Becoming a published author for the first time is an exciting experience. But you still must walk in with knowledge of the publishing industry. You must fully do your research and follow a step by step plan on getting your book published so you will not literally walk in with your eyes closed and fall prey to publishers that are only scams. They only seek to steal your work and make their own profit from it.
Research: Verifying the Publisher
The first thing you must do during the publishing process of your book is to do your research. Find out which companies you wish to publish your book with or that is accepting your kind of book. After you have your list of companies that you wish to investigate, check each company with the Better Business Bureau. I also called the copyright lawyer and asked them a few questions about the publishing companies that I was interested in publishing my book with. After you get the okay then the next step is to pick which company you wish to publish your book with.
Selling Through a Publisher
After you get the approval from doing your necessary research, then your next step is to send off a sample of your writing to the company of your choice. Make sure your manuscript is exactly as they want you to have it before you send it off. When you find a publisher that accepts your manuscript then you will move on to your final stage of becoming a published author. That final stage is promoting yourself. Never leave all the work to the publisher. Keep up with your own sales and never ever fully depend on the publisher to do everything for you. I made that mistake and did not get what I should have gotten from all the sales that I made from my very first book.
Promoting Your Book
As a first-time author I did not know how to go about promoting my book. I did the worst thing I could have done and let the publisher do all the work for me. Doing this did not get me any profit let alone sales. A year passed before I finally had the common sense to post my book on social media and that’s when I started getting all kinds of sales on my book. I made over thirty sales on my first promotion which was on Facebook. I sold so many copies of my book and still did not receive a royalty check. The publishing company claimed that if I purchase my books from them then I do not get a royalty check. I did not do everything I needed to do to make sure that I was going about this sale of my book the right way.
Even though I was so excited to get my very first book published, I was not happy with the results of how it all went. And even though I did my research at the beginning I shouldn’t have stopped there. I should have done my research all the down to the sales and the payment of my royalty check. With all the sales that I made of my book I should have gotten something. But I learned from my mistakes and I will be very prepared for the publishing of my second book.