How to Publish A Book – 10 Key Points by Guy Kawasaki
Have you ever dreamed of publishing your own book but just don’t know where to start? Here are some of key points shared by well-known author, Guy Kawasaki, during the Traffic and Conversion Summit 2013 held early this year.
Write for the right reason
Wrong reasons – make money (probability to make lots of money is very low), increase consulting, increase speeches. Not to say these won’t be the result, but they shouldn’t be the core reasons
Right reasons – enrich people’s lives, further a cause, meet an intellectual challenge
Use Microsoft Word to write
Use “styles” feature to keep book consistent
MS Word is the standard among editors, testers, designers, and resellers
Write every day – 1-2 hours per day
Most people’s idea of writing is too idealistic. Writing is the process of vomiting out your knowledge then refining everything later.
Build your marketing platform – do this from the very start
Earn the right to market to your audience by constantly providing value. This will trigger reciprocation.
Take the curator role and share topics in your niche. This will establish yourself as an expert.
Start with the simplest path – start with a Kindle eBook
Amazon has 51% of eBook market share
If it’s successful on Amazon, it will also be successful on other platforms, guaranteed
Tap the crowd – don’t tell your publisher this:
Guy’s 3 step writing process: Outline, manuscript, PDF
Outline – spend 2 months outlining book. Share outline and ask for feedback on social media. Edit for another 2 months
Manuscript – Gives his friends to read manuscript to get feedback and comments via social media
PDF – Right before it’s done, he asks his social media followers with blogs to review it
Hire a copy editor
Hire a great cover designer
Very important to have a good cover on the books (people judge books by their cover)
Test your eBook
Test your book on various devices – tablets, apps, cloud readers, nook, kobo, ibooks
Some people think they only have to read a Kindle book on Kindle tablet. They don’t know about other apps.
Never, ever give up
Stephen King, George Orwell, and Kerouac were all rejected
Self – publishing stigma (self publishers can’t get picked up by publishers) is a MYTH nowadays
No one even knows who published a book on Amazon. People just look at # of stars and read a few reviews
Artisanal publishing – giving author control of everything
Hall of Fame self publishers:
- Birds of America – James Audobon
- Leaves of Grass – Walt Whitman
- 50 Shades of Grey
Guy Kawasaki is an author, publisher, entrepreneur and was recently a guest speaker at the Traffic and Conversion Summit held earlier this year (2013). Guy Kawasaki is the author of APE, What the Plus!, Enchantment, and nine other books. He is also the co-founder of Alltop.com, an “online magazine rack” of popular topics on the web.
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