Copyright © 2017 Cinquanta Cox-Smith
Published by Mango Media Inc.
Design: Laura Mejía
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How to Self-Publish for Under $100
ISBN: 978-1-63353-554-1
Printed in the United States of America
This book is dedicated to my husband Shawn and my kids Kyree and Sharye. The sacrifices I needed to make while preparing for this release were not easy. Thank you all for being supportive, your patience with my mood swings, and letting me sometimes lock myself in the room to finish a daily word count. I am excited to celebrate this journey with you all. I love you all more than I love string cheese.
To Mom, Dad, and Sister. Thank you for being my support system.
I want to send a special dedication to all the dreamers and aspiring content creators who have been following my journey. Every inch of knowledge that I could provide is in this book. This one is for YOU. To my YouTube Subscribers, my social media followers, and my blog readers: I hope you will continue to support me as we continue inspiring everyone to live their dreams.
Table of Contents
⁄/ Chapter 1: Find Your Purpose
⁄/ Chapter 2: Creating Original Content
⁄/ Chapter 3: Outline and Characters
⁄/ Chapter 4: Book Cover and Title
⁄/ Chapter 5: Editor and Beta Readers
⁄/ Chapter 11: Vanity Publishing
⁄/ Chapter 12: Hybrid Publishing
Ever had a goal that you thought was out of reach, but you somehow ended up living that dream? Well, that’s pretty much how I became an Amazon Best Selling Author. I’m Cinquanta, and I have self-published twelve books and created a residual income by following my dreams. I’m not here to tell you how easy it is or that you can magically have a book written in thirty days and become a millionaire. Nope, I want to save you the agony of getting your hopes up only to be let down by the harsh reality of self-publishing. I do want to be able to show you how to self-publish on a very tight budget. You can still create something beautiful without a lot of money. Most authors who have never written anything in their lives start with a small income. You will have to be committed and sacrifice a few things to get your project off the ground, but the valuable information I will share with you could save you from spending hundreds of dollars that you won’t make back.
My friend Diane can tell you a thing are two about self-publishing:
It’s been six months since I published my first book on Amazon. I thought I’d be well on the way to notoriety, infamy and gazillionaire status (also known as being able to quit my day job) by now. I thought I would write my books, publish them, and the dollars would start rolling in. I would bask in the glory of being an author, with actual published books (well, electronic ones anyway,) and I’d be invited to conferences and summits and to guest present at seminars and workshops and on radio shows, and everyone in the entire world would be keen to hear what I had to say about my books and this self-publishing lark.
Nothing could be further from the truth. I am but an insignificant and powerless grain of sand waiting to be washed away into oblivion by the relentless Amazon tide.
It’s quite depressing, because I know I can write, and I know I write well, and I know that readers love what I write, but standing out in an extremely crowded marketplace without spending a gazillion dollars on promotion is quite tricky. No one tells you about that. Well, they probably do, but as humans we often won’t do it, this information has been blocked out and buried, not least by me.
So this post is, in part, about addressing the dearth of information about what it’s really like to self-publish, because according to practically everyone, Amazon is a goldmine. Except it isn’t, not in my experience anyway. And it’s because I’ve approached it the wrong way and by the wrong way, I mean being clueless about it all.
1. Make sure you do your research
2. Don’t skip the launch of your book
3. Don’t rely on the first book of a series to sell the rest
4. Misunderstanding the review process
5. Get your calls to action right
6. Don’t skimp on promotion