Have you been dreaming about publishing a book that actually sells?

The hard truth is that most authors fail because they jump straight into writing. They spend MONTHS writing a book only to find out later they made a key mistake, and nobody wants to buy the book.

I’ve helped thousands of authors go from blank page to profitable launch, and today, I’m giving you the roadmap. You’ll learn my complete six-step publishing roadmap as well as how to avoid common pitfalls and rookie mistakes.

The secret to success comes from Stephen Covey, an author who’s sold over 40 million copies of his books: “Begin with the end in mind.” 

Step 1: Prepare for Writing 

Forget chapter one for a second! The secret to writing a book readers want to read often starts with your Back Cover Copy.”

In Hollywood, they call it “writing the poster first.” 

Remember that people buy books before they read them. They decide whether to purchase a book based on the book cover, title, and back cover copy.

If you want to write a book that sells, start at the same place your readers will start.

Promise an amazing read, and then write your book to deliver on that promise.

Having your back cover copy written from the start allows you to begin testing your book idea on your friends to gauge excitement. Do they want to hear more? Do they pester you about your book progress? 

Writing the back cover copy first also forces you to start thinking about the reader at the beginning of the process. Thinking of your reader first will give you a huge edge over selfish writers who only think about readers when it is time to ask them for money. 

If you have no audience when you write your book, you will have no audience to buy your book.

If you have no audience when you write your book,
you will have no audience to buy your book.

Thomas Umstattd, Jr.

Find one real-life person who is your target reader. An imaginary persona or avatar is not enough. If you want humans to buy your book, you need to write the kind of book an actual human wants to read. 

If you can thrill one human stranger, you can thrill many human strangers. For more on this technique, check out my episode How to Find Your Timothy.

If you have already started writing your book, you can take a break and craft your back cover copyright now. You will be shocked by the clarity it will give you. 

If you need help, we have patron toolbox tools to help you with this process.  

You simply answer a few questions about your story (Who is the protagonist? What is their challenge?), and our tool will generate back cover text you can use as a starting point. It will even brainstorm some title ideas for your book.

We also have patron toolbox tools that build your back cover copy around the protagonist, setting, plot, or the romance. Try each one to see which works best for your story. If you write nonfiction, we have a tool for you, too. 

You can find the Patron Toolbox at AuthorMedia.com. 

Create a Temporary Cover

When your back cover copy is complete, you are ready to create a cover. 

Back in the olden days, publishers commissioned covers at the end of the process, but you can quickly generate a placeholder cover. This won’t replace using a human to design the final cover, but having a temporary cover at the beginning will keep you motivated, give your readers something to get excited about, and give you clarity about the final product. 

Everyone takes a work-in-progress more seriously if it has a cover. Plus, having a cover right away is fun! 

If you need help with this, my book cover generator tool can create a temporary cover for your book. Just paste in your back cover copy, pick a style, and it will take it from there. 

Step 2: Write the Book

Outline or Rough Draft

• Decide between outlining and discovery writing. 
• Goal: Get the story beats down. Create something you can fix. 

Word Processors made editing books much easier. Authors no longer rewrite drafts on the typewriters of yore, which means you don’t have to worry about the quality of your first draft. Just get a terrible version of your book down so you can start improving it.

Once you’ve created a terrible version, it’s time to edit. 

First Pass

• Right Size Your Book: This means cutting if you’re a discovery writer (or pantser) and adding contenting if you are an outliner.
• Fix Inconsistencies.
• Start Cleaning up the Writing: If you see an awkward sentence, fix it.

There is a lot to say on this topic, so if you want more help, check out my episode How to Write Your First Novel.

Second Pass

On your second pass, I recommend reading your book out loud. Or better yet, get your computer to read it to you while you listen and take notes. Your computer’s robot voice will read every word, even the wrong ones. 

If you’re a native English speaker, you have been listening to English your whole life, and you know what good English sounds like. With this technique, you will hear so many instances where you can make improvements in your writing.

If your writing sings when read by a robot, it will sing in the minds of your readers. 

