Writing Ranting – Publishing Checklist – Make My Book Available

Now I’ve officially got things going with publishing my debut novel, I thought I’d share my checklist and my progress and plans.

Edit manuscript to publication standard.
Design book cover.
Marketing.
Make my book available for sale.

This is the bare checklist since there’s so many things within each section. Today I’ll start with making my book available for sale.

I chose Amazon only for the moment because their ISBNs are free. You can’t use these through other online bookstores, but considering ISBNs are around 150 each, I’m okay with sticking to Amazon.

KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) is completely free to get your book on Amazon. There are some optional costs, but Amazon take their cut from the sales.

It’s also really easy to add your book. They offer an online cover creator which is free or very cheap depending on what options you use. You can also download their own book formatting software which makes Mobi and Epub files from a Word document and you can edit more within the software.

At the moment, my ebook is available for pre-order on February 14th with a placeholder cover. I can’t make a paperback available yet using their own publishing process until I want to actually publish it, but honestly, for what it costs, which is nothing, I’m not complaining.

I’m also considering Kindle Unlimited for the first three months to encourage readers to give my book a go. It doesn’t give me as much royalties, but for a first-time author, I can’t be too fussy.

Basically, for me, Amazon is the best option and I can edit certain things in my book and its details whenever I want for free. Some online publishers charge for this.