Smashwords founder Mark Coker is giving a free talk this afternoon at 2pm ET as a preview of our upcoming Self-Publishing Intensive, a three-week online interactive event that is coming up in December.
Today at 2pm ET, he is hosting a free crash course in eBook self-publishing. In the talk, Coker will share foundational knowledge that every writer needs to start their journey as a successful indie ebook author. In the presentation, he’ll be identifying the top five trends shaping the future of authorship, and then he’ll share an introductory checklist of what writers need to know to produce, publish and sell an eBook. We asked Coker to share three tips for self-published writers.
Here is what is told us:
1. eBook publishing is ridiculously easy, but ebook selling is difficult. eBook publishing and distribution platforms like Smashwords make e-publishing fast, free and easy, but it’s still difficult to sell books. Most books sell poorly. I’ll teach attendees what they need to do to avoid the mistakes that will undermine their success.
2. The best book marketing is a book that markets itself. It’s all about the book, and how readers respond to the book. A book that moves readers to emotionally satisfying extremes will become a bestseller. This is true of both fiction and non-fiction. A book that simply satisfies will languish.
3. Success requires equal parts patience and impatience. In the old days of print publishing, authors and publishers were razor focused on the book launch. If the book did well at launch, it stayed in print. If it failed to sell well in the first few weeks, it quickly went out of print. Impatience made sense. It made sense to put all the promotional eggs in launch basket. With self-published eBooks, success is not determined by the first week’s sales. eBooks are immortal. They never go out of print. When a book is released, it must be treated as a fragile sapling to be nourished and watered and grown over time. An indie eBook can start off slow and grow later. That’s the patience part. The impatience part is for the author to always look for opportunities to evolve their book, and to continue to iterate it to make it more available, more desirable and more enjoyable.