I published my book as en eBook on Smashwords and Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), and then in paperback on Createspace, so that my book could be available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble.com, Kobo, iBooks, and a few other places.
Now that my book was published, I needed to get the word out. I'd signed up for Facebook and Twitter months before so I could talk about the book with other people and let them know that I was even publishing one. I started a website (www.ashleyearley.com), and also started this blog and a Tumblr. Then I signed up for the Author Program on Goodreads.
I also did a lot more, but I'm sure you don't want to hear me ramble about everything I did to get everything set up to let everyone know my book was finally released to the public.
I did a lot of research on marketing. I'm still marketing and trying to get my book reviewed. Being your own publisher, editor and marketer is not easy--this is why self-publishing isn't for everyone. It's hard. Really hard. Being self-published makes it harder to get the word out there.
Everybody is always worried about where to publish, but it honestly doesn't really matter as long as your book is easily accessible to readers. If you publish your book as an eBook, then you need to do research on whatever company you're thinking about using to make sure it branches out to enough book companies like Barnes and Noble/The Nook, and Amazon/Kindle, etc.
If you want to publish your book in paperback, you need to do the same thing. But you also need to read about their publishing policy.
For example, I published The Darkest Light as an eBook and paperback. I published the paperback version with Createspace. They print books when they're ordered. But other self-publishing companies are different; they might print boxes worth of your book and send you those boxes for you to keep and ship yourself, whereas Createspace ships it out to the buyer for you. There are more publishing policies than just these two examples though, so don't worry, you have more options.
But like I said, where you publish your book doesn't really matter. Where to publish is the easy part; after you've published your book, that's when things get difficult. You have to market and advertise your book so people know you're an author and have released a book. And, if you don't have a good, professional-looking cover and a good summary for your book, people won't take interest in it, no matter how much you market your book.
This is something you have to really work at. Self-publishing means constant advertising without being pushy, and communicating with people. You should be on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and whatever else you can think of. You need to be on multiple social media websites to get the ball rolling. Though, it won't be instant.
You need to be online and talking to people, blogging, tweeting, posting, etc. It's difficult and tiring, but it has to be done.
Truthfully, I'm tired of focusing on one book. I've written another one since and have slowly been editing it while writing another, but I get Writer's Block all the time. It's hard to motivate myself to write, or edit after school and work, and promote The Darkest Light on top of it all. But if I don't put in as much effort into promoting The Darkest Light as I did in writing and editing it; publishing it was pretty pointless because I didn't get the word out there.
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