The Self Publishing Writer’s Checklist 2 – Writing Your Book

by Norah Deay | Oct 5, 2019 | Self-Publishing

I hope you found the Checklist yesterday helpful. This second checklist is for when you're writing your book - something to keep in mind maybe while you're dashing out your 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo?

You can copy and paste the checklist below or if you'd like the full list of 18 checklists in printable (PDF) format, just send me your email address below and you'll have them by return.

Otherwise, check back tomorrow for the Creating Your Book Cover checklist

Checklist 2: Writing Your Book

Project Name: _______________________________________________ Date: ________________________
Yes No
1 Have you finalised your book title and subtitle?

2 Have you got an ISBN number for your book? (you don’t need one for
Kindle – it’s automatically assigned to you)
If publishing on Amazon you can use their free ISBN service, otherwise
you can purchase your ISBN number on www.nielsenisbnstore.com

3 Will you be writing the book yourself?

4 Are you hiring a ghost writer?

5 Will you repurpose your other content into a book?
If you have existing blog posts, or other content you may be able to
repurpose them into chapters or use them as bonus chapters (if they are
relevant).

6 Have you blocked out the time to complete your book?
Aim for at least 1,000 words a day if you’re starting out. With some practice
you could write 1,000 words in 30-60 minutes. Remember, you need to
write at least 1666 words a day to complete NaNoWriMo

7 Have you set a manuscript completion deadline?

8 Have you sourced an editor and an editing deadline?

9 Have you written your book title and subtitle?

10 Have you split your core topic into 5-13 sub-topics?

11 Have you bullet pointed each sub-topic?

12 Have you fleshed out your sub-topics into chapters?

13 Have you written your book as if speaking to one person?

14 Have you included examples, case studies and testimonials?

15 Have you included next steps in your book (to fulfil your goal)?
When writing your book, don’t worry about layout, grammar or formatting
– that’s the editor’s job and that comes AFTER the manuscript is done.

The Productive Writer's Checklists

I'm using these lists myself and they're absolutely chock-a-block with valuable information. Enjoy!

The Only Self-Publishing Checklists You Need

by Norah Deay | Oct 4, 2019 | Self-Publishing

When I first published this page it was October 2019 and I was playing with the idea of competing in NaNoWriMo. If you don’t know what that is, it’s when writers spend the month of November trying to write 50,000 words. I didn’t do it in 2019 but this year, 2020, I did and I wrote my 50,000 words which form the basis of a new novel. If you’ve done it, please don’t type THE END and publish it straight away.

Once the dust has settled and the words have been beaten and shaped into a book, many writers will consider self-publishing. The very idea, while tempting, is daunting for the average writer. If you have any idea about self-publishing at all, the next 18 days are going to provide a collection of checklists to make the process easier. While the checklists are slanted towards non-fiction, the concept is also perfect for fiction writers.

You can copy and paste the checklist below or if you’d like the full list of 18 checklists in printable (PDF) format, just send me your email address below and you’ll have them by return.

Otherwise, check back tomorrow for the Writing Your Book checklist.

Checklist 1: Planning Your Book

Project Name: ____________________________________ Date: ______________________________

1 What is the goal of your book?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

2 What is the core topic/idea for the book? E.G. Facebook Ads, Mental Health, Fitness, etc
(One Core Topic), or if fiction, romance, thriller, drama, etc.
____________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________

3 Write down 3-5 working titles for your book…

____________________________________________________________________________

Tips For Coming Up With Titles

A. Look at some of the top-selling titles in your industry – model them.
B. Use ‘How to’ titles that solve your target audience’s biggest problem(s)
C. Use benefit-driven titles or titles that help your target audience avoid pain.

The Self-Publishing Writer's Checklists

I'm using these lists myself and they're absolutely chock-a-block with valuable information. Enjoy!

How do I get my book into more categories on Amazon?

by Norah Deay | Jul 31, 2019 | Self-Publishing

If you’re a self-publishing author you’re aware that Amazon only allows us to choose two categories for our books when we’re uploading. We know the perfect category can catapult our book into the top spot and earn us a bestseller tag but how do we choose the perfect category? We can end up in a marathon of second-guessing because we don’t know which two categories will reap the most rewards.

I have good news for you. You can choose more than the 2 categories Amazon initially gives you. It’s a combination of good detective work on your part combined with good customer service from Amazon. Read on to find out how you can take advantage of this collaboration.

