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Self-Publishing Checklist

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Self-Publishing: What's Involved?

Are you ready to self-publish your book? It's important that you thoroughly complete ALL the steps of pre-publication without skipping ANYTHING!

The reason for this is obvious; you are the ONLY one responsible for how your book turns out. As a self-publisher, the amount of work and effort you put into creating your book will determine the quality of your end result. This means you cannot afford to ignore any detail, since there will be no one else to catch the mistakes you overlook.

Unless you plan on hiring help for editing, proofreading, formatting, cover design and marketing....then you should be prepared to take on all of these areas and more. This lens is meant to help provide a basic outline of the things you will need, the steps that must be taken and best practices among the publishing industry.

Enjoy, and best of luck!

Pre-Publication: The Basics

What You Will Need

1
A completed manuscript: This is the most obvious item on the list. Be sure that your story is complete --- usually, with a beginning, middle and end. DO NOT publish a book that is unfinished.
2
An ISBN: You have two options if you are self-publishing. You can buy your own ISBN online, or you can have a free ISBN assigned to your books through Lulu or Createspace, if you decide to use either of them.
3
Copyright: Although this should go without saying, you MUST own the copyright to your published works. This means that it must be 100% original writing and you need to be the author of everything you publish. Don't pay for copyright to your own work, since this is not necessary. For more detailed information on copyright, read "Rights and Copyright"
4
Book Synopsis: This is typically the text that is included on the back cover of your book. It should provide a brief summary of what your book is all about, without spoilers. Describe the contents of your book accurately, but make sure to also make it engaging so that the readers is curious to find out more.
5
A Title: Obviously a completed manuscript without a title is pretty useless. You must decide on a title that best represents the theme of your book/story.
6
Cover Art/Graphics: Even ebooks need a cover design. If you know how to use Photoshop or GIMP, you should be able to figure out how to make an acceptable cover for your book. If not, then you will have to hire a freelance graphic artist or learn how to create a cover graphic on your own. If you're using Createspace, read this incredibly helpful tutorial: "Creating a Cover for Your Createspace Book"
7
Editing & Proofreading: The importance of this item cannot be stressed enough! If you do not plan on hiring a professional editor, then you must read through your book and edit not once or twice, but SEVERAL times. You should also give your rough draft to some friends or family, and ask them to highlight any mistakes they notice or even any parts of the writing that could use some changes. You won't catch every little mistake yourself, so an extra set of eyes is always helpful. Once you are sure it is error-free, check it one more time. If you find another error, check it all over again. For more tips on how to edit your manuscript, read this awesome article, "10 Steps for Editing Your Own Writing."
8
Price: You must set a price for your book in order to make it available for sale. Keep in mind that first-time authors who are self-publishing should usually start out low, since they are unknown to readers. This will give their books more appeal and cater to impulse buyers. Once you have established yourself as an author and accumulated some readers, you can start pricing your books a bit higher. For more information, read this great list, "7 Questions to Ask Yourself When Pricing Your Book."

Interior Formatting

The formatting of your book is incredibly important and this step is fairly involved, so don't expect to get it done successfully on the first try or in a single day's time. The formatting will likely need to be different for each site you use to self-publish your books. What looks great in print may not be readable on a Kindle device, and the same PDF file you upload to Lulu may look awful in your Createspace version.

For more information on formatting, check out this insightful blog post, "3 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Let Your Publisher Format Your Book"

Formatting Tips

For more great formatting tips, check out "7 Tips for Great Layout Design"

1
Copyright Page: The interior of your book should include a copyright page with the author's name.
2
Chapter Headings: For books with chapters, parts or sections, the headings should always mark the start of a new page. Subheadings should always appear directly beneath them, without any page breaks separating them. This will make your book layout appear far more professional and will be much easier to read and navigate the different areas of the book and story.
3
Page Numbers: All books must include page numbers either in the right or left upper-hand corners, the lower-hand right or left corners, the top center or bottom center of the page. All pages should display the page number in the same place.
4
Book Sizes: The size of your print book will need to be taken into consideration during the formatting process. Be sure that you have your word processor's formatting options set to the same size as your book, so that the pages appear the same way you are seeing them displayed on your computer. This is extremely important.