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Episode 146

The Writing A Book Show

June 22, 2018 ·

EP146: THE WRITING A BOOK SHOW Behind the scenes of my experience and the steps I took to self-publish my first eBook Episode Summary: How did I write my new eBook: How To Podcast on Wordrpess.com? What tools and resources did I use? What was the process and workflow and my overall experience?

Episode Summary: A behind-the-scenes look at self-publishing a first eBook on Amazon — the tools used, the step-by-step process, and an honest read on how it went.

What You’ll Learn

  • The main tools used to self-publish an eBook: Scrivener, Adobe Creative Cloud, and Vellum
  • How Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) works and how eBook vs. paperback royalties compare
  • The full step-by-step process from topic to published book
  • The honest truth about how hard it was, and how sales actually went

If you’ve ever thought about self-publishing a book on Amazon, this episode goes behind the scenes of self-publishing How To Podcast on Wordpress.com: The Step-by-Step Guide. For the full story behind why this particular book got written, see Episode 142.

The Main Tools

Writing — Scrivener ($50): Mike’s writing tool of choice for every podcast script and the entire eBook. The appeal: strong project organization via a sidebar (146 podcast episodes fit neatly under one folder), fast document creation, Google Docs-style autosave, and cloud sync across iPhone and iPad.

Design and marketing graphics — Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign: the trifecta for logos, fonts, colors, images, and mockups, via Adobe Creative Cloud ($50/month at the time).

Formatting — Vellum ($200 for an unlimited license): a Mac-only app that makes formatting eBooks and print editions simple, and genuinely enjoyable. Highly recommended.

Tip 1: proofread and edit relentlessly — get as many other people as you can to help, since your own eyes will start playing tricks on you.

Tip 2: upload to Amazon KDP first, and hold off on other platforms (Google, iBooks, Nook) until every error is fixed — that way you only have to make corrections in one place.

Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)

KDP is where all the self-publishing magic happens — free, and packed with resources for every step of the process. Past episodes 72, 73, and 74 go into more detail on KDP and Amazon’s self-publishing tools. If you’re planning to write an eBook, creating a KDP account early — ideally once you know your title — lets you check for title conflicts and lock in your title while you write.

The Kindle Store is where readers buy the book; KDP is where you upload the manuscript, cover, and print version. Mike priced How To Podcast on Wordpress.com at $3.99 (about $2 in royalties per copy) and the color paperback at $15.99 (about $1.50 in royalties) — eBooks were the more profitable format.

Quick Recap of the Steps

  1. Figure out your topic.
  2. Create a KDP account, enter a working title, and verify your rights — this also doubles as a motivational hack, since it’s one concrete step closer to publishing.
  3. Research and write the book in your writing tool of choice (Scrivener, in Mike’s case).
  4. Create a cover — browse Amazon for inspiration.
  5. Build a consistent branding scheme for fonts, colors, and marketing.
  6. Prepare a headshot and author bio.
  7. Edit relentlessly. Every word matters — cut the fluff.
  8. Run it through Grammarly or Hemingway for a grammar check.
  9. Format for Kindle and other devices — the most challenging step; Vellum made this manageable.
  10. Upload to KDP, create an author page, write good sales copy, and set the price.
  11. Watch the sales roll in.

My Overall Experience

The truth: writing a 10,500-word eBook was harder than expected — about four podcast episodes’ worth of content, and much of it technical material that would’ve been easier to teach on video than convert into book form. Organizing everything into digestible chunks took real time and effort.

Sales have been underwhelming so far, without the immediate buzz Mike hoped for — likely because podcasting-on-WordPress.com wasn’t already a topic being discussed in the podcast community. There may be millions of eBooks on Amazon, but this is probably the only one specifically about podcasting on WordPress.com. The bet: being early to a niche pays off once WordPress.com starts actively promoting podcasting.

In conclusion: if you’ve always wanted to write a book, an eBook is a great warmup — largely the same process, just a shorter word count. Everything here is practice and training for what comes next.

Show Notes & Links