The Detective work

The very first thing you must know is how a book becomes a category bestseller. You can find this out by searching for the Top 100 in the Kindle Store and choosing the book that’s the top seller. At the bottom of the sales page, before the Bio, you will find the sales information for the book. Amazon ranks its bestsellers based on how many copies have been downloaded in a certain length of time, by comparison to all the other books for sale. The number for this is known as the Amazon Best Seller Rank or ABSR. If the number is 1600 it means that 1599 books sold more than this one but if it’s the lowest number in that category then it’s the category Bestseller.

The information below comes from a book called Spilled Milk.

.Which category?

Now that you know how Amazon ranks the books on its shelves you can choose which category you’re likely to dominate.

Ok? So, how do you work out which categories to choose? Wouldn’t it make sense to choose those of your best selling competitors? However, only 2 or maybe 3 categories are visible to you. How do you know which others they are selling in?

Click on the listing of one of these books and find the ASIN, or ISBN in the case of a paperback. We’ll assume I’m looking at a Kindle publication which is a competitor for my book about getting your house ready for sale. We go over the left-hand side and click on Kindle ebooks. In this case, the main categories for my book are Business\Real Estate and Crafts, Hobbies & Home, which throws up a number of options such as Do-It-Yourself, Interior Design & How-To & Home Improvement.

Clicking on each of these, in turn, will throw up further categories that you can request from Amazon.

You’ll have to drill down in each main category until you reach the last category which is where you want to be.

Ask Amazon

This is where the good customer service from Amazon comes in. All you have to do is go to the Help Section on Author Central in your KDP account and ask for your book (quote ASIN or ISBN #) to be added to a category string, like this – Crafts, Hobbies & Home : Home Improvement & Design : How-to & Home Improvements : Cleaning, Caretaking & Relocating – you’re looking to be added to the last category in the string.

This is how writers get their books to be #1 in a category. Don’t overlook its significance.

It’s NaNoWriMo question time again!

by Norah Deay | Aug 30, 2017 | Fiction

Do I? Don’t I? Will I? Won’t I? NaNoWriMo winner

For those who don’t know, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month where upwards of 500,000 people across the world attempt to write 50,000 words in the month of November. That equals to 1,866 words per day.

I’ve attempted it 3 times, the first time I’d written 27,000 words when I had a tech issue and lost everything! Needless to say, I didn’t finish.

The second time I ‘won’ (you win when you hit that 50k mark) and went on to write another 25,000 words and finished the novel; a novel still to be edited!

Third time – going through some ‘stuff’ and never really got off the ground.

2017, I have to write the second in my cosy mystery series so there’s an obvious candidate but would a completely new set of characters and setting be more fun, and therefore easier to work with?

I’ve pretty much decided to go for it and am doing a course through Wesleyan college which is supposedly geared towards us NaNo-ers (not convinced of that – good marketing ploy though and it is a good course).

Hitting that 50k word count was one of the highlights of my writing life so far – I’d actually done it and as most writers know, ‘doing’ it is the hardest part of all – believe it or not, writers find that writing is the most difficult thing to do.

So, are any of my writer friends doing it? Considering it?

For all my writer friends – KindleSPY

by Norah Deay | May 1, 2016 | Fiction

I haven’t written anything for myself for weeks now and yesterday I found out I won’t be writing my book for real estate agents either! Has anyone heard of KindleSpy? Basically it’s a reverse engineering process to find out what is selling on Kindle and more importantly, what is NOT. So, turns out real estate agents love to download free books but won’t (actually for most of them it will be can’t) buy any books. Sales are so pathetic it’s just not worth it for me to put in all the work and angst writing a book that won’t sell very well right now. I’m not writing it off completely (pardon the pun) but it’s something for another time.

What is really good about KindleSpy is that it shows you what is selling in a niche which will then help you decide which niche to go for. It shows you how popular that niche is, what the potential is for you to make money out of it and how competitive it is (it also shows what money a particular author is making). So, my niche is Paranormal mystery which is popular and has potential but also has a high rate of competition. It’s up to me to write something good enough to topple the competition 🙂 but also I can investigate which keywords work best for them and use them for my own.

For provenance, I signed up for a webinar from C.S. Lakin (Live, Write ,Thrive) who I follow more than any other site and she was pushing KDSpy. It took her years to discover that the broader your audience the less chance you have to develop a fan base i.e. get paid for your books. I can totally relate to this as I’m sure many of you can.

I was so blown away by the program I’ve become an affiliate. This is my link below if anyone would like to click on it to find out more.