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Publishing An Ebook In Just Few, Simple And Easy Steps

October 7, 2019
3:12 am

Learning how to publish an ebook can be pretty painful without the right guide, and with so much information out there on how to be a successful self-published author, the confusion gets even bigger. This article therefore aims at bringing you a well detailed, easy and step by step guide on how to publish an ebook, taking full advantage of kindle direct publishing, Amazon publishing, and other forms of self-publishing at your disposal.

Why write an ebook?

The ever-rising trend of ebooks should be more than enough of a reason to write and publish your own ebook but if you’re not quite sold, we’ll break it down a bit further.

Here are the benefits of an ebook:

In 2018, ebook sales are projected to account for about one-quarter of global book sales.
Ebooks sell easier online
Ebooks can be used to grow your business more so than physical books
You make a bigger profit from ebooks
You can grow your blog and its income
Passive income
You help promote the green world project and save trees
You can embed links directly to your site and products you sell
They’re cheaper to produce

Many authors choose to sell both physical copies and ebooks when they write a book but you can easily sell only ebooks and reap all of the benefits above.

Now that you know the why, let’s talk about how to publish an ebook.

How to publish an Ebook on Amazon

Amazon is the biggest retailer online and with the world of book-buying migrating and settling on the internet, Amazon is the best place to publish.

Here’s how you can publish an ebook on Amazon with Kindle Direct Publishing.

#1 – Write a book worth buying

There’s no point in publishing a book that’s not your best work. But if you’re not much of a writer or have no idea how to write a book in the first place, that can make this entire process much more daunting.

In order to write a great ebook to sell on Amazon or even on your own website, you first have to pick a book idea that you’re passionate about. Remember, you’ll be writing up to and even more than 25,000 words so you want to make sure you have a topic you know a lot about and love.

Here are the overall steps for writing a book and getting it ready for publication:

Choose an idea
Come up with a good book title and subtitle
Create your mind map
Write a thorough outline from your mind map
Schedule your writing time and get your book done!
Thoroughly self-edit
Hire an editor to ensure perfection
Hire a book cover design artist to bring your book to life

This might seem overwhelming but I promise, it’s not. It looks onerous until you have decided to start.

#2 – Create your Amazon KDP account

Learning how to publish an ebook means navigating the online space in a way you may not be familiar with, like using Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing to get your ebook out into the world.

Setting up your KDP account is actually really easy.

Here’s all you have to do:

Visit https://kdp.amazon.com and create an account. You can either use your existing Amazon account or a different email address.
Set up all your tax information. You can’t submit your published ebook unless you have all of these steps completed.
Once your tax information is all filled in, hit “Finished” and you’re all done.

#3 – Format the ebook properly

Book formatting is really, really important. If you just upload your manuscript as is, you’ll run into a number of different problems.

And this is awful because with the “Look Inside” feature Amazon offers, anyone can see the formatting of your book right away.

If it’s bad and difficult to read, they’ll avoid buying your ebook and your sales will tank.

Most people hire a professional to format their book to ensure everything looks great.

#4 – Upload your ebook to KDP account

This is a very simple step for publishing an ebook. All you really have to do is “plug and chug,” as they say.

You have all of the information you need and now it’s just about uploading your formatted manuscript to your KDP account and filling in the information you need to.

That means you’ll need to fill out the title, subtitle, and description.

Now, you really don’t want to write a boring “filler” description. After the cover, this is the single most important part of publishing an ebook.

If people aren’t sucked in by your description, they won’t buy your book.

#5 – Choose a launch date

Believe it or not, there are actually good and bad days to launch your book. Typically speaking, the winter holiday season is the worst time to publish a book simply because the advertising market will be supersaturated.

Everyone is putting their best ads forward so they can reap the rewards of those holiday spending dollars.

And although this might seem like the perfect time to launch, it’s actually one of the worst.

Your book can easily become lost in the hype of literally every other book and product marketed during that time.

