This Monday marks the first week since my book has been published.

It has been a wild ride. But ultimately, things have been going better than I expected. (I CAN’T BELIEVE I HIT A TOP SOMETHING CHART. I MEAN, IT WAS FREE, BUT STILL).

Maybe it was because some of my earlier research paid off, maybe because I was lucky. But one thing is for sure: there are still things that I wished I knew or thought of looking up before I went through this process.

I’m not a pro at this (heck, I wish I was!) and I’m hardly in the position to advise anyone anything. But experience is the greatest of all teachers, and it only cost me time to type this. Read on if you’d like my 2 cents.

1. Be More Organized

I’ve got a spreadsheet for everything that needs lists in my life. Budgets, workout regimens, you name it, I got it. And for publishing, it was no different. But what I didn’t have was a list of things I needed before I got even started — and no, I don’t mean editors and proofreaders. I’m talking about the background stuff, the stage production stuff. Here’s what I ended up requiring just to push out one book. (PLEASE NOTE: THE FOLLOWING LIST APPLIES TO THE U.S. ONLY. PLEASE REFER TO YOUR OWN COUNTRY’S TAX LAWS AND REGISTRATION REQUIREMENTS).

• Finances: Business Tax ID, Business Checking Account, Business Debit/Credit Card (and quite possibly, a visit to the county clerk/registrar to register your pen name as a DBA!).
  • If you plan on filing taxes like a business, you will need proof for (at least, the U.S. government) that your writing isn’t a hobby business but it will help your case immensely if you have everything already from the get go. Note that getting all this stuff together will take you a week or two, mostly because of the waiting period. Even longer if you want to register that pen name. And before you say, “I’m not going to need that, I’m just going to publish my book.” Well, if you want to advertise, yeah. You probably should set that stuff apart from your personal expenses.
• Technical stuff: ISBNs (specifically that $575 100-pack from Bowker):
  • Sure, if you plan on publishing only on Amazon, you don’t need this. But your work will look a lot more professional with one. (Sorry to say, that’s just the rules of this game). You’ll need 3-5 per title if you plan to publish wide. Hardbacks, paperbacks, .EPUBs, .PDFs, and .MOBIs all need a separate one! So if you can afford it, and if you plan on making writing a career, get that bundle. That 10-pack is a trap!
• Marketing Platforms: e.g. BookFunnel, StoryOrigin.
  • I liked BookFunnel more and yes, I paid for it. Yes. I absolutely think they are worth it. Just the promotions section alone is worth the money. You can be spending a lot more money for much less output. Speaking of marketing, you might need tools, to hire other people, or just plain spending money for ads on various sites. This is at your own discretion.
• Books: Your favorites only please!
  • Get a few examples out from your library both physical and digital. They will be visual examples of things that you never had to think about before: the dimensions of your book, its page count, the formatting of the text inside, even the color of the paper (cream for fiction). Heck, I couldn’t even remember the last time I remembered paperback pages had a header: the author’s name and the title of the book alternating between pages. And it was pretty common practice.

2. Start Production Early

Your book might have a launch date but preparation begins much, much earlier. if you want a successful launch.

Say, maybe 2 to 3 months. Yeah. Your book has to be finished by then. Cover, formatting, text, all done and ready to go.

That would be a healthy amount of time (and much less than what I had to work with). You’ll need to find your own promoters to get your work noticed out there in the big blue sea. Email book bloggers, reviewers, sign up for ARC sites like BookSprout, BookSirens, and Voracious Readers Only. Yes, some of these sites will not be targeting your audience (the first two have a reputation for being very good for romance authors, for instance), and some of them (I’m looking at you, Hidden Gem) require a reservation made months AND months in advance, but when your books is new and vulnerable, every review and rating counts!

(Plus, reading those reviews might give you the push you need to work on your next title!)

3. Budget Yourself More Time in Between

And I mean in between everything.

This started in the summer of 2019, while I was in the middle of the editing process. (For those reading this post late, this is March 2020). I was booking my editors back to back to back trying to anchor this publication date for myself. Yes, it was a self-imposed deadline, but that’s how I do my best work.

I found myself scrambling in between every one of those editors. Those were some incredibly busy months after I received my work back.

Publishing was exactly that sort of stress but in a microcosm.

In my own experience, there’s not much back-and-forth between an editor and me. 90% of the time, my editor is right and I’m wrong. The most correspondence I’ll have will be with my developmental editor, and that is one massive email. But graphics and its design are a whole other animal. Cover art needs a week or two, as does formatting, especially if you have no idea what you’re looking for and are just relying on your gut.

(Remember those books? Yeah. Remember they’re 3-D).

But also, be aware for the time you’ll need for publishing. It takes a few hours for your book to come online for purchase on any platform — something that might take days for other retailers. If you need to make changes, even pricing changes, your book has to go through the process again. And just like publishing, delisting your title also takes time — even more, in some horror stories.

Speaking of which, that leads to the age old question:

4. To Go Wide or Not Go Wide

Sorry to disappoint, but — don’t ask me. I’m still figuring that out for myself.

But what I wish I did was give myself room and time to decide.

Let me back up: I had intended to go wide at the onset of publishing between Amazon and Draft2Digital. The morning of publishing day, I slapped my books on just as the sites taught me to. (Mistake! You ought to publish it the night before!)

But over the weekend I had a change of heart. A promotion taught me most of my audience had a Kindle.

See the problem yet?

The Kindle Select Program is notorious for its exclusivity clause. Not following the rules can ban your titles for a year, if not forever.

So here I am, sitting on my hands for whatever number of days until my book is delisted from everything.

My advice: if you want to go wide, and know it to be true, go wide only with retailers that won’t take forever delisting your book in case you want to change your mind. AKA don’t publish to the libraries. They can take up to a month to delist!

5. Double Check Everything

No, I’m not talking about your manuscript.

I mean your registration.

Make sure you’re using the right ISBN for the registration, if you’re using one. If you have multiple blurbs, make sure you’re using the right version. Upload the final version of files. Double check your book description’s formatting. Mine glitched and I spent hours trying to fix it, only to be told that you can format it right from the get go using some basic HTML coding.

I had to toy with it, but I eventually got it. But did you know there’s a generator for that?

Yeah. Google everything. Don’t be like me.

So that’s everything I’ve experienced in the last month or so, in a nutshell. If you have any other tips to share for a successful book launch, let me know in the comments below!