Every writer has a dream of publishing their own book. I have a writer for more than a decade.
Professionally, I started writing in 2012 as a volunteer writer for the New Independent newspaper and Today newspaper. Before writing professionally for these newspapers, I was already a writer. I had this journal where I use to write topics of my interest ranging from movies, music, etc. I still have the article I drafted to partake in one of Junior Graphic’s writing competition.
It was not easy to start writing for newspaper. My first article for the New Independent newspaper was initially rejected. I rewrote it three times before the editor accepted to publish. In 2013, I started my first blog on the WordPress free blog platform. In 2019, I published my first book. My first book is about feminism and it’s misrepresentation by radical feminists. I self published my second book in 2020. The second talks about Ghana’s natural resources and our inability to maximize it to create wealth for the country.
To self publish your own book, you have to device a plan.
Firstly, create your write-up on a word document or pdf and save it on your laptop, pen drive and email account. I advise that you save your article on several platforms because it is safer that way, just in case you loose one. For example, if you have your product on your laptop only, what will you do if the hard disk get lost?. You have lost everything and you have to start writing tens of pages all over again. As a writer, always have a back up plan. Saving the content on about three to four places ensures several back ups for you. Back up should be a hobby for you as a writer.
Secondly, pay a professional editor to edit your book for you. Professional editors are the best when it comes to editing a book. A free way to edit your book is to use a grammatical online tool to edit. Again, you can edit it yourself if you are very good in the english language. Personally, I edit my book myself but the last edit, I use an online grammar tool.
There are so many grammar tools to help you edit your book without spending a Cedi or Dollar.
Again, after editing your book, you have to publish it on Amazon, Reader or any other reading platform that allow you to sell books electronically to consumers. I publish my books on Amazon and ReaderApp. Both my first and second books are on Amazon Kindle and Reader. Only my first book is on Reader. The app developers at the time were updating the app so it was unavailable.
Lastly, after publishing the book, device a promotional plan. Promote on television, radio and social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, TikTok, Instagram, Google, YouTube, among others. Start with Google, Facebook and Instagram promotion from the start. Book selling seems to work well on these platforms.
Book writing is not an easy task. Writing of the article alone can take you up to one to three months to complete depending on the number of pages. You have to go over and over again before even starting to edit.
No matter what, make sure you publish it on Amazon Kindle because Amazon is the biggest E-commerce platform especially for e-books. If you are a Ghanaian, post it on both Amazon and Reader. Reader is a Ghanaian owned electronic book publishing platform.
After publishing your first book, you will become experienced in publishing electronic books. It becomes easier overtime as you keep publishing to gain more experience.