This is a list for your own research and to expand your expertise. You will find that the world of self-publishing changes rapidly. The things that work well now may not be the same things that work well in six months’ time. Keep abreast of the latest industry expertise and discussion and you will be able to make sure that you don’t get left behind.

Your new gurus:

These are people whose expertise will help you. Google them and glean what you can from their books / websites / podcasts and facebook groups

Mark Dawson. Podcasts and courses under “Self-publishing formula” https://selfpublishingformula.com/

Joanne Penn. Website, books and podcast are very well respected https://www.thecreativepenn.com/

Jane Friedman. Blogs about all aspects of the self-publishing business https://www.janefriedman.com/

David Gaughran. Several self-help books and advice on his blog https://www.blog.yourfirst10kreaders.com/

Chris Fox Techniques on speed http://www.chrisfoxwrites.com/for-writers/

Brian Meeks. Expert on advertising

Libbie Hawker. Youtube videos with blurb writing techniques

Michael Anderle and Craig Martelle. Run the 20booksto50k Facebook group, which is the most useful all-round place to find lots of extra resources and up-to-the-minute discussion (make sure you READ the files section)

 

Software resources

This list is not exhaustive, but these are some software resources that we use.

Please note that if you don’t want to examine the inner workings of an ebook you don’t need to. You can create an ebook from a word document if you want to.

OpenOffice and a plugin called writer2epub (free). You can open a Word document in OpenOffice and then convert it to an epub with this plugin.

Sigil. A free editor for epub files, if you want to open them up and manipulate them. If you are interested in the way that an ebook is constructed, this is a good tool to use.

Calibre. A free conversion tool that will convert ebooks between formats (including epub and mobi)

KDP Rocket. Can be used to get ideas for keywords.

Bookreport. Free until you achieve a fairly high level of sales. Very useful visualisations of how your books’ sales are doing.

Vellum. Heide and Iain don’t use this, but lots of people say it’s wonderful for creating good-looking books.

Tutorials

Kindle Direct Publishing is what you’ll need to create an ebook for Amazon. Look at KDP Jumpstart https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G202187740

Facebook advertising can be very powerful. Start small and monitor carefully. Beginners guides here: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/337584869654348

Amazon adverts are perhaps a little bit more straightforward to understand in the first instance. Check out the beginners guides: https://advertising.amazon.com/kdp-authors

Other resources

Blog tours are invaluable for drawing attention to your book.

Tracy Fenton provides a useful breakdown and a list of organisers here