Plan: Your first step to getting published

In PublishMe's six-step process, the essential knowledge you need to become a truly successful self-publisher is easily accessible and provided freely. Self-publishing is where you are in control of the publishing process. You make all the decisions and keep ownership of the process throughout. The copyright for the work stays with you.

You may be reading through the PublishMe '6 steps to getting published' to learn enough information to get started on your project or you might already have a work completed and ready to sell.

It doesn't matter where you are in the process or what your final goal is, it can be helpful to read through each step. If, however, you wish to sell into libraries, book shops, online shops or internationally we strongly advise that you read thoroughly all the steps and the free downloads.

1. Plan

Like most processes, the self-publishing process benefits if you start with effective planning. When you plan well at the beginning of a project, many of the later (and often expensive) processes can be minimised. A clear direction and road map means reworking is reduced, costs are kept down and the project takes less time and has fewer hassles.

As part of the planning process, it is vitally important to consider the overall goals you have for your self-published work. We recommend that before you start planning, you click through all six steps on the PublishMe site to get a good understanding of the whole process. This will help you set your goals and make the planning and implementation process easier.

The extent of the planning required and the points that need to be considered will depend on what your goals are and will impact on the decisions you make along the way. Every project is different.

Janet Murdoch: Railway to Welbourn
"I logged onto publishme.co.nz and found the six steps to publishing a book really easy to follow and that set me on the process to actually use these guidelines to publish my own book."

If your self-publishing project is a book of verse or a CD that you wish to share with family and friends or you have an article that you wish to offer as edelivery that people can download, the planning required will be quite different than if you are writing and wanting to self-publish a serious non-fiction book to sell to libraries and research centres, or if you want to sell your work throughout New Zealand and perhaps the world as hard copy.

Once you Join and you are a PublishMe member go to MyPublishMe, click the Free Download tab and you can download free the How to plan your fiction book and How to plan your non-fiction book:

How to plan your fiction book
This ebook develops the skills and ideas necessary to plan good fiction using what we call the Six P's of fiction writing: Prepare, Plan, Plot, People, Places, Premises.

How to plan your non-fiction book
This ebook details the processes generally employed to plan good non-fiction using the anagram PANIC, our handy mnemonic that stands for the stages of preparation: Prepare, Arrange, Narrow, Investigate, Commence.