How to Publish a Book: A Step-by-Step Guide

If you’ve written a book, or have an idea for one, you may be wondering: How do I actually publish a book?

The first task used to be finding (and trying to get accepted by) a literary agent who would send your book to publishers who would reject or produce and publish the book. This process often took 18 months or longer. Now, with independent and self-publishing options becoming the norm, the process is much more simple.

With self-publishing platforms such as Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) for online sales and IngramSpark for brick-and-mortar sales, authors can publish professional-quality books and make them available to readers around the world relatively quickly and easily.

However, there is more to publishing a successful book than simply uploading a manuscript and book cover to Amazon. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you move from manuscript to published author.

Step 1: Finish Your Manuscript

Before thinking about publishing, your first priority is creating the best manuscript possible. If you’re still writing, focus on finishing your first draft rather than trying to make every page perfect. Writing and revising are different stages of the process. Allow yourself to write first and improve later.

Step 2: Edit Your Book

Every book benefits from editing. Even experienced writers have difficulty spotting problems in their own work because they know what they intended to say. A fresh set of eyes can identify unclear passages, inconsistencies, grammatical errors, and other problems you may overlook. Your book represents you, and professional editing can make an enormous difference in how readers perceive it.

Step 3: Format the Interior

Your manuscript needs to be transformed from a Word document or similar file into a professionally formatted book interior. Formatting includes elements such as page size, margins, fonts, chapter headings, page numbers, paragraph spacing, headers, and front and back matter. For most books, there will be a PDF file version for print copies of the book and an ePub file version for eBooks. The goal is simple: When someone opens your book, it should look like a professionally published book.

Step 5: Create a Professional Book Cover

People really do judge books by their covers. Your cover is often the first thing a potential reader sees, especially when browsing online. It needs to communicate the book’s subject and appeal to the type of reader you want to attract. Study bestselling books in your category. Look for patterns in typography, imagery, colors, and overall design. Even if you have strong graphic-design skills, hiring an experienced book-cover designer is usually money well spent. There are very specific standards needed by distributors like Amazon and IngramSpark, and a professional book designer will understand these.

Step 6: Prepare Your Book for Publication

Before uploading your book, you’ll need to make several important decisions. You’ll need a compelling book description, select categories and keywords, determine your price, and decide which formats to offer, such as paperback, hardcover, and Kindle ebook. You may also need an ISBN. Amazon can provide a free ISBN for books published through KDP, or you can purchase your own ISBN if that better fits your publishing and distribution plans.

Step 7: Publish Your Book

Amazon KDP is the most popular starting point for many self-published authors and IngramSpark is another great solution (and you can use both KDP and IngramSpark simultaneously). Through both KDP and IngramSpark, you can upload your manuscript and cover, enter your book information, select pricing, distribution options, and publish your book. And…Boom…Just like that, you are a published author!

Step 8: Launch and Market Your Book

Publishing your book is a major accomplishment, but it isn’t the end of the journey. Readers still need to discover it. A successful book launch can include building an email list, recruiting a launch team, gathering early reviews, promoting the book through social media, appearing on podcasts, reaching out to media, running Amazon ads, and encouraging friends, colleagues, and supporters to spread the word.

Now that you know what to do, just get started!!!

Publishing a book can seem overwhelming when you look at the entire process at once. But it becomes much more manageable when you break it into individual steps. Just getting started is the best way to get your book published. Make a plan based on the simple steps above and get going. The joy of publishing a book make all the effort worth it.