So you want to become an author but you’re not sure about where to start? I was exactly like you some years ago. All I wanted was to get my story heard, have my books read by a few more people outside my family and friends but it was hard and confusing.
At first, as an aspiring author, I needed to convince myself that my story deserve to be heard. Like most new writers, this was hard. After series of editing and doubts, I almost abandoned the idea. But, what was more difficult was getting a publisher. I couldn’t get a traditional publisher to have my book published.
I opted for self publishing but the few publishers I could find were too expensive so I dropped that idea. After a lot of consideration, I tried digital publishing. This came with its own learning curve but eventually, I was able to find my way around it after trying it several times. And when my books finally got listed in stores around the world, my joy knew no bounds.
As an aspiring author at some point, I know that navigating self publishing can be very confusing but I also know that the joy of getting published can be very remarkable.
Having worked with a number of authors, I realized, a lot of people have been facing the same confusion I experienced when I published my first book. So, in this post, I’ll be sharing with you, the proven strategies, lessons and steps you can take to become an author and get your books read by audiences around the world.
Figure out Why you Want to Write
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One of the first steps to take when you want to become an author, is to decide why you want to write a book in the first place. Find out, why exactly do you want to write and publish that book you have in mind?
Is it because you want to make money selling books or you want to leave a legacy. Or is it just about becoming a published author?
Regardless of your genre, your goal for writing a book is very important. And you have to figure this out in time before you start to write your book.
This is because your book writing goal is going to influence the book you want to write about, the genre or even the niche you want to write on. It is also going to determine to a great deal, how you go about writing the book, including other things.
And in the long run, your inability to sort out ”why you want to write” in time, might affect the success of your book and in turn, your ability to make widespread impact as an author.
Pick out your Story
After sorting out your goal, the next thing you need to do to become a published author successfully is to figure out your story. This is where you have to answer the question, what is the meat of this story?
You see, a lot of people have stories to share. As an aspiring author, at some point you may believe that the story you plan to share with the world is actually your own million dollar story idea that will definitely become a best seller. But the truth is, not all stories end up becoming a best seller, simply because they look like it.
So, to get the right stories out, you need to identify the idea you want to write about in your book. This will mean doing some research to understand what can sell for your audience and fashioning your story to meet up with that.
Whether you’re writing fiction or non fiction, becoming a published author that is successful means that you must identify your audience and the story that matters to them.
And since you’ve already identified your goal in the first step above, what you need to do at this point is to align your story with your goal. If your goal is to make money selling your book, then your proposed book’s central ideas must revolve around your target audience, what matters to them and what they want to buy.
This is where you’ll have to identity your target audience first, before putting your pen on paper. Figure out the niche and the kind of books they patronize. And then work on making your book idea to fall along these lines.
If you’re writing a legacy book on the other hand like a memoir, biography, a motivational book, etc. You may not need to go through the rigorous process of finding an audience.
Reason is because oftentimes, for these kind of books, the goal is not necessarily to make money but to share your story and ideas with the world. So, instead of focusing on what the audience wants, you will rather focus on understanding your audience and writing in a way they can understand and relate to your story, unless your goal is different.
Do a Market Research
As soon as you figure out your story, you need to find out if there’s a market for that story. This is exclusively for people intending to make money selling their books as published authors. And also, if you want your story to be read by a lot more people.
I usually tell my mentees, to become an author and a successful one at that, you have to be able to sell your books. And, to ensure that this is possible you have to find out if there’s a market for the book idea before you even get to write it.
I have seen a lot of authors who’ve gone ahead to write books without doing any market survey yet they expect to make huge sales.
This is very wrong. And it often times led to very poor or zero sales. Because, selling a book is not a matter of guess work. It’s something you do intentionally, from the get go.
Of course, you can still publish a book without a market research and sell a number of copies by luck but, n one writes a book to sell it based on luck. If you want to become an author that sells or a best selling author then you need to intentionally write a book that can sell.
Bear in mind that market research goes beyond finding out if there are going to be buyers for your book. It also involves finding out the right title, sub title, book cover etc.
So, even as someone who’s not intending to write for money, you can still do some market survey to get these things right.
Brush up your Writing Skills
One of the most powerful ways to become an author is to write. And to write, you need to have writing skills. So before you pick up your writing pad, ask yourself the question, di I have the skills, experience or expertise to really write this book?
Usually, it’s not compulsory that you should be the one writing your own book. You can hire ghostwriters outsource, or get a third party to write the book for you while you edit to make sure everything goes as expected.
