The Challenges of Self Publishing (and How to Work Through Them).

 

Are you looking to join the exciting world of self-publishing? Then you must be both very wise and very foolish.

You must be wise in the sense of being extremely disciplined and diligent (otherwise you’ll never have a finished product that you can actually sell),

and

you must be very foolish in the sense of doing something no one ever conceived of doing yet (otherwise your work won’t be relevant, and no one will be interested).

Self-publishing is a bittersweet experience that is full of ups and downs and holds just as much joy as sorrow.

You need to brace yourself for this reality; otherwise, you’re setting yourself for failure before you even start. Self-publishing is not easy, and it’s not for everyone.

Regardless of the above – in this day and age, self-publishing can sometimes be the best option for anyone who wishes to become an author and make a profit.

Long gone are the days when self-publishing was regarded as a vanity affair for people who could not manage to persuade a real publishing company to gamble on their authorial prowess.

In a time when every other traditional publishing company is struggling and editorial feedback is scarcer than ever, it’s sometimes better to just take matters into your own hands, stay in control of your work, and self publish.

There are indeed many challenges involved in self-publishing… but let’s face it: anyone who is unprepared to face challenges has no business trying to become an author.

If you truly have what it takes, no challenge will hold you back permanently.

All challenges can be made easier if you learn to anticipate obstacles and create solid plans that allow you to reach your goals.

With that in mind, here are the most common obstacles that you will have to deal with to self publish, and how to best work through them.

Spoiler alert: actually writing your book is only the tip of the self-publishing iceberg.

1) Credibility: Readers will look at you before looking at your book

One of your biggest and earliest obstacles in getting people to buy your book is not related to the actual book at all, but rather to your credibility as an author.

Unless your work is truly mesmerizing and incredibly interesting to the point it will draw readers in magnetically, you must be aware that most readers will only pick up your book after something about the self-published author has piqued their interest.

In order to pique the interest of possible readers, you can try doing all kinds of crazy stunts, and it may even work in the short term.

You now have a better chance than ever to successfully self publish your content, provided you learn to use the available tools.

The good news is that you’re probably already familiar with many of these tools… you just haven’t yet realized their tremendous potential.

But if you’re serious about making an impact, you have no choice but to establish solid credibility around yourself and your work.

Being credible means you have developed a voice of your own, and established a unique take around a topic that people have learned to recognize and trust.

The more credible you are, the easier it will be to attract new readers that will take interest in the content you self publish.

Credibility and visibility go hand in hand. Fortunately, you are now living in a broad age of information, where several new and exciting tools are available to you that will allow you to build an audience around your work.

You now have a better chance than ever to successfully self publish your content, provided you learn to use the available tools.

The good news is that you’re probably already familiar with many of these tools… you just haven’t yet realized their tremendous potential.

2) Visibility: Showing on people’s radars will draw attention to your work

Thanks to the ubiquity and ease of access of the Internet, it has never been as easy to become visible and effectively show up on the radar of people who will care about your content.

If you overlook the power and importance of social media in allowing you to achieve the kind of visibility you need to succeed as an independent author, you will more than likely undermine all your self-publishing efforts – and head towards disappointment and disheartening.

This is such a critical matter that these days, even a conventional publishing company will hardly pick up an author who hasn’t established an audience of followers beforehand.

This actually makes good business sense, since having a faithful social media following is a good indicator that an author can create content that effectively sells.

So how do you make sure you have a chance of achieving visibility? You pick the right niche and plunge in with all your might.

So if you’re serious about self-publishing a book, it only makes sense that you will start by testing your ideas on-line and using it to grow your visibility.

Establishing a solid online presence will help you in many different ways to succeed at self-publishing your book.

In fact, you may actually want to focus first on becoming visible and taking the time to flesh out the content that will eventually become your book, rather than going in the opposite direction.

Do not assume it will be a simple matter, as growing a faithful audience on-line is easier said than done; especially now the Internet is getting so saturated with information.

So how do you make sure you have a chance of achieving visibility? You pick the right niche and plunge in with all your might.

3) Positioning: It’s easier to become visible if you focus on a niche.

There is a formula that has always worked and should keep working no matter how saturated the Internet gets: dominating a niche will always be simpler than dominating the mainstream.

The more you focus on a specific topic, the more you’ll find it easier to reach faithful readers who are genuinely interested in your message.

Choosing the right niche could make the difference between self-publishing success and spectacular failure.

Moreover, by locking in on a niche that is relatively unexplored, you’ll find it much easier to stand out and draw attention to your work.

You’ll also have a chance of establishing yourself as a leading author in that niche, and this your best shot at becoming relevant and influential – which is indeed the secret recipe to selling lots of books.