If your writing sings when read by a robot,
it will sing in the minds of your readers. 

Thomas Umstattd, Jr.

I have an entire episode on this process called Beyond First Drafts: How to Master the Art of Revision With Angela Hunt.

Crowdfunding

If you plan to crowdfund your book on Kickstarter, you’ll do that here in Step 2. You’ll want a completed rough draft before launching your Kickstarter. Once you have your completed manuscript in hand, you can use Kickstarter money to help pay for everything else in the process.

We have an old course called The Ultimate Guide to Crowdfunding. It will be updated at some point, but authors use it every month to raise thousands of dollars on Kickstarter. The typical graduate of that course makes between $500 and $2,500 on Kickstarter, with some bringing in $10,000 or even $20,000. 

Kickstarter won’t make you rich, but it can make you profitable by covering all your expenses before your book ever hits the shelves. 

The course still works, and until I update it, it’s one of the cheapest courses I offer. When I update it, all existing students will get the updates for free.  

You can also check out my free episode titled Kickstarter Tips and Tricks With Chris Fox.

While crowdfunding is optional. Step 3 is not optional. 

Step 3: Polish the Manuscript

If you don’t want to make a fool of yourself, you need other people to read the book.

Beta Readers

Beta readers are representative readers who read your book and point out problems. 

However, they often suggest terrible solutions because they are readers and not authors.  In fact, your ideal beta readers are readers and not authors. You want true fans who read a lot of books in your genre. So don’t use fellow authors as beta readers unless you are writing a book for authors. To learn more, listen to my episode on How to Find and Work with Beta Readers.

Developmental Editor

The person who can help fix the story problems your beta readers pointed out is your developmental editor. The best developmental editors are fellow authors in your genre. If you write fiction, you want an editor who deeply understands story and storytelling. 

If you write nonfiction, you want a developmental editor who deeply understands persuasion. 

To learn more about choosing an editor, listen to How to Hire a Good Editor.

Copy Editor

Once your story shines, it is time to work with a copy editor. The copy editor is what most people think of when you say “editor.” This editor is less focused on the story and more focused on the writing, spelling, grammar, and usage. 

Common editor-hiring mistakes include:

• Hiring the first editor you find
• Hiring your friend
• Not holding a tryout (pay three to edit the same chapter and hire the best one.)
• Hiring the cheapest editor you can find
• Not listening to the editor (assuming your editor is an idiot)
• Listening blindly to the editor (accepting all changes and editing out your voice)

To learn more, check out my episode How to Find and Work with an Editor.

Step 4: Create the Book

Create the Ebook

A completed manuscript isn’t necessarily a book.

The first format you want to create is your ebook as an .epub file. To create your ebook, I recommend using Vellum, which most authors use to create their ebooks. It can create your ebook in as little as five minutes. I don’t have an episode on it because it is so easy to use that no one has asked for one. 

Vellum

Vellum only runs on Mac. If you use Windows, Linux, or Chromebook, consider using Atticus. Authors who have tried both prefer Vellum, but Windows users insist that Atticus is just as good, and it’s also less expensive.

Warning! Avoid Calibre. It’s too buggy and difficult to use. 

You’ll also want to avoid using InDesign unless you learned how to use it in college. If you need InDesign power, it’s often cheaper to hire a designer than to buy, learn, and use InDesign yourself. It is a powerful and complicated program that can’t be learned overnight.

No one ever regretted using Vellum to typeset their first book. 

Create a PDF for the Paper Book

The tool you used to make your ebook (Vellum or Atticus) can also make the PDF you’ll need to print your paper book.

Most authors don’t know that the most profitable page count is 200-250 pages. If your book is shorter than 200 pages, readers expect a discount. If it’s more than 250 pages long, your cost per copy eats away at your profitability. 

What if your page count is outside of that range? 

First, if your book is less than 200 pages, choose a 5.5 x 8.5-inch size paperback. This is the smaller of the two popular book formats. Shrinking your book size can boost your page count. 

If your book is over 250 pages, choose a 6×9-inch paperback. That extra half-inch in both directions goes a long way in reducing page count. 

