"Crafting Your Literary Path: Insights and Strategies for Self-Publishing Success"
"Crafting Your Literary Path: Insights and Strategies for Self-Publishing Success"
"Embrace Your Writing Journey with my Personalized Techniques"
A colleague of mine recently requested help with getting a book into Barnes and Noble. I don't usually give out my secrets, but I've moved on from publishing, so I'm ready to share. Here is word for word what I told my colleague.
So, there are many ways you can go about doing this. Firstly, direct publishing on Amazon is the most profitable, in my opinion, because they don't take as many cuts. However, it's also the most challenging. I will not make your book for you, but I will direct you to the right places and lead you to the right tools so you can do it yourself properly. I would suggest publishing on multiple print-on-demand channels to get the most exposure and index your book. MagCloud is a good start because it will allow you to make a PDF of your book for free. This PDF will meet industry standards that can then be used cross-channel on Blurb and Lulu. MagCloud does not offer a barcode. It will also merge your book cover and pages into one PDF. You will need them to be separate on other platforms. Blurb offers free tools to separate the pages, but you may want to look into free software by doing a simple Google search to make additional changes, separating and merging pages.
Books by Daniel Brummitt: About the Author
Chrome and Firefox offer free extensions that can help edit and resize photos as well. Blurb lets you publish directly to Amazon very easily, but depending on how the book is found and purchased, you may not make as much money per sale. Blurb will help your book get into major brick-and-mortar publishers, even Walmart. I would still suggest going the Global Distro route with Lulu, though, to maximize exposure. Once your book is listed on brick-and-mortar databases, I would go to those stores in person and ask to speak with a buyer to get your books sold there, not just listed in the database. Ask to speak with the PR person to help set up a book signing or meet-and-greet.
You may need to create awareness and do fake PR stunts, such as paying people to go into Barnes and Noble to request your book. Take pictures of you and happy customers reading your book at airport bookstores, tag your book in bookstore locations overseas. Tag your book in areas on social media where rich people live, and locations where people are more likely to purchase books. Make TikTok videos, join LinkedIn groups, connect with other authors on Twitter, Goodreads, etc
Publishing Clearing House is a good one for self-promo as well; make sure you tag your book with them on social media. Send out letters to traditional publishers; all of their info can be found online. Even if they deny you, they will still see you, and this will draw attention to your book. Pay for fake reviews, ask for reviews. It's okay to exaggerate; be bold! :)