If you want to launch a book during the best possible time for its sales, use this guide below:

Month to Launch	Good For	Bad For
January	Self-help, goal setting, inspirational/motivational	Summer-focused reads, fiction
February	Love, romance, poetry	Fiction, recipe books
March	Baseball books, sports, spring, women’s books	Self-help, holiday
April	Religious, Easter, memoirs, World War II, Fiction	Love/romance, winter/holiday
May	Summer reads, fiction, history, parenting	Romance/love, self-help
June	Contemporary fiction, fatherhood/parenthood	Diet/exercise, romance
July/August	Fiction, heavier reading materials	Holiday, self-help
September	History, politics, memoirs, school, college	Fiction, romance/love
October	Mysteries, horror, thrillers, dark nonfiction	Love/romance, happily-ever-afters, self-help
November	Cookbooks, holidays, religion, children’s books	Self-help, romance/love
December	Generally avoid launching during heavy buy/ad months	Most books

#6 – Put together your launch team

This is such an important step when it comes to self-publishing an ebook. What you really need is a great group of people who can help launch your book to heights you wouldn’t reach otherwise.

Your launch team should be composed of people who:

Love your book
Want to help you
Are very enthusiastic about your book
Have some sort of following or online presence
Are fans of you and your work

Since you’re trusting these people to help get the word out, make sure they’re all committed. A great way to do that is to have an online application form that each person has to fill out.

This will help narrow down those who are serious about helping you and will put in the time and effort to do so.

#7 – Build hype for your ebook on your website or blog

Many who publish ebooks usually have a website or blog they can use to drive traffic to it. Not only that, but some actually use the ebook as a lead magnet and even the main source of income on their site.

And publishing a book – even just an ebook – can do wonders for growing your online business as well.

What you have to do before your launch is to build interest in the ebook.

Here’s how you can build hype for publishing your ebook:

Link to your book within blog posts
Create blog posts related to the topic of your book
Create graphics for your book and place in your sidebar and within blog posts
Create a graphic to use on the front page of your website
Create an email sequence to sell your book (this is for those more advanced with a larger email list)
Continuously look for ways to integrate your book into blog post ideas and on social media

The idea of optimizing your website with your book is to convert your blog followers into customers and to give those coming to your website from your book the content they’re actually looking for.

All of this builds fans and most importantly, a loyal and engaged following!

#8 – Publish your ebook!

It’s time to kick off your ebook and launch! If you’ve followed the steps above, then you’re ready to get your book published and start reaping the rewards.

The best part about publishing an ebook is that you don’t have to worry about ordering prints and going through the proofs and the entire process of adjusting how they look.

Once the ebook format is complete, that’s all you need to concern yourself with in terms of delivery!

Your launch day is very important and exciting.

Make sure your launch team is ready for a day of sharing and even some activities.

It’s best to host activities that your audience can actually engage in. Some fun launch day activities include things like hosting a live webinar, doing a Q&A on Twitter or Facebook or your preferred platform, sending out an email to your entire email list, and any other fun pursuit your readers will benefit from.

Get together with your launch team beforehand and have everyone brainstorm some launch day events.

You can even give prizes to those whose ideas get used!

#9 – Create emphasis of your book on your website, social, or email list

Now is the time to leverage that book!

Writing the ebook itself isn’t the hardest part of this process; making continuous sales is. And the best way to ensure you keep pushing buyers to your book is to make it the focus of your blog and website.

Plus, if you have those great reviews from your launch team, you can actually leverage those to make more sales.

Place reviews on your website on the same page your book is linked to. They’re kind of like testimonials for a service. Except, in this case, your service is a book.

You can feature them on your website wherever you want.

Obviously, if you’re someone who only wants to sell your ebook, a blog or website might not even be something on your ebook publishing to-do list.

You should, however, think about creating a website to at least host your book and information on in case others want to find you and even connect with you about speaking engagements and other amazing opportunities a book can grant you.