What does it take to be a successful self published author?

I know what you're thinking. Write a great book, and success will come. The cream always rises to the top, as they say. Well, the truth of this business is that it doesn't work like that at all. There are so many wonderful books out there that never get read because no one can find them. They are lost in an endless sea of books. Amazon carries literally millions.

The opposite is true too. There are books in the top 100 of numerous categories that appear to have been written by twelve year olds. (I mean no offence, to any twelve year old reading this) So what gives?

Allow me to give a very brief outline on what any new author must do in order to succeed at this very difficult business.

My book is awesome! Anyone who reads it will love it, and shower me with admiration! Maybe that's true. But why would they choose your book over the other five million floating around out there. You need to standout somehow.

1. Have a professional cover made. DO NOT try to make it yourself. No matter what you've heard, people DO judge a book by it's cover. If your cover looks better than most, you have given yourself a huge advantage right out of he gate.

I'm an English major from (who cares) University! I never make grammar errors, therefore I don't need an editor. Good for you. You're the smartest person alive. But you STILL need an editor.

2. Ever wonder why you can see mistakes in someone else's writing but you never see them in your own. After all, you're still the same person with the same literary skills. It's because you're too familiar with your own writing. You're mind will fill in the missing words as you go. Someone else's writing is not familiar to you so you see the mistakes rather easily. In short...hire a good editor.

I twittered and facebooked about my new book for a year now! It's still not selling! Why? This one's going to hurt folks... It's because no one knows who you are. But I dropped the price all the way down to 99 cents! That changes nothing. They STILL don't know who you are. Why should they risk even a dollar on a complete unknown.

3. This leads me to my final tip. There has to be some reason for the customer to take a chance on you at zero risk. Yep, it sucks. You have to give a book away for free. If you don't do this, no one will ever take a chance on you. They need to decide for themselves if your stories are worth paying their hard earned money for. (even 99 cents)

Well that's it for now guys. Good luck to those of you who want to try and walk this path. PS: My editor does not work on my blog for me. See the difference... :(