I recntly gave a friend of mine some advice.  I thought it applicable for most so here are five practical things to do as you embark on your publishing journey.

1. Finish your book.

Get it done. Edit it. Make sure it’s in MS Word. But whatever you do…finish it. You are an author when you finish the book. Not before. Prior to completion you are a writer which is different.

2. Figure out who your books market is.

What is the demographics. What are the pyshcographics, (the attitudes, what they want in life, where they hang out etc.)
You must really get a handle on this. Your book is NOT for everyone. But it is for someone. You need to get a good handle on who would be buy your book. Who is your audience.

3. Start a blog or a website.

Get your name out on the internet as a writer of your devotional. Put samples up. Take past sermons and put them up. But begin to build a following and platform so people can locate you on the web. I recommend that you use https://wordpress.com/ to initially build your author platform.  (For other types of authors, create content, do it consistently and let people know about your content that your putting out.)

4. Decide how you are going to publish your book
a) Pay someone to publish it
b) Go the traditional route and have someone pay you to publish it.
c) You publish it.

Each road is different, I’d recommend that you do NOT pay someone to publish your book. That is called vanity publishing, and I’d stay away from it like the plague. (however there is a small group of people this might work for. ) Either do it yourself or seek to get it published traditionally. By traditionally I mean someone pays YOU for the right to publish your book.

5. Decide what publishing success means to you.

Would you feel successful if 10,000 read your book but it was free? Would success be 1000 people who purchased it? What does success look like for you? Again you must answer this question.

Do these five things and you will be well on your way.

D