Are you the type of person who just likes to make a start, or are you a planner? With self publishing, I think you have to be combination of both – if that’s even possible! You can’t put it off for ever, but it’s best to have some kind of plan to follow, or else you’ll end up doing everything in the wrong order (like me) and make things twice as hard.

So, following on from my extensive research into all things self publishy, here is my own personal publishing schedule. From this you can see how long each component takes, and plan your time accordingly. Some things are flexible, of course – your proofreading may be quicker than two weeks, say, or you may pay someone to do the ebook formatting super-fast (or super-slow). Feel free to download and use to suit your own publishing timeframes. Enjoy! 🙂

Self publishing schedule

Notes: This schedule is designed to take you from the point when your book is finished (and edited) through to publication as an ebook and paperback (available to order in bookshops etc) in 10 weeks. Obviously, if you are only publishing as an ebook it will be quicker and some of the stages can be dropped. If you don’t want the book to be available in bookshops you don’t need to worry about the Neilsen listing. There are three task/duration columns because some tasks can be done simultaneously, like waiting for ISBNs while getting on with something else. Anything you’re not sure about, just ask!