Choosing the right niche could make the difference between self-publishing success and spectacular failure.

You will also find it easier and less expensive to effectively market a niche product than a generalist product, since it will improve your signal to noise ratio by locking in on the people who resonate with that niche – making for laser-focused marketing efforts.

4) Marketing: no one will buy your book unless they’re aware of it.

One of the biggest benefits of working with an established publishing company is having access to their existing marketing channels and available experience.

When you want to self publish your book, you will have to handle your own marketing from the ground up… which can be either liberating or overwhelming, depending on your aptitude and luck.

the Internet has introduced new marketing avenues that can be relatively inexpensive to dabble with and allow very precise targeting that could allow you to lock into the right audience without spending a fortune.

In any case, you have no choice but putting together a solid marketing plan, if you actually want people to purchase your book.

Sure enough, you can always reach out to marketing agencies for help, but chances are this could turn out prohibitively expensive – especially when you’re just getting started.

The good news: the Internet has introduced new marketing avenues that can be relatively inexpensive to dabble with and allow very precise targeting that could allow you to lock into the right audience without spending a fortune.

You can actually run some experiments on a budget and effectively scale your campaigns only when you strike a winning formula, and this is an enormous opportunity that you should use to your advantage.

5) Design: People judge a book by the cover, and this can benefit you.

You likely know the saying “you shouldn’t judge a book by the cover”, but you likely also know that people effectively tend to do the opposite.

This is why it’s so important to put a lot of thought into designing a book cover that is not only good looking but effective in drawing the attention of your potential audience.

You likely know the saying “you shouldn’t judge a book by the cover”, but you likely also know that people effectively tend to do the opposite.

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A good cover will effectively make your book advertise itself, no matter where people come across it.

Book cover design is something you can do on your own, if you like… but remember, self publishing doesn’t necessarily imply doing everything all by yourself.

You can just as easily tap into your favorite freelance marketplace and hire a skilled designer that will take your ideas and push them to the limits, and the cost of doing so will usually be very reasonable.

Just remember, the goal of a book cover is not just to look nice.

All cover elements must be strategically devised to entice your readers to pick up your book.

This involves not only using pretty images and adequate colors… but also to come with a highly effective blurb.

6) Blurb: Your best opportunity to get a foot in the door to your readers mind.

Simply put, a blurb is the short piece of text on the back cover of a book, usually with no more than 200 words.

The aim of the blurb is to captivate the interest of potential readers, convince them they will love your book, and entice them to actually buy it.

An effective blurb is not a mere summary of your book; rather, it’s a sales pitch for your entire self-publishing efforts, and you should think of it as your opportunity to get a foot into the door leading to your reader’s minds and hearts.

The aim of the blurb is to captivate the interest of potential readers, convince them they will love your book, and entice them to actually buy it.

A good blurb can make a tremendous difference in your sales volume, so you want to spend a good deal of time and energy looking for the words that will cause the most impact and hook your potential readers.

You need to come up with a blurb that is engaging and accurately describes your book.

You need to pay special attention to the first couple of sentences in the blurb since those are the magic sentences.

The majority of people who casually pick up your book will typically make up their minds when they start reading the blurb.

If you think that’s an exaggeration, just watch your own decision-making process next time you visit a bookstore.

7) Reviews: your secret weapon to borrow credibility and gain traction

Humans are social creatures, and book purchases are often driven by social proof.

This is why reviews are so important – a positive review from a well-regarded authority figure will have enormous potential to boost your book’s sales next to their followers.

Your self publishing venture stands to gain enormous traction if you can borrow some credibility from the right people, and achieving a good review is the simplest and most straightforward way to achieve this.

By collecting quality reviews from established thought dealers in your niche, you can get a tremendous return of value that may sometimes surpass your marketing efforts.

The Internet has made self publishing easier and more effective than ever before, and you can now self publish your book with minimal risks involved.

Quality reviews help readers make the decision to buy, boosts their confidence in your work and makes the buyer less likely to regret purchasing your book.

For these reasons, you want to allocate a good deal of time and energy to devise a strategy that will get your book reviewed in the places that matter.

This can be as simple as mailing out some copies to the right people, or it could involve good deal of networking and effort.

Here’s the key take-away that you will hopefully get from this article: you don’t really need to depend on a publishing company, these days.

The Internet has made self publishing easier and more effective than ever before, and you can now self publish your book with minimal risks involved.

Just make sure to meticulously plan ahead and anticipate typical obstacles so you can best avoid them.

It won’t be easy, but then again… is there anything worthwhile in life that is really easy?

Thank you for reading The Challenges of Self Publishing (and How to Work Through Them).

What did you like about this article? How could we have improved? Comment Below.

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