7 Things to Do Before You Get Published

After getting published, I realized there are some really important things to do before toy actually start the publishing process. Once you’re there, it’s a crazy world of marketing, promo, edits, deadlines, and a lot of regrets about what should have been done beforehand. Learn from some of my mistakes with these top seven things to do before you get published.

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1. Get to know a lot of fellow authors. Yes, we’re all introverts, but that’s the great thing about social media. It’s a great avenue for getting to know your fellow authors. And an even better way to meet some of the big-name authors without having to worry about that awkward fan-girl/guy moment where you can’t even speak. Networking is important for the following reasons:

2. Use social media. If you’re not on social media, you must get there now. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, all of those and more. Don’t just get on there personally, start an author account and really use it to your advantage. Nothing is worse than becoming a published author with three people liking your FB author page (you, your mom, and your best friend). That may or may not be personal experience talking there ...

3. Create a newsletter e-mail list. I wish, wish, wish I’d started a newsletter sign up a million years ago before I got published. Why? Because it is hard to build that sucker up. Yes, social media helps, but with fast-paced Twitter streams and Facebook algorithms, you don’t always get seen by everyone. Newsletters go right to your readers (or potential readers) inbox and you know they’ll see it.

4. Understand that advertising is an untamable beast once you get published. It is so time consuming and so difficult to know exactly what works. So start paying attention now. When you click on an ad or you reply to an author post—what drew you do to it? See what works for other people now, so you’ll be savvy when it’s your turn. Also, try to network with people who run successful blogs or put out popular newsletters. Those opportunities are free (sometimes) and can have a huge impact.

5. Build your reader base. Yes, you don’t have readers yet, but you want them right? On Twitter, you can see people who follow your favorite authors in your genre. Follow them. A lot of people follow back. Build your Twitter following with people who will want to read your books. Interact with them and get to know them. Then when you do get published, you have a base of readers who already want to read your book. I wouldn’t recommend doing this on Facebook—it can easily come across as creepy—but on Facebook, you can attend FB parties and interact with other guests or you can interact with your author’s fans on the author posts.

6. Create a website. Getting a website built or building one yourself is a time-consuming and/or expensive venture. When you get published, you’ll want your time and money going toward advertising your awesome new book. Get a website now and update it regularly. Try to do exciting things to get people to want to go to it now. Make sure you include a newsletter signup and links on how to find you on social media.

7. Don’t feel silly. This is probably the most important one. I didn’t do a lot of the stuff on this list. Why? Because I felt silly. “I’m not a published author. Who would want to see my website or author account on FB??” Guess what? People will still like your page and they’ll still go to your website. It’s great to start off being published with that strong foundation (I’m assuming … since I wasn’t that person). After signing with my publisher, we had our first phone call and they rattled off all my social media sites and website and told me how they thought I’d been doing on all of them. I was shocked that they’d checked. If you’re querying agents or editors—guess what? They’re checking too. So don’t be silly and think “I’m not published, why do I need…” because now you know.

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