Published!

Here is everything that is needed to get your book out in stores.  In time, we will build chapters on each of these areas.  For now, use this list as your guideline.

Write Your Favorite Section
First step of writing a book is to write your favorite section of the book.  Don’t start at the beginning of the book – start with the good stuff.  We’ll get to introducing the characters at a later point.  If this is a nonfiction book, it could be the mission statement of the book.

The secret to this part?  Don’t write more than 3 chapters.  Really – more than 3 is overkill & I won’t waste my time telling you why.  Just write the first little bit and let’s move on.

Visualization to Reality
Bring your idea to reality by having something tangible.  This accomplishes multiple goals that will be listed in this chapter. You can see the templates we offer to help on this or hire someone or just do it from scratch yourself.  This is where you’ll come up with the title of your book & also pick out a cover design.  On the grand scheme of things – spend AS LITTLE TIME as possible on this part.  It is really only 1% of the picture, so treat it as that.  Too many wannabes spend a year picking the perfect cover or title.  Get over yourself.  35,000 books go to shelves each year and you’re holding us back from your masterpiece when you waste time in this area.

But at the same time, we have some tricks that will help you out.  Keep your book at a 6×9 format for example.  So two goals are accomplished in this section: Book Title & Book Cover.  This part of the project isn’t finished until you have a phsyical copy of the book in your hands.  Pretty exciting, eh?

Done!
Your book is finished!  It was that easy!  Now market yourself and tell everyone who you are, what your book is about, tons of press releases and media hype.  “But I only have 3 chapters written” you whine.  C’mon… of course I know that.  Follow this guide and you will be successful.  Ok ok.. so the book isn’t exactly finished.  There are reasons my students all succeed in publishing their books and this is the process – don’t waste another minute writing more of your book.  Spend more time on the media at this point.  As a present to yourself for working really hard on media stuff – you can write, but realize this is a gift – not the real focus right now.  The focus should be on marketing your book like crazy.  More details will be in here like website creation, what a press release is, HARO, etc.

I might even include some cool book shows to go to, university info, etc.

Outline
Ok.. so  you have a lot going on now.. the book should be getting some hype, you have endorsements coming in, interviews, and all that jazz.  Now it’s time to sit down and focus on the real purpose of this project.  Crunch out a good outline for the book and write a little section on each topic as a point of reference once you actually write that area.  If you’re writing nonfiction – this works for each chapter.  If you’re writing fiction, a would suggest a timeline at this point focusing on character development.

Crank Your Story
This is where you crank out the majority of your story.  Anytime you get writers block, go back on over to the marketing department.  You can always market your book more.  But this part shouldn’t need much explanation – you simply write write write.  If you need help here, find a book on that subject.  Published! is assuming you already know how to write – you just don’t know how to get that sucker in the bookstores….

Politcal Media
Ok…so now it’s time to bring the bad news bear…  the industry is pretty tight to get into.  Duh, right?  Well, there are a few big players in the industry and this part will explain them.  it will also explain some lesser known options every other has and really show you can be just as cool as the big guys.  Some of the players are Green Leaf, Bowker, Amazon, Borders, Libraries, Lightning Source, INGRAM, Penguin, Rupert Murdoch, and more.

End of Tunnel
So the long haul is over.  You have your book 90% written… a good cover, endorsements, and you now understand how the sneaky media works.  Now it’s time to finish the book off and polish that last 10%.  This info will teach you about a book maker program, why 6×9 is THE way to go… and walk you through finishing your title up and having the book turned to a PDF & then communicate with printers.

Making it to the Store
So you get a few choices now that you have your book in your hand.  Just because you have one copy doesn’t mean you are a success yet – we have more tricks up our sleeves.  Are you going to self publish?  Are you going to hire a lit agent?  Or are you going to represent yourself and go straight to the publishers? We’ll give information on each area and probably recommend you do a bit of all 3.

On Shelves, now what?
Well congrats – you got your book on the shelves!  You are one of the 35,000 lucky ones this year… can you believe so many people try to become an author but can’t make it this far?  The good news is you’re published!  The bad news..?  This is honestly the easy part in my opinion… the hard part is the fact that the next step has unilimited possiblities and can’t possibly be put into this tiny little book.  I’ll give a few ideas and suggestions, but ultimately you have to turn your thinking cap on at this point and do something more creative than the other 35k out there who are already successful like yourself.  A few suggestions: seminars, book signings, radio shows, 2nd book, blog, reviews, you review others, talk shows, etc.  Nothing crazy diff than what you hear – but a few twists on this that will make you stand out.

That’s it!  Your book is finished, in stores.. and you’re only out $500!  Congratulations

Feel free to donate to me so I can hurry up and get this book out in stores…  At the rate of my schedule… it looks like March 2012 I’ll publish Published!  In the meantime, read my posts & check back on this site for more info.  Thanks for all the support from my friends & students.

Matt Hackney

As an author to half a dozen books and also having helped over 10 other authors not only get published, but bring their books through the ranks and onto shelves – I bring to you the Shoestring Budget Book Guide.  In this book, you will learn how to write a book for less than $500. 

No, I take that back.  You are going to learn how to write you book, open your own publishing company, get your book on store shelves, get a literary agent, build a book proposal, and get your book in the hands of publishers who are trying to buy it for a lot of money from you – all for less than $500.

When writing my first book, I took 6 months to write the book which is pretty fast for an author, but then I spent another 8 months trying to figure out how to get it on store shelves.  That book is The Fire Within.  I approached publishing companies, book stores themselves, and read quite a few self-publishing books.  I finally decided I would publish my book myself and hire a few contractors along the way to help me out.  The end result?  A quite successful book for about $2000 and a lot of time.  While I feel that first book was successful, my subsequent books were designed on a much smaller budget and gained even more popularity due to my new understanding of the industry.

I feel knowledge isn’t “owned” by anyone, but it is gathered in the cosmos.  Thus, for about $15 with the purchase of this book you can learn what it took me a few years to figure out.  All the insider knowledge, political games played in the industry, and cutting out all the BS so you can get your book on shelves and in front of clients worldwide.

Giving forward,
Matt Hackney

In order to design the book cover, you’ll need the following:

 ISBN Number of the book (13 digits)

EXACT Page count (multiple of 8, preferably multiple of 32)

Dimensions of the book (Highly recommended to go with 6×9)

Crème or White background of cover?

Price of book?  (For barcode & is optional)

Then use the Template Cover Generator found on the lightning source website: http://lightningsource.com/covergenerator.aspx

They will send you an email of the file & you’ll use this as your template when designing the book.

 Use your photoediting program to change this template to your liking, making sure to stay within the margins & use the bleeds.  Once the margins are exact, hide the margin/bleed guides so they don’t get seen when you send the cover image to the printer.

When saving, make sure to follow our Saving Files for Print Guide – which is quite technical.