1. Publish the e-book first: Start with an e-book (pdf and epub) first. This is the easiest and fastest way to get started. Creating an e-book first will also allow you to get feedback from your readers and make any necessary adjustments to your book. After getting your e-book online and solving all the problems, add a print-on-demand pocket edition.

2. Stick to your niche: Your book should be directly aligned with your niche. For many self-publishers, success comes from focusing their book and their marketing on their particular niche. Part of sticking to your niche is that you need to learn and understand the topic of branding.

3. Design a great cover: Spend a lot of time developing and designing a great cover. Design lots of sample covers for your book. In particular, look at books that have a theme similar to yours. If you are not creative and have the money, pay a professional to do the cover design for you.

4. Refine the contents: Spend a lot of time perfecting and editing the content of your book. Make improvements and fixes even after it’s published.

5. Get testimonials: Go to great lengths to get testimonials and endorsements. You should never stop asking other gurus in your industry and celebrities to write them for you. Keep adding them to your book and your book blog. Convince one of these gurus or celebrities to write the foreword for your book.

6. Blog configuration: Create a blog to support your book. This is not difficult or expensive. By far the best way to do this is to blog with a large company like WordPress. These blogs are specifically designed to be easy to use. They are also designed to work very well with search engines like Google.

7. Maximized Third Party Websites: Maximize the use of all the websites that list your book. Many websites, like Amazon, allow you to add a large amount of information about yourself and your book. Doing this will be like giving your book another website dedicated to you and your book. Take advantage of everything Amazon has to offer.

8. Avoid bookstores: Do not place your book in bookstores using a wholesaler or distributor. This step is for much more advanced publishers and desktop publishers with large bank accounts. Bookstores sell very few books, especially from non-celebrity self-publishers.

9. Use all the major online retailers: Take your book to major outlets like Amazon, Barnes & Noble online, Scribd, etc. Using services like SmashWords, BookBaby, and Lightning Source will accomplish this. Additionally, some professional organizations allow their members to list their book in the organization’s catalog.

10. Market, market, market: Getting your book online is the easy part. Making your book financially successful is the time-consuming part. But now, thanks to the Internet, it is not difficult. The more effort you put into marketing and promotion, the more financially successful your book will be. Even if you are not a business minded person, you will find marketing and promotion to be a very interesting process.

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