Another way to adjust your page count is by changing your font. You would be shocked by the difference a font choice makes in the page count. Times New Roman makes the book shorter, while Bookman makes the book longer. 

I worked with a publishing house when it was transitioning between owners. The new owner took the most popular trilogy, tweaked the font and margins, and cut the book’s length by 100 pages without sacrificing readability. The changes were imperceptible to the reader, but the company doubled its profit on that book after the change. Page count matters. 

Below is a list of Vellum fonts, ranked by how many pages they require. For a 100,000-word book, the largest font requires around 550 pages, while Times New Roman, the smallest, requires around 250 pages. That is how much font choice matters. 

Estimated Page Count for a 100,000-word 6×9 book:

• OpenDyslexic: 417–556 pages  
• Atkinson Hyperlegible: 417–556 pages  
• Bookman: 333–400 pages  
• Georgia: 313–370 pages 
• Athelas: 303–357 pages  
• Iowan Old Style: 294–345 pages 
• Palatino: 286–333 pages  
• Baskerville: 286–333 pages 
• Crimson Text: 278–323 pages 
• Cochin: 270–313 pages  
• Sabon: 263–303 pages  
• EB Garamond: 256–294 pages 
• Times New Roman: 250–286 pages 

Hire a Proofreader

Now that your book is typeset, it is time to hire a proofreader.

In your magical manuscript from Step 3, you and your editor weeded out every typo. Sadly, a little gremlin crawled into your computer while you were typesetting and added a bunch of typos to your PDF and epub files.

Proofreaders have been trying to kill this gremlin for centuries, and the best they can do is chase him onto the next author’s book.

You need a proofreader who is detail-oriented, passionate about grammar, and (this is key!) has never read a single sentence of your book before. You want a completely fresh set of eyes. They don’t need to know your genre; they just need to know where the commas go. 

Every time you read a book, you get grammar blindness. This is why you can’t edit your own book, and it’s why your amazing copy editor won’t be a good proofreader. Professional editors won’t even offer to proofread both for this very reason. If your copyeditor offers to do both, you’re working with an amateur. 

Create a PDF for the Cover

Now is the time to get a real cover. There is a lot to say here, and I encourage you to listen to my episode on Effective Book Cover Design. 

Our Patron Toolbox’s Book Cover Design Brief Generator will help you create a design brief to share with your human cover designer. 

I always recommend working with a professional human designer for your book cover. Book covers sell books, and this is not the place to try and save money. The number-one reason a book fails to sell is a bad cover. 

Do not design your own cover. It’s better to use AI than to do it yourself. I’ve been working with authors for almost two decades, and I have never once seen a book with an author-designed cover on a bestseller list. 

If you need help finding cover designers, check out our free job board on AuthorMedia.social. 

Create an Audiobook

In ye olden days, audiobooks were expensive, and only the top authors had audiobook versions available. Not anymore. Recording an audiobook is cheaper and easier than it has ever been. Audiobooks are now the norm, so readers view books without audiobooks as cheap and low quality, even if they don’t listen to audiobooks! They think, “If this book is not worth an audiobook, why is it worth my money?”

There is no reason to launch a book without an audiobook. You need an audiobook on day one. 

A common rookie mistake is to wait till after you’ve published your paper book to start working on the audiobook. If you launch the audiobook later, you’ll almost always lose money on your audiobook.

Authors who make that rookie mistake don’t realize that most authors get most of their audiobook sales right after the book launch. If they miss out on those launch sales, they miss out on them forever. 

The key to success is to strike while the iron is hot, and the iron is always hottest when a book is hot off the press. 

You can record the book yourself or hire a narrator to do it for you. To learn more about audiobook narration, check out the following episodes:

• How to Record Your Own Audiobook Using Hindenburg Narrator
• How to Publish Your Book as an Audiobook With Scott Sigler
• How to Write & Narrate Better Audiobooks with Tom Parks

You also could create an AI Voice clone of your voice and use it to read your book using 11Labs. If it’s good enough for the First Lady, perhaps it is good enough. I listen to dozens of audiobooks every year, and personally, I prefer human narrators to AI narrators, but an AI voice clone is better than no audiobook at all. 

