Article - My Top Tips for Writing a Book
Article - My Top Tips for Writing a Book
By Yvonne Junor
Lessons I've learnt from writing my memoir 'Finding My Rainbow' published by Busybird Publishing in 2023.
First published on LinkedIn on 23 April 2024
Planning and Preparing
Editing and Publishing
Business and Administration
Website and Marketing
Launch and Sales
1. Planning and Preparing
In describing my top tips for writing and publishing a book, I will share with you my journey of publishing my book ‘Finding My Rainbow’ (a memoir).
First and foremost, you need to have a passion, purpose and very strong commitment to achieving this goal.
It takes talent, tenacity, some business sense, luck and considerable funds to achieve this dream.
You don’t need to be the smartest person in the room because persistence and consistency is quite important too!
It is essential to set a realistic budget, this is an expensive process, my book cost me thousands of dollars to publish (I am too scared to tell you the real figure).
If you don’t have a strong foundation and reason for writing your book it is more difficult to face the inevitable challenges along the way.
2. Editing and Publishing
Once I had written my first draft, I needed to find an editor to bring it up to standard for publishing.
I joined a writing group and the woman who ran the group, Annie AJ Collins, was an editor. During the weekly meetings, I got to know her style and I felt she was a good match for my book. I also attended her memoir workshop and it was enormously helpful.
Finally, having gone through the editing and copywriting stages, the book was ready to be pitched to publishers.
I joined the ‘Australian Society of Authors’ I would recommend this as they give many benefits to their members.
They have a book about publishing in Australia called 'ASA’s Guide to Getting Published: Understanding and navigating Australia’s book industry' by Juliet Rogers which is very helpful.
I tried their ‘Literary Speed Dating’ to pitch to publishers and literary agents over Zoom. Personally, I found this to be a stressful and demoralising experience and I wouldn’t recommend this to other first time authors.
I independently pitched my book to twenty Australian and international publishers. After four months and no success, I made the decision to independently publish my book through Busybird Publishing (located in Montmorency in Melbourne) as my editor had recommended them.
They were excellent throughout the whole process. The team was incredibly supportive, professional and a pleasure to deal with.
Unfortunately, this type of publishing does not include marketing and distribution and this has prevented my book from reaching a wider audience.
However, I have now created three versions of my book. A paperback version, e-book and audiobook. Dave Stokes from Author2Audio completed the audiobook version with me.
I would recommend that you buy several ISBN barcodes at once through THORPE-Bowker. It is cheaper and you need a separate ISBN for each version of your book.
3. Business and Administration
Some of the business components you need to be aware of include:
purchasing a Domain Name (for your website)
setting up a business bank account
setting up a PayPal account
creating a business Facebook account
updating your LinkedIn Profile
creating an IngramSpark account (for printing books on demand)
engaging a graphic designer Patty Trajkovska to develop a marketing strategy and photos for my website
Before publishing my book, I completed a number of courses, including:
Introduction to Writing
Creative and Memoir Writing
Marketing
Zoom
Canva
Microsoft 365
These courses gave me invaluable knowledge, confidence, skills and networking opportunities.
Neighbourhood Learning Centres offer a wide range of affordable courses and are reasonably priced.
4. Website and Marketing
The other element was my website and I chose a Squarespace offering.
One mistake I made was not telling my website developer that I had already purchased the domain name. That meant that they set up another domain name without realising this and couldn’t combine the two accounts into one and this challenge was very stressful.
The other challenge I faced was the overlap of design ideas between my graphic designer and my website developer which involved a lot more communication and cost as a result of duplication of efforts.
Also, my website developer hadn’t completed a site for an author before, and I had to relay information that I didn’t really know myself. I asked the publishers to talk directly and explain the technical aspects including how to load the files onto the website.
I would recommend that if you are an author, it is best to work with a website developer who has worked with authors previously. In hindsight I would have chosen Wordpress for my website as this has greater flexibility and a higher ability to appear in search engine results.
One of the most challenging and confronting aspects to writing my memoir was people’s reaction (or lack of?).
The whole process requires the ability to deal with rejection (submitting to publishers), praise and criticism.
However well intended, criticism is not something I (like most people) take easily. No matter how many times I read my manuscript, mistakes were not picked up.
When I set myself the goal of writing a book, I gave myself some slack and aimed for a quality product, not perfection, otherwise it’s counterproductive.
One of the most surprising aspects was people who gave no response or only a word of thanks when I gave them a copy of my book (and no specific feedback).
It was disappointing because it’s nice to be appreciated and I was curious as to how people responded to my book and how they felt about it.
On a better note, overall, the feedback I received was overwhelmingly positive and made all the hard work and sacrifices worthwhile.
5. Launch and Sales
In terms of marketing, look at who your competition is, i.e. authors similar to you.
I would suggest you study their social media and websites.
I studied many websites before deciding on mine and now it is changing again (because of input from my current business coach).
Finally, in September 2023, I launched my book at Busybird Publishing. It was very exciting.
I approached Community Centres to do my book launch, but it requires you to take out costly insurance!
The least effective forms of promotion so far have been:
approaching and participating in community centres
emails to community radio stations
contacting book clubs
sending my book to a local politician
approaching bookshops (they prefer traditionally published books)
offering to speak at Rotary and Probus Clubs or Beyond Blue
networking with bookstore people
sending an email to my local library
book organisations such as ‘The Wheeler Centre’
University of the Third Age
I made the decision to change my focus and was given the recommendation of a business consultant Sue Ellson.
I am taking a wider perspective using the book as prelude to other platforms such as workshops and speaking engagements.
Sue has a wide range of skills, including career advice, LinkedIn, social media, career advice and technology. If there is one wish I now have is if I had her much earlier this process would have been a lot easier and less expensive! With Sue’s expertise I am placing myself strategically in the marketplace.
The most effective methods of promotion and marketing:
networking and word of mouth are critical
be very strategic and specific in where you market
Kwik Kopy are great for business cards and marketing material
Google Business, Google About Me and Google Author Profile
developing your brand and logo
having a business mentor with the appropriate specialisation suited to you
keeping your presence up on social media, website, LinkedIn etc with regular quotes, videos and blogs published on a consistent basis
engaging on social media (with other people's content)
it is probably more effective to have a website in your author name for your book rather than in your business name or in your book name
the best method of obtaining book reviews was through friends and acquaintance’s that I felt comfortable asking to complete a review
My ‘brand’ is developing in a consistent and progressive manner by way of weekly quotes on my website and social media accounts.
I have joined the local government business organisation and placed my business on their website.
I am learning to be much more strategic in my marketing, however I couldn’t put a high enough value on having someone like Sue Ellson.
Conclusion
In summary, the book writing process took much longer, was much more complicated, it involved many more stages than I could ever have anticipated and was way more expensive than I could have ever imagined!
When I started, it was with a lot of naivety, but sheer unwavering determination to achieve the goal.
At the end of the day, this has been one of my proudest achievements!
I have learnt so much on many levels and gained incredible confidence.
Despite it all, I would still recommend it if you are up for a challenge!
By Yvonne Junor BA ASA 🌈 Author, ‘Finding My Rainbow’
Feel free to ask me any questions!
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