--- title: Self-Publishing & Book Marketing description: Self-publishing lets authors bring books to market themselves. You will learn editing and production, Kindle Direct Publishing and print-on-demand, covers, pricing and book marketing. category: literature-writing subcategory: creative-writing difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced url: /subject/self-publishing --- # Self-Publishing & Book Marketing Self-publishing lets authors bring books to market themselves. You will learn editing and production, Kindle Direct Publishing and print-on-demand, covers, pricing and book marketing. ## Available Resources 3 Books • 4 Websites ## Podcasts ### 1. The Creative Penn **Author:** Joanna Penn Weekly podcast and blog by author-entrepreneur Joanna Penn, with interviews on writing craft, self-publishing, book marketing, audiobooks, and running an independent author business. Listeners learn how indie authors publish, distribute and sell their books and build lasting income from their writing. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** en-US | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.thecreativepenn.com/blog/ **Tags:** self-publishing, book-marketing, indie-authors, author-business, creative-writing ### 2. The Creative Penn Podcast **Author:** Joanna Penn Joanna Penn's weekly interview show, running since 2009 with more than 880 episodes, covering self-publishing mechanics, book marketing, audiobooks, direct sales, rights licensing and author business decisions, usually with working authors and industry practitioners as guests. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.thecreativepenn.com/podcasts/ **Tags:** self-publishing, book-marketing, author-business, indie-publishing, audiobooks ## Books ### 1. Newsletter Ninja: How to Become an Author Mailing List Expert **Author:** Tammi Labrecque A practical treatment of author email lists: choosing a reader magnet, setting up automated welcome sequences, writing newsletters people actually open, cleaning inactive subscribers, and using the list to drive launch-week sales rather than passive announcements. The mailing list is the one marketing asset an indie author owns outright, and no free source treats it at this depth. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/099821275X?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** email-marketing, mailing-lists, book-marketing, author-platform, self-publishing ### 2. Strangers To Superfans: A Marketing Guide to The Reader Journey **Author:** David Gaughran A framework for book marketing built around five stages of a reader's journey from first exposure to advocacy, diagnosing where conversion breaks down: cover and blurb, sample pages, series hooks, back-matter and mailing list capture. Book marketing is the half of this topic most infested with course funnels; this is the rare treatment that reasons about reader psychology and conversion structure instead of a channel-of-the-month. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/9187109301?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** book-marketing, self-publishing, reader-psychology, conversion, author-platform ### 3. Let's Get Digital: How To Self-Publish, And Why You Should (Fourth Edition) **Author:** David Gaughran Gaughran's end-to-end guide to publishing independently: hiring editors and cover designers, formatting, pricing, retailer choice, metadata, keywords and categories. The ebook is free at every major retailer; the fourth edition reflects current store mechanics. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/9187109484?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** self-publishing, indie-publishing, book-marketing, ebook-formatting, pricing ## Websites ### 1. Amazon KDP Help Center Amazon's own documentation for Kindle Direct Publishing: manuscript and cover file specifications for ebook, paperback and hardcover, ISBN handling, pricing and royalty tiers, KDP Select and Kindle Unlimited terms, category and keyword rules, and content guidelines. Third-party KDP tutorials go stale within months and are the single largest category of slop in this topic. Reading the operator docs directly removes an entire class of bad information. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200635650 **Tags:** self-publishing, kdp, amazon, ebook-formatting, royalties ### 2. Writer Beware **Author:** Victoria Strauss This topic's dominant failure mode is money lost to predatory services, not missing tactics. Writer Beware is the only source that systematically names and documents them, with archives spanning fifteen-plus years. Sponsored by SFWA and written primarily by Victoria Strauss, this long-running blog documents publishing scams: vanity presses posing as publishers, fake agents, marketing boiler rooms, impersonation schemes and AI-driven fraud. A due-diligence check before paying any publishing service. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://writerbeware.blog/ **Tags:** self-publishing, publishing-scams, vanity-presses, author-rights, due-diligence ### 3. ALLi Self-Publishing Advice Center The Alliance of Independent Authors' free advice arm, organised by publishing stage: editorial, design, production, distribution, marketing, promotion and rights. Includes a watchdog service that rates and warns about self-publishing service providers, plus a weekly podcast and downloadable guides. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://selfpublishingadvice.org/ **Tags:** self-publishing, indie-authors, book-marketing, publishing-services, book-distribution ### 4. Start Here: How to Self-Publish Your Book **Author:** Jane Friedman The best free orientation document in the topic: the rare piece that explains the difference between DIY, author-services and hybrid publishers honestly, including what each costs. A publishing-industry veteran's overview of the self-publishing landscape, comparing DIY platforms, author-services companies and hybrid publishers, then walking through ebook and print-on-demand production, ISBNs, distribution choices and the costs each path carries. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://janefriedman.com/self-publish-your-book/ **Tags:** self-publishing, publishing-industry, print-on-demand, isbn, hybrid-publishing --- *This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge* *Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).* View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/self-publishing