HELLO from Crippled Beagle Publishing!
As I advise clients throughout the week, I keep a little sticky-note list so that I can share those same tips with you. I have the same conversations many times over, which tells me the information is important. Today, I offer one easy to implement/try action item for each phase of the publishing process. If you'd like cheat sheets or one-on-one tutorials for any of the tips below, email me at dyer.cbpublishing@gmail.com or call me.
PHASE 1: Writing
If you need math or science formulas/notations in your document, you can find every character you need (even pre-written formulas) in Word. Go to the Insert tab, then click Equation. Play around there to see the many helpful options.
PHASE 2: Editing
Many times a year, I find that clients are trying to "hand type" or manually enter the table of contents. Forget that! Word has an awesome tool via the References tab. First, you must create/select/modify Heading styles in the tool bar (found on the Home tab). Then, as you type in, for example, a chapter title, you can simply click one of the heading styles in the tool bar, which will automatically format the heading AND prepare it for the table of contents. Once you finish the book (yay), you can then use the References tab to create a custom table of contents. There are a few steps, but this process is EASY to learn.
PHASE 3: Publishing
NEVER think that a hybrid-published or self-published book can't hang with the big boys. There are only a handful of big, "traditional" publishing houses left in the USA. They choose authors who have enormous (profitable for them) social media followings and lists so that when they publish, the house recoups any advances. The majority of books are self/hybrid-published AND earn most of the royalties. Thank goodness we don't need a board room of strangers to approve, right? As an author, though, you should adhere to industry standards. If you publish with me, you are in good shape!
PHASE 4: Marketing
Quick tips:
Use your email signature to advertise your book(s) and brand! Under your name, include a tag line, book cover image (small), and actual link to your buying page on Amazon/other. Different email accounts have different options, of course, but typically you can go to the settings menu to craft a specific signature that will automatically land at the bottom of every email you send.
As you read books, write reviews and share them online. When you post the reviews, name yourself as an author! Toot your horn! Sign the review in some manner like this:
"[Review of book, which does NOT need to be long.]}" —Jody Dyer, author of [Book Title]
See? Easy!
Feel free to forward my emails and cheat sheets with other authors. I love meeting new writers and learning from them. As always, thank you for sharing your precious time and ideas with me. Have a wonderful week!
xoxoxo
Jody
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