Buy ISBNs to Manage Metadata

Finally, you will want to purchase your ISBNs and manage your metadata.

• In the US, you’ll buy your ISBNs from Bowker.
• Each format (print, ebook, and audiobook) will need its own ISBN. 
• Warning! Don’t use free ISBNs! He who owns the ISBN has the power.  
• For more on metadata, see How to Use Metadata to Sell More Books.

Book sales die for lack of metadata knowledge. If you don’t know what metadata is, for the love of book sales, please listen to that 30-minute episode or read the blog version. 

Step 5: Prepare for Launch

Now that you have your ebook epub, paper book pdf, and audiobook mp3. It’s time to prepare for your launch. Most rookie authors get so wrapped up in Step 4 that they skip prepping for launch. Others try to prepare for the launch while polishing the book. This stresses them out and leaves them disappointed in their book sales. 

The solution is simply to give yourself more time! Don’t pick a launch date until you’ve completed Step 4. 

This process doesn’t have to be stressful. Take one step at a time and give yourself plenty of time to complete each step, especially if you’re publishing your first book. 

So take a deep breath, and let’s prepare for a great launch. 

Create a Written Launch Plan

Document how you plan to promote your book during those first 30 days after release. To learn more about creating that plan, listen to How to Create a Written Book Launch Plan and download the free Launch Plan Template in the blog version of that episode.

Assemble a Launch Team 

Recruit a team of allies who will help spread the word about your book. You want readers, not authors, and you want to recruit folks who are excited to help promote your book.

I have a special method for assembling a launch team, and this is the one topic I don’t talk much about on the free podcast. 

But I do talk a lot about Public Relations (PR). 

Schedule Media Interviews 

Begin pitching podcasts, TV, radio, and blogs 3-6 months in advance.

To help you with this process, check out the following podcasts:

• How to Conduct Your Own Media Tour (without hiring a PR Firm) With Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith
• How to Run a Podcast Tour (With Guest Mary DeMuth)
• How to Get Booked for Guest Podcast Interviews Overview

Prepare Your Website

While you were working on your book, something terrible happened to your website. I don’t know a nice way to say this, but your website is out of date. You may have more children than you did when you first wrote your bio. Maybe you’ve published books, written short stories, or started a podcast since you built your website.

Set aside time to review your website page-by-page and then make updates. If you don’t have a website yet, you’ll want to build one before moving on to Step 6.

If you don’t have a website, complete my free course on creating Amazing Author Websites. In it, you’ll learn how to build a website and how to make your existing website better. 

If you don’t want to bother with building a website, you can hire a webmaster on our free job board at AuthorMedia.social. 

Send Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) 

Get your book into the hands of influencers early. This is how you get endorsements from influencers and tastemakers. Early access is special, and you want to take advantage of that before your book is available to everyone. You don’t want to send tastemakers an unfinished book, but you also don’t want to send a book that is already on the market. This is why we finished creating the book before we started preparing for the launch.

Listen to the following episodes to learn more:

• How to Boost Book Sales With Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs)
• How to Get Endorsements for Your Book (This episode comes with a free tracking sheet you can download.)

Plan a Launch Party 

Consider hosting an in-person celebration for your new book. If it’s well executed, you can even make money on the event.

I have an episode that talks about launch parties called How to Build Hype for a Debut Novel.

Sign Up for Amazon KDP

There are two ways to get your book on Amazon. You can work with a company to push the buttons for you and take almost all the profit, or you can put your book on Amazon directly. 

Savvy authors work with Amazon directly. They don’t listen to the siren song of salespeople trying to get all the future royalties. Salespeople from companies like Westbow and Xlibris try to make this process look difficult and scary. But millions of authors have figured it out with no problem!

Amazon has a program called KDP, or Kindle Direct Publishing. You can set up a free account at kdp.amazon.com. There is a big orange button that says “Join KDP.” Click it and follow the steps.