So, having or not having a writing skill might not be a hindrance to your desire to become a published author but if you have to writ the book yourself, you most definitely have to brush up your writing skills if you think that is necessary.
Where you have the right writing skills, the next thing you want to do is to put your acts together and get started with the book’s outline and other individual parts.
If your book is within a niche you’re not familiar with, you may want to do some brushing up to familiarize yourself with the use of phrases, words and tenses in the niche. This is very important for authors, including established authors. Regardless of your genre, research the niche.
Again let me reemphasize, if you have zero or low writing skills, you might want to learn how to write or hire a professional to write your book for you, based on your idea.
Write your Book
One of the biggest steps to become an author starts with the moment you begin to write your story. Just as much as it’s heart warming to publish a book, writing a book can be very tasking.
To make things easier, some authors start with writing out their book titles first. But, this is not a general rule as some authors choose to write the titles later to get something more suitable, especially for those writing creative stories.
If you write down your title before getting started, there are chances that you may not sometimes end up using the title exactly as you wrote it down but personally, writing it down at the on set will serve as a guide throughout the book’s creation process.
Again, there are a handful of authors that only create their book title after they would have written out the whole book. This is mostly observable with fiction books. And it works fairly well in that niche.
However, for non fiction authors, getting it done this way might be quite tasking especially when it comes to breaking down your idea into chapters.
So, as a non fiction author, you may be be better off, starting out with sorting your title. Although in any case, I always encourage authors to use any approach that boosts their creativity or enhance the overall writing process as this is very important.
Now, after writing your title, begin to chunk down your idea into chapters. To make it easy to develop a central chapter theme that will still link back to the general theme of your book.
Doesn’t matter if you didn’t start out writing down your idea. Getting out your chapter headings will make it easy for your creative mind to identify what to write about as you get to each stage of the writing process.
Publishing your Book
After writing your book, the next step on the journey to become an author is to publish your book. Here’s when you’ll decide the platform you plan to publish with.
Before we proceed, I want you to understand the two popular publishing options used by most authors which includes using a traditional publisher and a publishing agent or making your book available via self publishing traditionally or digitally.
At this point, you need to decide which of these available options you’ll want to use.
As a matter of fact, if you’re someone on a budget, the self publishing option might be your way to go. And with that, you may have to choose whether to self-publish with an offline traditional publisher or to publish online using a self-publishing platform like Amazon.
If you’re planning to publish with top traditional publishers, bear in mind that you will have to take very specific steps. For example, you’ll need a literary agent for some publishing houses if you’re writing fiction. Also, if you’re in the non fiction genre, you may need to have your book idea approved by your proposed publisher and target audience defined before you can even start writing it.
If you’re planning to self publish your book online, you can read this guide.
Promote your Book
Becoming an author does not start and end with writing and publishing a book. If you want to become a successful author, you have to get your books off the shelves, right in front of your target audience.
Even If you’re published by traditional publishers who are doing the promotion and book marketing on your behalf, as an author, you still have a role to play to drive massive sales and get your books out there to buyers but as a self published author, you’ll put in a lot more work to promote your book.
For starters, promotion starts even before the book writing is completed. From announcing your new book, to creating your book teasers and inviting beta readers, there are a lot of steps you’ll have to take to get your books in front of your target audience.
But, I usually advice writers to start with branding. Create a branding and branding kits that aligns with your book’s genre. This includes things like author bio, flyers, images and social media picturers.
After that, get on to the next stage of promotion. Create account or handles on top social media platforms with a large number of your target audience if you do not have one. Start creating, sharing relevant content on that page and engaging with your audience.
Beyond social media, create an author website to publish your books. If you already have one, upload the book’s description, flyer and banner to the website as an upcoming book. When this has been done successfully, create content, use the right keywords and share interesting posts on your website and social media about your book.
To make things even better, you can engage in paid marketing if you have the resources. This makes visibility even faster for your book. And there are several options you can try, including using social media advertising or platform based advertising. Choose what works for you.
I have written extensively on how to promote your book here.
Final Words
You can become a author and get your book out there in front of your readers. In fact, you deserve it. But, this is not a walk in the park. And you’ll not publish a book by wishing you could, unless you take the right steps, starting today.
Using the strategies you learned here can get your books on bookshelves around the world, just like t got mine and many others but, it is up to you, to take the next steps with your work.
To make it even easier, we have put together, publishing options that can get you to publish online and reach a global audience. And you can get started by reaching us here, if you need further guidance on how to get your book published digitally.
Now, It’s your turn! What’s the most difficult thing you’ve had to face as an aspiring author? Drop your comments below.
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