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The Art of Self Publishing

or How to get your words into the hands of the people who want to read them.

Self-Publishing for Fun and Profit is for anyone who wants to get their words into the hands of a wider audience, and who is ready to create change in their writing life.

Perhaps you have written memoirs for future generations; crafted your first novel; have a passion for poetry, short stories or flash fiction; or just want to share your specialist knowledge with a wider audience. This exciting new online course will guide you through the practicalities and logistics of publishing your work for fun and profit.

I originally ran this course back in 2021 as a live four-week course. Today, I’m adding all the resources to Substack for the benefit of my paid members. This is where you'll learn how to publish your work in two different formats as I show you how to make your work stand out from the crowd.

Remember to bookmark this page so you can get back to it quickly and easily as you work through the course.

What will you learn during the course?

  • How your objective determines just what you CAN and CAN'T do with your book

  • The easiest ways to POLISH your WORDS to perfection

  • How to layout a professional manuscript AND keep it consistent across all formats

  • How to create a cover that catches the eye of your potential readers

  • The actions you MUST take to get your book into the hands of a paying audience

  • How to PUBLISH your book to the world... and beyond!

Is this course right for you?

If you answer YES to any of the points below, then you belong on this course:

  • You have a manuscript ready to go but have failed to find a traditional publisher

  • Your family and friends keep pestering you to 'publish your diary' as it's too fascinating not to share

  • You have amassed a huge number of short stories and don't know what to do with them

  • Your poetry is going well at Open Mic events and the audience is asking for more

  • You want to give a copy of your work as Christmas or birthday gifts

  • You keep being asked to share your top tips and industry secrets with your peers

  • You want to add value to your workshops and training sessions.

In addition, you'll get:

The recording of the original live workshops of 1-1.5 hours where I'll walk you through all the tools, techniques, hints and tips as I guide you through the process of getting your words into print.

A COMPREHENSIVE WORKBOOK and guide you can follow during and after the course to remind you what we covered.

FREE RESOURCES including essential templates, 'how to' videos, infographics, and lots of other content to help you along the way to publishing success.

Course outline:

The course is divided into four sections. Each section includes a recording of around 1-1.5 hours which I guide you through the process of getting your words into some sort of print. There are also workbooks and worksheets throughout to help you work out what is best for you and why.

  1. Planning for publishing success vs hope publishing.

  2. Editing and formatting your work.

  3. Applying the finishing touches

  4. Hitting ‘publish’.

Introduction

When you think about sharing your words with the world what outcome would you like to have happened? This is the time to be honest about your desires, as well as intentions.

For example, if you want to be the next JK Rowling, now is the time to acknowledge that. If you want to share your specialist knowledge with a community then this is where you say so. If on the other hand, you want your writing to make you as rich as Croesus, then you also need to be clear about that objective too.

You can have multiple objectives, and they can appear conflicted. But let’s not worry about that for the time being. Just write down your greatest hopes and desires for your writing life.

Why is this step important?

Well, it’s the glue that determines what you do next. Whether you decide to publish a book, set up or write a blog post, or use social media. Your outcomes will decide both the path and the direction that path takes.

That’s it for now. I simply want you to write down where you want to get to. And don’t worry about what other people might think, this is only going to be seen by you unless you choose to share it with someone else at a later date.

Download the worksheet

Why Self Publish Exercise 1
167KB ∙ PDF file
Download
Download

Section 1 - Planning for publishing success vs hope publishing

In this section the topics we cover include:

  • How your objective influences what you can and can’t do with your writing

  • Types of self-publishing

    • books

    • eBooks

    • PDf files

    • blog posts and web pages

    • social media updates

  • Setting a publication date

  • Setting a price for your work

  • The British Library and UK published books

  • Creating your book information sheet

  • Using an ISBN number

  • Comparing the cost of self-publishing

  • CIP Records and Nielsen Bookdata

  • Taxes and accounting

The rest of this post is for paid members of my Creative Hub community. All four sections mentioned above are below, with all their content too. Just start with the video or audio in section 1 and go from there. Good luck and don’t forget to let me know about your own publishing success.

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The Writing Shed
Authors
Linda Parkinson-Hardman