You’ve decided you want to write and publish your book but don’t know what to expect. I’ll walk you through five steps to self-publishing your book.

Step 1: Think about your idea

This is the message you intend to share with your audience. Ask yourself questions like, ‘Why do I want to write on this subject?’ ‘How will this idea benefit my audience?’ ‘Do I know enough about this subject to write about it in depth?’ ‘What problem do I want this idea to solve?’ As you think deeply about your idea, many more questions will pop up in your mind, and you’ll have a clearer picture of what you intend to achieve. At this stage, jot down any and everything that comes to mind. No idea is too stupid, and every idea is welcome.

Step 2: Research your idea and audience

Now that you’ve given your idea a good thought and, perhaps, gotten some answers to the above questions, it’s time to research your idea and audience. What’s the purpose of researching your idea? One purpose of research is to help you know where there are knowledge gaps you can fill. Another purpose is to help you find existing knowledge that has not been fully developed that you can build on. You don’t want to rehash what has already been said. Researching your idea also gives you different perspectives to work with.

Why research your audience? You want to know who you’re writing to. Who’s your target audience? What do they enjoy reading? Are they experts or newbies in that subject area? How will they receive your book? How have similar books been received? What can you do differently?

Step 3: Start writing

This is where the job gets done, if you want to self-publish your book. You have answers to most, if not all, of the questions you had at the research stage and now is the time to ‘put pen to paper’. How do you start writing? By starting! You can start with an outline. You can start by typing out the thoughts that come to you easily. You can start at the beginning, middle, or end. Just start writing something.

Read more: How to Write a Book

Step 4: Send your book to a copy editor

Your idea is live on the page and you’re excited, woohoo! You did it! But you can’t publish your manuscript yet – you do not want to send that unedited document to your readers like that. No matter how perfectly you think you’ve written that manuscript, it needs editing. And you can’t do that kind of editing yourself. You’re asking, Why? Well, the first reason is that you can’t spot your errors (I’m speaking from experience), and the second reason is that you’re too emotionally invested in that book to do a thorough job of cutting filler words or wonky sentences. You won’t be able to kill all your darlings.

Read more: Six Reasons Why You Need a Copy Editor

Step 5: Decide how you want to self-publish

Self-publishing means you’re solely responsible for the success or failure of your book. You have to do everything yourself or contract it to vendors – think book cover design, layout, proofreading, printing (if you want to). You can either publish your book on Amazon KDP – they offer print-on-demand services – or look for independent publishers that offer self-publishing services.

I know this post is about self-publishing, but it won’t hurt to know about traditional publishing as well. If you want to publish traditionally, you can either go through an agent or approach the publisher you have in mind directly if they accept unagented and unsolicited manuscripts. For some publishers, they only work with agents and don’t accept unsolicited manuscripts. If you publish traditionally, the publisher shoulders some of the responsibilities and pay royalties.

I’m rooting for you on your self-publishing journey. You can do it!