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“I wish I had known that before I self-published my book.”

It’s a common author lament. Maybe you’ve said it, too.

Nearly everybody has a story about something they learned after they started the self-publishing process. For many, the discovery came too late to save them time, money, or trouble.

That doesn’t mean you have to make the same mistakes, though.

Lessons learned

Hoping to help new authors learn from the experiences of others, I asked self-published authors, “What do you know now about self-publishing that you wish you had known when you started?”

Here’s what they told me.

“YouTube and Google are a self-publisher’s best friend. I learned Adobe Illustrator and InDesign methods because I self-published and had next to no budget. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Ashley Sutton, Overtime Is SO Over

“The one aspect of self-publishing I wish I knew when I started was to not overthink the process. There’s so much overthinking going on because you don’t want to go about it in the wrong way, but that simply complicates and slows down the process. My advice, just do it and put aside any fears you may have.”

Avni Parekh, Be The Bigger Person

“I wish I knew more about the business end of selling books. When I first decided to publish my children’s books, I wasn’t sure how to get into a distribution network and actually reach people through all sources, so I created books through an off-set printer and through IngramSpark. However, once I started getting my sales reports, I learned I was only making 7 cents a book through those online channels!

“That kind of return was not going to work. Luckily, I was able to get connected to a distributor with a sales team to help run my ads and generate higher returns. But if I had known this sooner, I could’ve saved myself a lot of headache and money.”

Brooke Van Sickle, Pirates Stuck at “C”

“Finding a reputable publishing company is key.  There are a lot of options and resources out there, but do your homework.  Check out reviews and truly evaluate the services they provide. You want to make sure the company you chose is a good fit for your book and your brand, and not just after your pockets.”

Carenda Deonne, Perfect Patty Messed Up Devotional

“I wish I had known more about the process of marketing myself as an author. I also wish I had known more about sending out books for review before publishing. I was unaware of the impact of reviews and keywords on search rankings.”

Cassandra Fay LeClair, Being Whole: Healing from Trauma and Reclaiming My Voice

“I wish I would have known specifics about the financial investment up front. To do it right, you really need to hire a designer for artwork (~$800), establish an LLC (~$125), format/edit the book (I did this myself, but most people don’t; ~$400), obtain ISBNs and copyrights (~$200). By the time you market the book, you’re out of pocket around $2,000.”

Jessica Duemig, WARRIOR

“Start the marketing piece much earlier. As a new author, I was taking everything one step at a time, learning as I went. By the time I got to the point where the book was finished, had a cover, and was in proofreading, I started researching the publishing and marketing piece – only to learn that I was now way behind. It’s not something you can really make up; you just do what you can with the time you have.”

Joyce Kristiansson,The Last Straw, Change Your Life and the Planet – for Good

“I wish I knew when I first started how important pre-launches and publicity are in the success of publishing.”

Kathryn Starke, Amy’s Travels

“I wish I had been more “realistic” with my expectations with regard to sales of self-published books versus established authors and major publishers. It’s far easier to create a best-selling book if you are well-known or very popular.”

Kevin Darné, My Cat Won’t Bark! (A Relationship Epiphany)

“Use IngramSpark for your print books! I just learned this valuable lesson. Bookstores and libraries don’t buy from Amazon – they use IngramSpark to purchase books, and if you don’t publish there, you are missing out on many sales. Also, I have noticed the quality of the print books is higher with IngramSpark.”

K. J. Gillenwater, Aurora’s Gold

“I wish I had known how important reviews were. Once your book is live on Amazon, it’s harder to give away free copies. Many authors find reviewers before their launch, and when the book goes live, they have it listed for free for the first week or two, so the reviewers can ‘purchase’ the book. When I launch my second book, I will focus more on getting reviews in the first few months rather than sales.”

Lynn Moore, Solidarity: Finding solidarity in heartbreak, anxiety & depression

“Don’t get carried away with yourself. It’s a beginner’s mistake. I self-published my first book decades ago, long before the days of the internet. In my naive self-confidence, I paid to have a local printer make 1,000 copies. Sales were embarrassingly dismal. I resorted to giving them away wherever I could. Decades later, I am selling subsequent books through Amazon and am much more savvy about marketing. I still have 100 copies of my first book as a humbling reminder.

