The Publishing Chronicles 3: Publish to the Widest Possible Audience

After writing your books and designing your covers, you’ll need to publish them to as many platforms as possible. Each forum has its particular audience, and different books sell uniquely on each platform.

Welcome back to the Publishing Chronicles (part 1, part 2), where we talk about building an income stream as a writer.

A quick word on editing. You can edit your own work. I start with the built-in Google Docs editor first. Then, I use Grammarly to finish the deal. Finally, I read through my work to add the human touch.

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Using all three methods together works best for me, but you’ll have to find your own solution. For fiction writers, you’ll have to find a way to ensure you build a coherent story. 

Again, it’s worth the time to learn to edit your work because it reduces your costs to almost zero. This means you can release more books at a faster rate. Remember, the book “Superfans” says we only need 1,000 mega fans to build a decent income stream.

You can build a small, supportive audience with self-edited, self-designed books. Once you become more prominent, you can choose to pay someone else to assist. But, what’s the fun in that?

Time to publish your books. Now that you have your manuscript (word doc) and book cover (jpg or pdf), it’s time to publish. Having these assets gives you massive power over how to release your books over time.

Debt-Free? So, What’s Next?

There are two ways to publish your books. You can go exclusive or wide. Understanding the difference will give you the best options in your career. Let’s look at each.

Going exclusive with Amazon. Amazon is the biggest book retailer by far. You enter the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) arena when you go exclusive with Amazon. 

When your books are in the KDP program, members of Kindle Unlimited can borrow them for “free.” The Kindle Unlimited members pay a monthly fee to access millions of books. 

As an avid reader, there is no better feeling than searching for a book and seeing it is available under Kindle Unlimited. It is similar to striking gold. 

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As people read books under Kindle Unlimited, you’ll receive payment for each page they read. You’ll have to generate significant page reads to receive a hefty paycheck from the KU program. Read the book “How to Make a Living from Your Writing” for more on these income streams. 

Multiple income streams. On top of page reads, your book can sell directly to non-Kindle Unlimited shoppers. You can sell ebooks, paperbacks, hardcovers, and audiobooks. These are all different audiences with different buying methodologies. 

So going exclusive gives you five income streams on Amazon (page reads, ebooks, paperbacks, hardcovers, and audiobooks). Now, let’s look at going wide.

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Going wide for the win. Going wide means that you are not exclusive to Amazon. However, you can still sell your books on Amazon. You’ll lose the “page reads” and Kindle Unlimited income stream.

You can still sell ebooks, paperbacks, hardcovers, and audiobooks on Amazon, albeit with less exposure. Going exclusive gives you the chance to release your book for free for five days—generating eyeballs toward your work. 

Going wide gives you the option to release your book on multiple platforms, including your own website. Here is where I release my books.

1. Draft2Digital. This puts my books on multiple platforms, as you can see above. I am starting to see some good sales, with no advertising.
2. Kobo. I just started releasing books on Kobo about a month ago. It takes time for the platforms to discover your audience. However, every day your books sit around, they compound into the universe—producing results over time.
3. Google Play. I have released one book on Google so far. I will engage more with this platform after uploading all 200+ books onto Kobo.
4. Many more. This is just the surface of places to release your books. There is still Apple, Ingram Sparks, Lulu, Bookbaby, etc. to conquer.
5. My website. I give my “wide” books away for free on my website. However, sometimes when a reader clicks an ad while downloading a free book, I get a commission higher than selling a full-prized ebook on Amazon.

The best of both worlds. I would love to go into more detail on each method, but the book “Guerrilla Publishing” will do a better job than I can. 

Losing Friends? You’re Doing Something Right

I think it is best to use both techniques, going wide and exclusive, to maximize your potential. You’ll need to have different books and series across both platforms to use both effectively. 

You’ll have to become a prolific writer to maintain an audience on both. I will go more into advertising and marketing in the following article in the series. 

How do I cover both methods? I alternate daily between releasing books on each platform. The Kindle platform is notorious for moving through content quickly; thus, you must have fresh content at least weekly. 

I create content for Kindle Unlimited, then “wide” content the next day. I cross-pollinate my books with links to other platforms as my audience grows.

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For example, I will have links to my free pdf books in my KU books. In my free pdfs, I will have links to KU. I have links to my Draft2Digital books, KU books, and free pdfs on my website.

Everything works together in harmony. Not to mention, everything I write is available on my blog as individual articles. Yes, I am giving away everything for free; however, giving fans the option to buy in other formats is ideal. The “Superfans” can support by spending some money.

The few fans. I will explain why I am giving all my books away for free in the following article. There is a method to my madness. It is nearly impossible to build an audience without either giving your stuff away for free or spending a ton on advertising. 

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I prefer to give stuff away for free to build a much stronger audience. When you advertise, you’ll attract people that may not be “your people.”

Advertising is basically like having a garage sale. People will come to your neighborhood looking for the best possible deals. Then they will be unhappy when they cannot “win” at your expense.

Giving things away for free gives people the chance to try your stuff. A small percentage of people will then pay for a higher quality product (in my case, paperbacks). This small percentage of people will eventually grow to support your entire channel.

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Conclusion. Publishing is all about the long game. If you don’t have a 5-10 year horizon, you may want to try a different business model. Yes, people come into publishing with ghost-writers, designers, and editors.

They use keywords to drive traffic to their books. They make a profit upfront, but is that truly sustainable. Is your book going to remain on top of the charts for the next 5-10 years?

By growing an audience from the ground up, they will be there for any venture you decide over the next 20 years. You will have added so much value to their lives that they will follow you onto video, podcasts, merchandising, online courses, etc.

Take the long path to success. You’ll build a robust platform of loyal fans that will give you the best possible advertising—word of mouth. Plus, you’ll be happier along the way. However, you’ll probably have to keep your day job when starting as a writer. Good Luck.

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Disclosure: I am not a financial advisor or money manager, and any knowledge is given as guidance and not direct actionable investment advice. I am an Amazon Affiliate. Please research any investment vehicles that are being considered. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it.  I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. All Right Reserved Military Family Investing