I posted a note in Substack about my first book launch and wow, I was overwhelmed by all the love I received. Y’all helped me feel the weight of what I accomplished. Thank you for this. You made my book launch even more meaningful 💜
In that note, many people commented or DMed me saying some version of:
“I’d love to publish someday too, but I’m not sure how.”
I remember being in that same spot—thinking publishing a book was a dream. I thought it was a distant / convoluted / expensive thing to do. Now that I’ve done it, I want to shrink the gap between dreaming and doing by sharing how I self-published.
Here we go…
Step-by-step how I self-published
Step 1: Write the book. That’s the first step. Keep chipping away until you finish it. It doesn't have to be perfect. It has to be done.
Step 2: I used Amazon KDP to self-publish. It’s Amazon’s tool for self-publishing paperbacks and eBooks. There are other platforms out there, but KDP is widely used and works well for first-time authors. It’s what I used and recommend.
Step 3: When you are in Amazon KDP, and you begin the process by clicking this yellow button under your Bookshelf tab:
You’ll go through three main chunks of setup:
Paperback Details – Title, subtitle, description, categories, keywords, etc.
Paperback Content – Choose book size, paper color, upload manuscript, upload cover.
Paperback Rights & Pricing – Choose where to distribute and how much to charge.
Step 4: Use Amazon’s help center articles as you go through the steps. I usually hate help center articles, but Amazon’s are surprisingly useful. For example, how the heck do I make a manuscript? This help center article walked me through it:
FYI: I ended up using Google Docs for my manuscript.
How the heck do I know what size my book cover needs to be? This help center article walked me through it:
FYI: I designed my own book cover using Canva. I went back and forth on hiring someone or just designing it myself. I know how crucial the book cover is for sales! For my first book, I ultimately said f*ck it. I’ll design it.
I designed 10 variations of the book cover, narrowed it down to 5, then presented those 5 to friends and family for feedback. I landed on this one.
If you don’t feel equipped to create a book cover, you could hire an experienced book cover designer on Fiverr.
Step 5: Preview your book over and over and over again until you love it (after you upload your manuscript and book cover, you’ll find a button that says Launch Previewer to view everything together). I’d find little problems here and there and I would re-upload my manuscript or my book cover many times until everything felt just right. This is normal!
Step 6: Before publishing live, you can order a printed proof so you can see it in the flesh. It’s so helpful to see it in person! Seeing the book in my hands helped me finalize small details (like reducing the book’s size).
Check out how my book came together here.
Other things worth noting
You don’t need to pay in advance to have your books printed and stocked. People can purchase your book on Amazon Prime and they will print it on demand and ship it fast (Prime style!).
I chose to get a free ISBN assigned to me by Amazon:
I hired a designer on Fiverr to do illustrations for 7 poems in my book. I loved how she interpreted my poems into art! The art on the cover of my book was one of her pieces. Her name is Fatima Seehar. I plan on hiring her again for book two.
I got my book size and font inspiration by mimicking my favorite books. I write poetry, and I love Yung Pueblo’s poetry books. So I took one of his books and measured it. It was about a 5 x 8. So I chose that size for mine and I love it. I also played around with various fonts and font sizes for my book. I ended up with EB Garamond size 10.
If you’ve been thinking about writing or publishing your own book, I hope this helps you feel closer to it. You don’t need a huge budget, a publishing deal, or a big team. You need a finished manuscript, resourcefulness, and the willingness to figure it out.
If it’s in you, make it real my dear 📖✨
This is incredibly kind of you to share and put together. I am self published but with a friend who helped. I want to continue to publish and would like to do it more on my own and this is incredibly helpful. I am going to order your book because I have heard such great things! Thank you!
Received my copy last night. It’s beautiful. Having self published two books in the past two years I think it’s important we share these tips. As often as we can, so more emerging authors whose stories deserve to be echoed.