Starting Your Publishing Journey: A Beginners Guide

By Kayla Hicks

Every writer begins their writing journey with the question, where do I start?
Writing the book is half the battle, the other half is the publishing process.

When I published my first book (KaleStone), I knew nothing about publishing and paid Amazon $3,000 to handle publishing for me. Now I have published several books (The Backup Superhero, The Original Superheroes, and Anywhere Else) for free, received several publishing contracts, and continue to grow my audience across several mediums. Starting Your Publishing Journey: A Beginners Guide covers everything I wish I would have known before I published my first book (and spent $3000 on it).


A New Era for Writers!

We are now in an era where writers have numerous options to publish their work. This brings many questions and unknowns to the publishing process.

Do I go with traditional publishing or the self-publishing route?

How do I get a publisher to publish my book?

How do I make a cover?

How do I find an agent?

How do I market my book?

How do I find new readers?

Where do I self-publish my book?

How do I get on Amazon or in book stores?

How do I publish my book myself for free?

Many writers don't know what an author's platform is or the importance of building their brand as an author. This is the very first and most important step in the publishing process. Starting Your Publishing Journey: A Beginner's Guide helps you build your author platform to publish your book while pulling in new readers and growing your author brand.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kayla Hicks
• Release date: Feb 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9798412191904

Book preview

Kayla Hicks

Starting Your Publishing Journey: A Beginners Guide

Copyright © 2021 by Kayla Hicks

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

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Contents

Preface

I. BEFORE YOU BEGIN

1. Before you start writing

2. The long game of being an author

II. THE VALUE OF THE AUTHOR’S PLATFORM

3. The value of an author’s platform

4. Your author’s website

5. Email List

6. Building your brand as an author

7. Social media

III. TOOLS

8. Designing and marketing tools

IV. PUBLISHING

9. Choosing a publishing route

10. Traditional publishing

V. SELF-PUBLISHING

11. Self-publishing

12. Types of readers before you publish

13. Pulling in your readers

14. Creating a book cover

15. Creating a book description

16. Setting up your book launch for success

17. How to self-publish on different platforms

18. How to market

VI. WRAPPING THINGS UP

19. That’s a wrap

20. A Review

Resources

Other Works By Kayla Hicks

About the Author

Preface

Many people find themselves ready to place their thoughts and stories on paper at some point in their lives. These people are ready to get their stories in front of readers. To have readers asking for the next book.

When I published my first book six years ago, I lost $3,000 because I paid expensive services to do the work for me. As my knowledge expanded from experience in the writing world and talking with seasoned writers, I learned how to cut costs when publishing without cutting corners. Now I am able to publish books with free or cheaper services and still produce a quality product.

No matter the goal the writer has, they are ready to take a step into the unknown. A journey to becoming a published writer.

After some research, my husband helped me hire Amazon’s publishing services and my first book was born. But…I wanted to make more books and didn’t know how to do it without paying $3,000, as some of these all-in-one services are high in price. When you are a new author, your goal is to keep costs low so you can build your body of work. The first book is unfortunately unlikely to be a bestseller right out of the gate. It takes time to create a body of work that will bring in consistent income. This body of work is how new authors build a brand for themselves.

There wasn’t really much information about self-publishing out there at the time and I felt utterly defeated. Yes, I could start querying, but I truly didn’t feel that was the path for me. (And it isn’t for everyone.)

This got me thinking. How many other authors out there are struggling with the same thing? Ready to take the plunge but not sure where to start.

Through my years networking with other authors on projects or on social media I found that lots of writers didn’t know where to begin or felt stuck in the publication process altogether.

If your goal is to have your stories in front of readers and to be an author that readers want to see the next book from, I am ready to help you do it.

So, how does A Journey to Publication: A Beginners Guide help you?

By showing what to pay money for, and where you can save money without cutting corners.

It will help you establish yourself as an author by building an author’s platform, which includes social media and an author’s website.

Explain to you the processes of traditional and self-publishing, because it’s important to have an overview of both.

I am also going to cover how you build a brand for yourself as an author so that readers know what to expect when they see your products.

Hopefully, when you’ve finished this book, you have a better understanding of the publishing world and are more comfortable choosing the right publishing path for you.

Why I want to help you grow as an author.

Six years ago when I started my writing career, I wouldn’t have even dreamed I would have had the chance to meet as many writers as I know now. I wouldn’t have dreamed that I would even be able to call so many writers my friends. It wasn’t until two years ago that I felt myself actually start to make connections with other writers, but after I did, I couldn’t believe that I went so long without them!

As busy as we writers are, it is crucial that we carve out time to connect with other writers and authors. No one is going to be able to understand the struggle and the process as they will. No one is going to give you better advice on writing matters than they will. It’s just the simple truth of it all.

How did I finally start the ball rolling? (ahem, on making friends)

To be honest, my main focus when I started writing was to fulfill the dream I had of writing a book and getting it in front of readers. I had so many stories that I’d written and put on a shelf, I wanted to actually get one out there. So for a long time, I only worked on my writing and created a Facebook author’s page and that was that. I had gained maybe 200 followers on it but then felt stuck. As if I had hit a ceiling. I read article after article that pretty much told me I had to sell, sell, sell my book or it would never get