Marianne Jones, The Serenity Stone Murder

“I wish I had known about Amazon ads and used them right away!”

Milana Perepyolkina, Gypsy Energy Secrets: Turning a Bad Day into a Good Day No Matter What Life Throws at You

“I know now that we the writers don’t need the exclusivity to one platform. Other platforms such as Amazon, Apple, Kobo, and Scribd and more formats are better for those people who have different types of e-readers.”

Núria Añó, The Salon of Exiled Artists in California

“Creating an enjoyable book is one thing, but attracting an audience to your book is something very different. Before you begin to write, you should identify to whom you are writing your book for and what are the benefits the readers will receive from reading your book.”

Paulette Harper, Secret Places Revealed

“While I knew I would have to do the marketing myself for my self-published novel, I didn’t realize that, with the 24/7 opportunities of the internet, book marketing could become a full-time job.”

Phyllis Zimbler Miller, Mrs. Lieutenant

“You will spend 30 percent of your time writing your book and 130 percent marketing your book.”

Rae Stonehouse, Blow Your Own Horn! Personal Branding for Business Professionals

“Writing the book was the easy part. When you decide to embark on the self-publishing journey, you need to have a marketing plan zipped up and ready to launch. If you don’t shout it out from the rooftops, no one will find your book.”

Renée Bauer, PERCY’S IMPERFECTLY PERFECT FAMILY

“I didn’t realize that when you self-published a book that you had to do all of the marketing yourself since you weren’t really hiring anyone to do it.”

Shelby DeVore, Think ‘Inside’ the Box: An Essential Guide to Edible Container Gardening

“I wish I’d known earlier which tasks it made sense for me to embark on the learning curve for myself, and which ones it made sense to hire people who already knew how to do those things. Because I hadn’t published a book before, I didn’t have a full appreciation, at the outset, for the thousand things I would need to think about and do in order to publish to a professional standard, or for how time-consuming some of those things would be.”

Siri Carpenter, The Craft of Science Writing

“I wish I had known how much time and effort it takes to market a book. Some experts say you can do it in 10 to 30 minutes a day, but for the newbie trying to learn all the intricacies of book marketing, that is simply not realistic.”

Sonia Frontera, Solve the Divorce Dilemma: Do You Keep Your Husband or Do You Post Him on Craiglist?

“The biggest surprise for me was just how time-consuming the promotion side of things can be. I work in online marketing in my day job, so I thought it’d be simple – especially as I had a bit of a following on Twitter and LinkedIn already – but I underestimated how much time it takes to promote it effectively. It’s easy to think only about ‘getting it out there’ and thinking the hard work stops as soon as it appears on Amazon, but that’s not the case. So my advice to other self-published authors would be to make sure you have your promotion strategy in place way before you publish if you can.”

Steve Morgan, Anti-Sell

“Always order a printed proof before releasing the book.”

Tara Alemany, Publish with Purpose

“When I published my first book of poetry, I wish I had understood two things. One, that there’s no such thing as a perfect manuscript. Two, that your manuscript gets stronger when you recruit talented people for your project.”

Tenesha Curtis, The Newbie’s Guide to Book Development

“Reviews are hard to get. This felt like a perpetual revolving door for me: I needed people to buy my book so they could leave a review, but people didn’t want to spend the money on my book if it had no reviews. Had I known about advance review copies, and secured some reviews before launch, I think I could’ve saved myself a lot of this hassle in the beginning.”

Tim Koster, The Probability of Time

What have you learned about self-publishing that might help others? Please tell us in a comment!

Guest post: How smart book marketing got me a second publishing contract

By Heather Shumaker

In the months leading up to my first book’s publication, I worked with Sandy Beckwith to come up with a promotion plan. She was ever professional, ever polite, but the words that stuck in my head were when she said kindly, “I’m amazed you got a book contract with absolutely no platform.”

It was true. I had nothing to start with. No credentials, no fans, no Facebook Page, no blog. All I had was hope and hard work.

That hard work paid off. Since my first book, It’s OK Not to Share (a renegade parenting book), was published in 2012, I’ve earned out the advance, my sales are still steady four years later, and was I invited to write a sequel by my publisher.

