Self-Publishing Tips from one of the UKs Bestselling Authors

Self-Publishing Tips from one of the UKs Bestselling Authors Self-Publishing Tips from one of the UK's Bestselling Authors For those of you who are still  skeptical  about the extent of self-publishing's promise, Adam Croft is all the inspiration you need. With 150,000 copies sold in the first quarter of  2016 and a book deal with Amazon, things are only looking up for this new indie giant.  In this post, he shares his top tips for self-publishing.When you’re first starting out as an author, it can be incredibly daunting. I remember the feeling well. Back when I started self-publishing in 2011, there really wasn’t much information or tips out there on how to market your books and be successful at it. I had to find my own way, and along the way I learnt a lot.  Since then, I’ve gone on to sell more than half a million books, with my latest becoming the biggest-selling self-published book of the year and landing me a huge publishing deal with Amazon. That took five years of working out what works and what doesn’t. Separating the wheat from the chaff is difficult, espec ially with so many people professing to be self-publishing experts.  Even today, there’s a lot of rubbish out there in the industry. People with barely a few hundred sales put themselves up as gurus to tell others what works and what doesn’t. The signal to noise ratio is low. I hope to cut through that. Here are my top tips based on five years of experience, half a million sales and the biggest-selling indie book of the year.Treat your writing as a businessThis is absolutely paramount. You’re creating a product and selling it to customers. If that makes you uncomfortable, stop reading now and find a traditional publisher. You need to be business-minded and thinking about profit margins. Otherwise, you’re not after self-publishing; you’re after vanity publishing, which is a whole different ball-game.Always think about the long-termYou won’t release your first book and get big sales. You just won’t. In fact, once you’ve self-published your first book, pat yourself on the back and get on with writing another two. New readers simply aren’t going to flock to your one single book - they like to stick with a certain author. Give them a reason to want to invest in you.Likewise, don’t concern yourself with getting sales straight away. You need to be thinking about future-proofing your business and your career, which leads me on to†¦Get a mailing listSign up for a MailChimp account and get yourself a mailing list. Simply having readers buy your book and then disappear into the ether is not what you want. You need to be able to get in touch with them and let them know when you’ve got a new book out. Trust me: they won’t be searching your name on Amazon every couple of weeks to see if you’ve got a new one. They won’t even remember your name once they’ve put the book down. They’ll be straight onto the next author who’s marketing his or her books better than you.This is my number one tip in terms of marketing, and I really can’t overstate it enough. For more information on how to make mailing lists really work, check out Nick Stephenson’s books - Reader Magnets, in particular, or even his exhaustive interview on the Reedsy blog. You can get your own copy of Adam's latest thriller, Her Last Tomorrow  here.Agree with Adam's methods? Do you have your own secret self-publishing tips? Share them here, or ask Adam any question in the comments below!