Thinking About Self-Publishing? Try Carolyn Wilhelm's UDEMY Book for Very, Very Beginners

My clients come in two sizes: Those who struggle with finding readers for their books or who are spending too much money publishing and marketing them and those who are toying with the idea of self-publishing but know nothing about it. Until now, I had no inexpensive resource for the latter to learn a bit more before taking the publishing plunge. But when I found this video (read that "video!") course at UDEMY.com today, I couldn't wait to let my #TheNewBookReview visitors and subscribers know about it. Please do any newbies you know a favor and let them know Carolyn's (another Carolyn, not me!) online tutorial. It's easy and truly very basic and quite all-encompassing view of what they need to know to get started--or to know what aspects of publishing they want to hire someone to help them with. 

Here is the course at UDEMY for you to peruse:

https://www.udemy.com/course/self-publishing-from-the-very-very-beginning/

And here is more information on Self-Publishing for the Very Very Beginning Writer: 

This course has video demonstrations, templates, and instructions for the beginner to create eBook and paperback manuscripts, learn some ways to get additional online links to the book sales page, prepare a cover as a print-ready PDF, learn how not to compress images in Word, and learn about ISBN's and copyrights. Adobe Pro is used in a few lessons but alternative methods are described. 

Step-by-step printable direction PDFs for working with book templates are included.

Easy templates include the following:

Chapter Paperback Word Doc Template 

Chapter eBook Word Template

Children's Picture Book PowerPoint Template for a Paperback and an eBook (8.25" X 6" paperback with bleed)

Children's Picture Book 8.5" X 8.5" Paperback Word Template

Videos include the following and more:

Free Accounts for Self-Publishing

There are several free online accounts that will allow you to publish eBooks and paperbacks. This video discusses Kindle Direct Publishing, the sales page, Amazon Author Central, Goodreads as a reader, and Goodreads as an author. 

Quick Overview of Social Media for a Book

Social media can be carefully used to provide links online to your book sales page. Quick overview.   

Copyrights

When the manuscript is finished (or finished and published) it should be copyrighted within 90 days. 

Begin with an End Plan

Begin with the end in mind so that decisions made later will not require revisions and extra work. Start out with a plan to be most efficient and reach your goals. 

Be Consistent with Metadata

Be careful to use the exact same title, subtitle, and author name on all documents to be published such as eBook manuscripts, paperback manuscripts, and covers.

Copyright Page 

Word Doc and PDF provided to edit for your own book. 

Set-up Word so Images will not be Compressed

If your book has photos or art, before typing the manuscript, Word should be set up to not compress images.

Set-up Acrobat Pro 

If using Acrobat Pro to create PDFs, set up Word so that images will not be compressed when saved as a PDF.

Prepare the Kindle Manuscript

This video has a demonstration of preparing a Kindle eBook Word document from scratch. A generic Word Doc is provided which meets the new requirements. 

Table of Contents for Kindle 

Learn to insert a table of contents that will have links for eBooks, learn to update it, and see how to see/check your work by downloading the Kindle previewer for PC or Mac. Two supporting documents are included in this lesson.   

Online Cover Creators

Kindle Create to Embellish Manuscripts

Convert Paperback Manuscript to eBook Format

Fonts in eBooks

Paperback Manuscript How to and Free Template 

Create your own paperback manuscript using the directions and lesson resource template.

Table of Contents for the Paperback

The Table of Contents (TOC) for a paperback is different from the eBook format.

Create a Full-bleed Children's Paperback with PowerPoint

This video shows how to use a PowerPoint file sized to publish a 8.5" X 6" children's paperback.  Template provided.

Create a No-bleed Children's Paperback with Word

This lecture has a video about creating a children's paperback using Word (no other software is required) to make an 8.5" X 8.5" book. A sample Word doc is provided. 

Use Word and Adobe Pro to Create a Full-bleed Children's Paperback

This lecture has a video, a step-by-step guide, and a Word document that may be used to create both a paperback and an eBook from the same file. For this paperback, Word, Adobe Acrobat DC Pro, a story, and illustrations are required.

There are 41 videos in all. Other topics include figuring out which is the left-hand and right-hand page in documents, finding the financial information reports in KDP, uploading to KDP, and some troubleshooting. 

Also, students may ask questions and a video may be created which could be added to the course. 

MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carolyn Wilhelm is the is an educator and author of an acclaimed Young Adults novel, Climate Change Captives 2035 and Project Save. She offers teaching aids, many of them free on Pinterest and is a great retweeter on Twitter @wiseowlfactory.  

MORE ABOUT BLOGGER AND WAYS TO GET THE MOST FROM THIS BLOG

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ) that covers 325 jam-packed pages covering everithing from Amazon vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion. Reviewers will have a special interest in the chapter on how to make reviewing pay, either as way to market their own books or as a career path--ethically!

This blog is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Note: Participating authors and their publishers may request the social sharing image by Carolyn Wilhelm at no charge.  Please contact the designer at:  cwilhelm (at) thewiseowlfactory (dot) com. Provide the name of the book being reviewed and--if an image or headshot of the author --isn't already part of the badge, include it as an attachment. Wilhelm will send you the badge to use in your own Internet marketing. Give Wilhelm the link to this post, too!

 Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. #TheFrugalbookPromoter, #CarolynHowardJohnson, #TheNewBookReview, #TheFrugalEditor, #SharingwithWriters, #reading #BookReviews #GreatBkReviews #BookMarketing