Defying the odds

As I’ve learned, that defies the odds. My agent tells me the average traditionally published book sells 3,000 copies total, and sales drop off dramatically after the first six months.

My goal was to be a writer, not just a one-book writer, but a career writer. It took me four years or so to get an agent and secure a publisher for my first book. I devoted the year after its publication to continual promotion. As I’d heard, publishing a first book was hard, but publishing a second book could be harder. Publishers might be willing to take a chance on a new voice for a first book, but after that you had to have a track record of sales. I wanted my book’s track record to be strong enough so I could write a second book.

I tried to do everything when I first started. That resulted in feeling that promotion was a big, black hole. No matter how much of my life and time I poured in, there was always more that could be done. I wasn’t writing. Promotion drained me.

So here are seven things I learned that led me to my second book contract.

1. Limit social media.

Unless you absolutely love it and social media makes you feel fulfilled, don’t try to do all social media. Pick the ones that fit your personality best. For me that ended up being a blog and a professional Facebook Page.

Concentrate efforts on social media venues you mostly enjoy. Don’t try to be everywhere. Besides, you might already be in more places than you think. By the time I explored Pinterest, I realized my book was already there: Readers who like Pinterest best had already pinned my book cover and pinned blog posts.

Focus your time on selected social media that fits you. Then make it easy for readers who like other venues better to post in their worlds (ex: add Tweetables at the end of your posts. That makes it easy for Twitter fans to spread the word).

2. Collect email addresses.

This is a tip I learned from Sandy and it’s proven its worth time and again. I’m doing this when I’m speaking. At each event I passed a clipboard and collected emails. When my second book came out I had easy access to 1,000-2,000 people who cared about my writing. Now I’m moving to a digital clipboard and passing a tablet – no data entry!

3. Speaking pays.

I was told “First you write your book, then you speak your book.” So true. I started speaking for free at libraries, then charged $100 for an appearance, then moved up to bigger events. Three years later I’m keynoting at national conferences and speaking brings in half my income.

4. Keep your book “new.”

Publishers move on to the next book when your book is barely a month old. News media like things to be “new,” too.

But your book is always new to readers who are just discovering it. Word of mouth has its own timeline.

When I speak to a new audience, it’s as if the book were published yesterday. People are on fire with the novelty. This probably works best if you decide to do long-term speaking, but it also works well with book clubs. Book clubs don’t just choose newly released books. Often it takes years for a title to work its way in and get chosen. Go ahead and contact book clubs or online read along groups and suggest your book as their next pick. Guaranteed to be new again.

5. Write a good book.

Of course, we can’t sit on our laurels, thinking “I wrote a great book, now readers will find it.” Helping people discover your book takes effort. But if your book finds true fans, it will have staying power. People buy multiple copies and share them with their friends. Readers suggest bringing in an author to speak.

My early book promotion was a never-ending time of reaching out to people. People often contact me now because they like the book, and promotion takes much less work.

6. Go gradually.

If you have nothing to start, the way I had, take one step at a time. Today I have the Starlighting Mama blog, weekly Renegade Rules podcast show on iTunes and Stitcher, business fan Page on Facebook, a Twitter account, an email newsletter, videos on YouTube, and an active speaking calendar booking up more than a year in advance.

I started with only a website. I would have been overwhelmed to do everything at once. Since every new step added on gradually, it doesn’t seem hard to balance.

7. Set a deadline.

Give yourself a timeframe to devote your best effort to promotion. Then stop and get back to writing. Once you have a book out you should never go cold turkey and banish all promotion, but give it a discrete time to be top priority, then shift it down to maintenance level.

My second book, It’s OK to Go Up the Slide, comes out this week. I’m offering early bird gifts as part of the launch: Order a copy before March 13, 2016 and receive free gifts (special edition one-hour podcast taking you behind the scenes plus a set of inspirational quotes for your fridge). Simply buy the book before March 13, then send me an email saying where you bought it.

I’m excited to share its newness with the world but I also have confidence it will continue to find new readers years from now.

What’s the most important thing you learned while marketing your book?

