Five Steps Every Aspiring Author Must Take Before Finishing Your Book
If you are a new or an aspiring author chasing your first elusive book deal, you might believe that honing your manuscript is the only viable task you have before you. But there are five steps you should take before you finish that final draft.
If you truly want to see your name on a book cover, you need to begin showing up in the world as the author you want to become.
1) Write an Author Bio
This may feel premature if you have not written anything outside your journal entries, but you can create a simple two sentence statement about who you are as a writer. Eventually, you can change as you have essays accepted to publications, gain a following or begin to understand your genre.
Even if you have no published writing experience you can create a brief bio for yourself. Here is a sample for someone who has no published writing but has relevant career experience for the book they hope to write:
Sarah Goode is an aspiring author with a decade of experience in health and wellness helping clients become their best selves. Her writing offers practical ways to make life changes for more wholehearted living. Connect with her on Instagram (@accounthere) or visit (website here).
2) Buy your domain name
Again, this might feel early to take this step but you are going to need a website. If you are approaching agents or publishers, they are going to google you to find out more. You want to them to see you are already in the game with an easily searchable site. Even if you know the title of your future book, it is better to buy your name so all your future writing can be found not just one book. Buy your author name on an accredited domain registrar site like Go Daddy, Wix or Squarespace. At the time of this writing, a domain name typically cost less than $15 per year. Try to purchase your exact name like sallysmith (.com or .net). If it is already taken, you can search to buy something like sallysmithwrites (.com or.net) or sallysmithauthor (.com or.net) This is not the place to get clever. You want to make it very simple for readers or agents to find you.
3) Create a landing page for your website
Now that you own your author name from an accredited domain registrar site, you need to use it to create a website. This can be daunting task for some writers but you need to invest either the time or money to create one. For the rest of your career, readers, editors, agents and publishers will be headed to your website to find out more about you. It is the best place to show who you are so don’t think you can skip this step. Jane Austen did not need a website but you will. GoDaddy, Wix and Squarespace, all offer templates and online videos to build your site. (I use Squarespace because I like their design and ease of use.)
If this is making you sweat just reading about it, don’t worry. You could hire a student at a local college (or even high school) who could help you for very little investment. If you want more professional help search for a graphic designer online. Sites like Reedsy.com offer not only website design here but every other resource you might need in the future like freelance editors and proofreaders.
4) Create at least one Author social account
For introverted writers, social media can be the most difficult step to take. It is much more natural to just be alone in our writing spaces than venture out into the digital world. But your future readers live in that digital world. If you want them to buy your books, you have to make it possible for them to find you. There are a lot of places to meet future readers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Wherever you want to start, just pick one to start and manage. Choose an account that matches your domain name as closely as possible. For example if you were able to buy sallysmithwrites (.com) then try to set up an Instagram account (@)sallysmithwrites.
If you have an existing Instagram account in your name you can use that, but begin making it your author social media. This means stop posting about what you had for dinner (unless you are writing a cookbook) and start posting about things connected to your writing. If you are an aspiring children’s book author, post about books you love, favorite quotes or illustrations from books. Tag the author or illustrator and begin to follow other writers and people in the book world. It will take time to build this so don’t wait until you have finished your manuscript to do it. A little interaction with readers and friends each day in the virtual world will help you when you start to sell your book in the real world.
5) Understand your reader
Often when asked who their potential book is written for, a new author might say “Everybody!” While you might believe that, it is untrue. Your book is not for everyone. It is for a certain segment of the book-reading world and you need to think about who that might be in order to write a good book and sell it to your ideal reader. If you are writing a children’s book, it is not for all children it is a picture book for age 3-8 or a middle school book age 8-12. If you are writing in the faith category, there are dozens of subcategories like Spiritual Memoir, Spiritual Self-Help, Religious and Academic. Research the genre and audience you hope to capture. Join Facebook groups that have forums about your particular category. Talk to your local independent bookstore about your genre or your local librarian. They know the readers and can give you insights about your potential reader because you are not writing for everybody.
With your bio, domain name, website, one social account and your ideal reader in mind, you are now the polished and prepared author you want to become even before you have your very first manuscript.
Start showing up in the world as the author you want to become.
- Kathy
In the past four years, Kathy Izard has published three books (adult and children’s) in the US and Germany with over 20,000 copies sold worldwide. Learn more kathyizard.com or take a workshop with her on womenfaithstory.com.