Now, be careful! You will be tempted to use your regular Amazon account to sign up for KDP, but that is another common mistake. I recommend using a different email address to create a brand-new Amazon account for your KDP account.

I recommend this for several reasons:

• It keeps any trouble with your KDP account from messing up your regular Amazon account and vice versa.
• If you use an email address not connected to your Facebook account, it makes it less likely that Amazon will delete book reviews from your Facebook friends. 
• It protects your privacy. If your book takes off, you will have assistants, marketing people, and advertising people all in your KDP account. You don’t want to give those folks access to your personal Amazon purchase history.  

A little bit of professionalism and personal/business separation go a long way in this business. 

Amazon also has a program called KDP Print that can handle print books. KDP Print will make your book available for purchase at most bookstores around the country. It won’t get your book on the shelves, but it will allow bookstores to order your book through their system.

I recommend you avoid Ingram Spark and the like for your first book. Keep things simple and stick with Amazon. 

For the love of profitability, avoid the Hybrid Publishers. They do a poor job with what I’m teaching you in this episode, and they charge hundreds of dollars an hour to do it. Uploading your book to Amazon only takes an hour or two. There is no reason to pay Westbow or Xlibris $2,000 to do that for you. 

Set up Your Pre-Order

Once you are signed up with KDP, it is time to set up your pre-order

I recommend setting a long pre-order window for your first book. Give yourself one to three months. That way, you’ll have time to make improvements and listen to my episodes on Amazon Page Optimization and Amazon Search Optimization. 

Step 6: Publish & Launch

This is your big moment! If you followed the previous steps, you only need to click “publish” on launch day. Congratulations! You are now a published author. 

But be careful!

The most common blunder new authors make is launching too soon. Some of you skipped ahead to this part of the video and are making this blunder right now! 

Please take a deep breath and remember good things come to those who wait. Don’t skip any of the steps toward publication.

If you just can’t wait, please listen to my episode 10 Reasons to Delay Your Book Launch. Giving yourself time will reduce your stress and boost your sales. You only get one chance to launch each book. 

I also recommend listening to my episode Painful Book Launch Lessons You Don’t Want to Learn the Hard Way.

The book launch is when you:

• Activate your launch team.
• Host your launch party.
• Start your media tour.
• Start advertising. 

The goal of a book launch is to get as many sales and reviews as you can while your book still has the “New Release” badge on Amazon. The stronger your launch, the better your ongoing sales will be. 

You can learn more about launching in the following episodes:

• How to Launch Your Book on a Budget
• How to Get More 5-Star Reviews With Beta Readers, Editors, and Launch Teams

How to Get Published

If you want more help with this process, I have a course called How to Get Published. It walks you through this entire process step by step, and normally, you can get lifetime access for just $299.

But wait! It’s June, and that means it is Patron Appreciation Month. I have a tradition of giving away a free course to patrons in June, and this year, I’m giving lifetime access to the course to all patrons. 

If you’re an existing patron, log into your Patreon account and follow the instructions to unlock the course (before the end of June). As long as you claim your access in June, you will maintain lifetime access. 

If you are not a patron, you can become a patron to unlock lifetime access. Patrons also get a bonus Q&A episode every month and, at some levels, exclusive access to the Patron Toolbox.

To learn more or to sign up, go to NovelMarketing.com/patron. 

Featured Patron

Jeremiah Friedli, author of CORE Deception

In a world where the government’s CORE systems see and track everyone, seventeen-year-old hacker Seth Alvarez is determined to save his sister from a reeducation facility. Armed with a cryptic letter, Seth embarks on a search for cyber master keys that can set his sister free. But with only three weeks remaining, he finds himself wedged between two powerful forces who will stop at nothing to get those keys first.     

This book is currently a finalist for both the Realm Awards and the Carol Awards.    

Related Episodes

• 7 Reasons Why Your Book Should Also Be An Audiobook ​
• ​How to Hire a Good Editor​
• ​How to Publish Your Book as an Audiobook With Scott Sigler ​
• ​How to Publish Your Book Independently