Heather knew that she’d have to build a platform and learn how to leverage it, so she took my course as part of the learning process. In Part 1 of a two-part series here, Heather shares some of what she learned while promoting her book, It’s OK Not to Share…And Other Renegade Rules for Raising Competent and Compassionate Kids  (She learned enough to get her book featured in USA Weekend not long after it launched!) Learn more about this advocate for free play and conflict mediation skills for kids on her website and Starlighting Mama blog. Part 2 will run on Thursday.

Parenting book author shares lessons learned about book publicity

By Heather Shumaker

I took Sandy’s “Book Publicity 101” e-course to prepare for my August 2012 book launch of It’s OK Not to Share…And Other Renegade Rules for Raising Competent and Compassionate Kids, a nonfiction renegade parenting book. My book was traditionally published (with Tarcher, a Penguin imprint), but many of the “lessons learned” apply to both self-published and traditionally published authors. Five months later, I’m looking back to see what went right and wrong and what I can share about book promotion.

Build a tribe. Your tribe is hugely important. These are the people who love you or your book and want to help you succeed. Some of them will be long-term friends, others will be strangers who meet you via a review, an event, or a Facebook post. Take care of your tribe, involve them, give away free books, and ask them to post reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. Build your tribe at every opportunity.

Always collect e-mail addresses. E-mail addressess are golden. They help build your tribe, for this book and the next. Make it easy to collect them from your website (use MailChimp or another service), blog, and Facebook page. Pass a clipboard and collect addresses at events. A strong e-mail list may be your greatest asset. Start organizing your e-mail addresses long before your book comes out. And as Sandy would remind you, only add e-mail addresses to your newsletter list if you have the person’s permission first.

Be friends with your publicist. If you’re working with a traditional publisher, meet with your publicist as soon as possible – in person. Send her/ him weekly status updates summarizing your promotion efforts. Say “yes” to everything she proposes – every interview, every article. Make her job easier by being easy to work with.

Understand that publicists leave. The folks in New York change jobs a lot. If it’s not your editor leaving, it may be your publicist, which is what happened to me 10 days after my book launched. The lesson: Even if you have a traditional publisher, read up on advice for self-published authors. You may be asked to take on the publicist’s duties yourself.

Get a social media critique. Are you only joining Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Goodreads because you have a book coming out? Good, but be ready to learn. Ask someone who knows more than you (friend or paid consultant) to critique your social media presence and style. Have you got the right set up? Are you annoying people? When it’s all new, it can be hard to get the tone right, so ask and keep refining your style.

Media is fragmented. There’s no single media source anymore. Media is very fragmented. This can be confusing and time-consuming. What once worked (for example, getting on national TV) may or may not generate new book sales. Learn about your audience demographic and where they are in 2013. For example, a WW II nonfiction book may resonate most with older men; they listen to daytime radio. A parenting book needs to connect with young families; parents of little ones are online.

Don’t expect to “finish.” Book promotion can take over your life. It’s never done, so it can be easy to get dragged down. Tackle several promotion tasks a day and don’t worry if you can’t do it all. Keep working hard and moving forward. Focus on the promotion areas that will most benefit you as a brand – who you are, the audiences you’re trying to build for this and future books. Keep promoting your book long after your publisher has moved on.

Book promotion is trial by fire. I thought I’d studied up ahead of time, but now I think it’s hard to really know how to promote a book until you’ve done it. The learning process is steep. Total immersion is an excellent teacher. Some of the lessons authors and publicity folks try to tell you ahead of time may not really make sense until you’re doing it. You’ll find your way and discover your personal strengths and best promotion style as long as you work hard. For example, did you discover you love to speak when you thought you’d hate it? Are you good at pitching but bad at concise interview answers? The key is to take promotion seriously, learn all you can, take new risks, and always work at it.

Come back on Thursday!

On Thursday, Heather will share what she learned about how to talk about your book — something that’s particularly challenging for people who would rather be writing. Join us back here then to learn more about how to talk about your book to groups or in media interviews.

Learn more about the “Book Publicity 101: How to Build Book Buzz” e-course, what it covers, and the personal insruction and feedback you’ll receive at the course description page.

What are your favorite book promotion tips and lessons learned?