One of the purposes of signing up for the “Published in 2016” Program is to have a deadline and finish your project, and be able to market your project in a timely fashion. Sometimes, if we don’t give ourselves deadlines, we let our dreams slip.  If you sign up for the “Published in 2016” Program, you’ll need to follow a schedule in order to get your project done, published, and marketed this year.

Here is my proposed schedule. There is room to move somethings around–do some things earlier or later, but you’ll need to remember to keep going step-by-step and stay on point.

February through May–

Writing and perfecting your manuscript. Remember, you have a choice to write as little as 8,000 words and still be published as a Kindle book.

Get your cover designed during this writing period. I will give you resources soon to find a good cover designer (I found a highly-rated one who only charges $20-$40!). Aside from names I will give you, you can always look on Fiverr.com and ELance.com for your cover designer. We’ll go over good cover design in one of our W,I,S,E, Coffeee meetings.

June through August — 
June– Hire professional editor and perfect your manuscript.  

June– Send out requests to 20 contacts for reviews. Tell them you will give them a PDF of your book for free if they promise to review it on Amazon as soon as it goes live. Wait until your edited copy comes back to you and you’ve made the necessary changes, then make the PDF.

July (or as soon as you get your edited copy back from the editor)– Hire HTML formatter for Kindle upload. Again, there are formatters on Fiverr.com and ELance, or you can use a service such as Bookbaby. We will learn a lot more about this in class. You don’t have to know how to format, just hire someone who does.

Once it’s formatted, upload it to Kindle, but WAIT to sign up for KDP Select. Add a book description and get the Amazon sales page ready (create an Author Page too!).

August— Decide what your Free Days on KDP Select are going to be. Then,  as soon as you get 10 positive reviews on your sales page, contact websites that promote free and bargain books,  I will give you a list. These sites are fabulous and everyone uses them to promote their Free Days. However, many don’t take the “short form” novellas and short non-fiction, such as I’ve suggested you write for this program. There are a few that do, however, and also other advertising possibilities for short form. Just note that if you write a full-length novel or non-fiction, it will be easier to find advertising. Whoever you use to  promote your Free Days, they will need to know ahead of time what your free days are going to be.

Of course, at some point in August, you will actually sign up for the KDP Select program because your Free Day campaign is coming up in September!

September through November-–
Sign up for and manage your KDP Select Free Days.

December–
Off for the Holidays. Unless your book is Christmas themed, December is not a good month for promoting your KDP Free Days. So you will rest! Good job, you are published in 2016!

Let’s talk about money–
You can always crowdfund! Some of the items I discussed above cost, and if you are short on cash, crowdfunding is the way to go! There are always people who will help an author out and donate money to pay for  publishing costs. Don’t worry…the money will be there if you need it!