Your Guide to Self-Publish Like a Pro

Readers love a good bargain, so one way to drive discoverability and book sales is to run a price promotion. This typically means dropping the price of your eBook to free, $0.99, or $2.99 for a limited time—say 2 to 3 days. The lower price attracts more buyers, while the temporary nature of the promotion creates a sense of urgency to make the purchase. At Bublish, our price promotion partner is Bargain Booksy. They specialize in building large email lists of readers across many categories, and for an affordable price can blast your price promotion out to those readers. 

As the days grow shorter and the air gets crisper, the creative excitement of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is just around the corner! If you’ve ever wanted...

Amazon has recently changed the way it manages best-seller badges, and the move has some big implications for authors. So, today, let's unpack what these policy changes mean and how authors can still leverage best-seller status and assets to their advantage.

As a self-publisher, you are ultimately responsible for shepherding your book through the publishing process—from writing and editing to design, formatting, and distribution. Whether you work with freelancers or an end-to-end self-publishing partner like Bublish, you are still in charge and should maintain all rights to your intellectual property. We take this obligation very seriously at Bublish.

That's why it's so important to acquire and safeguard your book's source files, which are part of that intellectual property. These files—the originals that contain the full text, formatting, cover art, and other essential elements and specifications—are invaluable assets that many self-publishers fail to acquire from service providers. Many self-publishers don't even know that there's a difference between their distributed files and source files. Unfortunately, not acquiring or understanding rights around source files is a mistake that can come back to haunt self-publishers down the road.

Fall offers a unique marketing opportunity for authors. People are transitioning back to their routines after summer vacations, schools are in session, and the holiday season is just around the corner. This time of year is perfect to engage new readers and boost your book's visibility and sales with a seasonal approach. Whether you're an experienced author or new to self-publishing, here are five actionable steps to help you sell more books this fall.

1. Launch a Seasonal Marketing Campaign
Fall-themed promotions can be highly effective because they tie your book's release or sales to the current season. Depending on your book's genre, you can create marketing campaigns around curling up with a good novel on cozy fall weekends, Halloween horror, back-to-school or back-to-business themes, and so much more. For example, did you know that in September, the US celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month, National Pain Awareness Month, National Recovery Month, National Disease Literacy Month, National Square Dance Month, National Self-Improvement Month, National Library Card Sign Up Month, Baby Safety Month, and Classical Music Month, among others—and that's just September! You can visit the National Day Calendar website to find an amazing list of things to celebrate. What can you do if you find a special day or month that makes sense for your book? Promote a discount or flash sale tied to the event. Create a series of social posts to share before and during the event. Run event-themed Facebook ads to promote your event-specific offers.