Many people at some point in their life have the urge or desire to write a book which can be a daunting task, yet in our Modern Fancy Technological Society there are a million resources to help you take your ideas from thought to reality!  In my life I have been a Pilot, a Teacher, and an Engineer and there came a point in my life that I wanted to take my experience and talents and write a book, so I wrote three!  It took me nearly 2 years from start to finish yet it was a special & fun experience and my goal is share some ideas and point you in the write direction to being a successful Author!

STEP 1:  Write your Book

Yes its that easy!  Choose your academic weapons of choice be it Pencil & Paper, iPad, Laptop or Typewriter!  Whatever you are comfortable using to write your book.  Don't worry about anything like typos and formats and all the stuff that clouds your mind from letting your thoughts flow freely.  In High School I had an awesome teacher Mrs. Drane that taught us about "Free Writing" where you start to write about something with no worries about anything.  It lets your creative side come out and then you can do all the fine tuning later.  Find a nice comfy place like the great outdoors or a nice coffee shop to let your creative side shine through!

STEP 2:  Editing and Formatting

The trickiest part of getting your rough draft and edited book into a $aleable format is the final conversion to the Modern Standard of eBooks known as ePUB or Electronic Publishing Format.  The ePUB format is very complicated at the root level yet there are many programs for converting a Word or IPages or other Word Processing formats used on many platforms into the final form.  Microsoft Word is one of the most popular easily convertible file formats and Apples IPages also has many easy to use conversion formats for ePUB files.  If you hire somebody to Edit and Publish your eBook or make Hard or Softcover books they will take care of the formatting for you.  If you choose to Self Publish and do the work on your own, there are many programs to choose from, some easy to use and some more difficult yet with more choices for Fancy Features and other things!

STEP 3: Copyrighting Your Works

Once you have your eBook or ePUB file created for your book or series of books it needs to Copyright Approved by Washington DC which is a fun process.  I put the link for the Copyright Office above and just follow the steps to creating an account, uploading your works and then getting them reviewed and approved.  Most people use the "Unpublished Works" category which is only $85 for up to 10 "Unpublished Works" meaning that your books are done, yet not approved yet.  Once approved they will change to the category of "Published Works"!  The Copyright Office Lingo is fun to learn and the staff can answer your questions swiftly if you have any and are nice to work with.  They can't offer official "Legal Advice" however, they can "Guide and Assist" you.  It takes a long time to get your works reviewed because they have to read through everything.  Shorter books are approved faster and longer ones take longer, anywhere from 1 month to 8 months.  My books are short children's books and only took a month to approve!

STEP 4:   Starting Your Own Company

In order to sell your own books by Self Publishing you need to have your own company.  Its not as hard as you might think and its kind of fun creating a name and making logos and a nice website to promote and sell your books.  The first step is to think of a company name and make sure it doesn't infringe on any others in your town or state or nation.  The Copyright Office website has many resources to help you create and verify your own company name.  Then head to your local Town Hall to get an Official Business Certificate and anything else your town requires.  From there you can open a Business Account and then set everything up online to sell your books!

STEP 5:   Selling Your Books

There are a number of ways and companies that you can sell your eBooks through nowadays.  Each company uses a slightly different format and has different prices for Royalties and whatnot but they are overall the same.  The most popular are Apple eBooks and the Google Play Bookstore which makes your eBooks available in the formats used for the Apple and Android Fancy Phones used around the World nowadays.  I chose Apple as they were nice to work with and the fastest and easiest to get my books available for sale online and in the Apple iBooks Store.  The Google Play Bookstore and their requirements are a bit more tricky due to the nature of how they do business.  Most of the other companies and platforms such as Barnes & Nobles Nook Book, Amazons Kindle and others use the more tricky format of ePUB files and requires the official software to create those files.  

STEP 6:  Marketing & Sales

Once you get the first 4 steps done, now you're ready for Marketing & Sales!  The common lingo is Sales & Marketing but that's half backwards thinking.  Your own website is a great start for promoting your books and seeing what people think and then you can make improvements and go from there.  I had fun using Staples Business center to make some nice business cards with links and fancy QR Codes for buying my books on iTunes.  From there you can utilize Campaign Strategies depending on what company you chose to sell your books and they have everything you need to spread the word about your new books and hopefully make some sales!