The RD Entrepreneur Symposium
Step-By-Step Guide to Self-Publishing: Everything You Need to Know to Be Your Own Publisherwith Arielle “Dani” Lebovitz, MS, RDN, CSSD, CDE
Step-By-Step Guide to Self-Publishing: Everything You Need to Know to Be Your Own Publisher
Arielle “Dani” Lebovitz, MS, RDN, CSSD, CDE
Arielle “Dani” Lebovitz MS, RDN, CSSD, CDE is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, author, and experience-based educator dedicated to Growing Adventurous Eaters® through her whole food guidebook series. She is the author of “Where Do Bananas Come From? A Book of Fruits” and “Where Does Broccoli Come From? A Book of Vegetables,” that tells the story of food from farm to fork, while encouraging STEAM activities for food exploration. Dani holds a Masters’ Degree in Health Communications as well as a certification in diabetes education and sports nutrition.
What we’ll cover:
The 12 steps to bring your book to life
Maximizing profit while minimizing fear and confusing
Additional considerations before publications
Highlights:
Maximize profit while minimizing fear and confusing
Quick and painless process
12 steps to bring your book to life
- Goals and motivation
- Market research
- Write, edit, rewrite
- What’s right for me
- Publishing options
- Book design
- Publishing imprint
- Book metadata
- Book upload
- Copyright
- Professionalism
- Marketing
6:04 What is your goal? (income, speaking, authority). Market research.
Write – edit – rewrite
8:27 Which form of publishing is right for me? Benefits to self publishing.
14:04 Publishing options – 2 most common: Kindle Direct Publishing (Amazon) + Ingram Spark
Print on Demand: print when ordered, no inventory
16:38 Look at platforms
21:16 Book design. Canva may need specializing for certain images.
Formatting affects reader experience
Common costs associated with self publishing.
26:28 Creating a publishing imprint (displayed as “publisher”)
27:47 Book metadata – details you want someone to know about your book
10 substeps
Assigning an ISBN (don’t need for ebook) LIke a license plate for a book.Myidentifiers.com
40:12 BISAC: standard subject codes, Thema subject codes
47:00 Reviews through advanced review copies (ARC) 2-8 reviews, 50 words each
Keywords – help retailers connect your book with potential buyers, minimum 7, 10-20 recommended
Book description
55:45 Print information (trim size, color, paper, binding, cover)
1:01:00 Pricing strategically – money, copies, readers
Retail price, wholesale discount, print cost, publisher compensation
1:15:00 print release date (publication date, on sale date)
1:21:05 Copyright: authors and contributors, copyright claimant, limitation of claim
1:29:30 Additional considerations before publication date
Website domain, Amazon author’s page, Goodreads profile, send out ARC
1:31:52 Marketing (readings, samples, social media, network, ads, testimonials, vidoes)
1:32:02 Key takeaways for success
Let this fillable handout keep you organized as you gather all the details you need for self-publishing success. Once completed, you will be able to register an ISBN with ease, upload a book with all the necessary details to your printer of choice, and protect your intellectual-property by registering your book copyright with the Library of Congress. Lastly, all the helpful websites referenced in the presentation are linked on the last two pages of the document.