subscribers at least monthly, but bi-weekly or weekly is even better as you can build your relationship with your subscribers faster and they won’t forget about you between each email.
Related: “A Step-by-Step Plan to Grow Your Email List When You’re Starting From Zero” by Melyssa Griffin.
3. Social Media
As previously stated, whichever route in publishing you choose to take, you need to build an audience and promote your work to it. While an email list is going to be the core of your readership, social media is a fantastic tool to reach new readers and bring them back to your site. Then, if they are the right people, they will sign up to your email list and down the road be a fan of your published book.
Now you don’t need to make accounts on every social media outlet, especially when you are starting out. I’d suggest choosing 2-3 social media platforms to start, and switch to or create business accounts or an official page for sharing your work with the world.
On social media we want to be professional with what we post, but we can have fun being ourselves, meeting great people, and making a difference in people’s lives.
4. Start Getting Published
Even if you’re not ready for publishing a book, that doesn’t mean you can’t publish smaller works. Your blog posts are a great start, but you can expand your reach even farther.
Guest posting is a great way to get your name out into the world and find more readers who would love your newsletter.
A another option is submitting short stories to online or physical publications. Getting your fiction into the world in a shorter form is great practice and looks good on your list of writing experience + expertise.
Submitting to writing contests is another fabulous opportunity for publishing. Many writing contests will publish at least the winning story, if not all the entries. Some writing contests offer judge’s feedback as well, a great way to get an objective view on your storytelling.
Related: “6 Benefits Writers Can Reap From Entering Writing Contests (beyond winning)”
5. Connect with Peers and Influencers
Along with connecting with your readers, you will want to get to know your peers and influencers (those ahead of you in the process). Look at the community around you and the community you have found on social media.
Now, make a list of ten peers and ten influencers you admire and would like to get to know, and start following them. Next you can like and comment on their posts, email them about how their work has helped you, and collaborate with peers on guest posting and other projects. There are endless ways you can connect with amazing people all over the world, so get out of your comfort zone and introduce yourself.
While interacting with these people, we don’t want to sound like creepers, be unprofessional, or act like leaches, right?
Respect who you are addressing, and be sure you give more than you ask for, if you ask for anything. Give their work praise. Email them a story of how they’ve helped you. Review their books and promote their wonderful work. Give, give, and give. But not because you want to butter them up, but because you admire them and their work.
6. Find a Critique Partner
Writing is an activity often best done alone, but before you hand off your work to an agent or begin self-publishing, you need to get honest feedback on your book. Find a critique partner or writing group, people you can trust and respect to give you good criticism, and let them read your manuscript.
This feedback is an amazing asset. Every week I have a facetime call with a fellow writer and friend, and we will read each other a scene from our books, bounce ideas off each other, and encourage one another in our writing goals. The feedback I receive is encouraging yet constructive, and I am so grateful for my critique partner.
Getting at least one other opinion on your writing is important before sending off your book to be published.
Prepare Today to Get Your Book Published Tomorrow
There you have it: six ways you can prepare for getting your book published starting today! These steps aren’t that hard, but they will take a little courage to push the boundaries of where you feel comfortable.
Now get crackin’ on building up your platform and connecting with readers and writers.
Good luck!
— Sarah
Feature Photo: By Sharon McCutcheon from Pexels
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S.J. Siedenburg is a thriller & fantasy novelist, an editor, and a bibliophile with a passion for stories and helping writers finish their novels. She’s the author of the guidebooks Character Presentation, Before the First Draft, and the How to Write a Novel online course. Six of her short stories have been published through writing contests. Sarah lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and their Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” —John 1:5