1. Publish Ebook First: Start with an ebook (pdf and epub) first. This is the easiest and fastest way to get started. Creating an ebook first will also allow you to get some feed-back from your readers, and make adjustments to your book accordingly. After 
you get your ebook online and get all the kinks worked out, then add a print-on-demand paperback edition.
2. Stick To Your Niche: Your book should be directly aligned with your market niche. For many self-publishers, success comes from focusing their book, and their marketing, at their particular niche. Part of sticking to your niche is that you must learn about and understand the subject of branding.
3. Design A Great Cover: Spend a lot of time developing and designing a great cover. Design many sample covers for your book. Especially look at books that have a similar topic as your does. If you are not creative, and have the money, pay a professional to do the cover design for you.
4. Perfect the Contents: Spend a lot of time perfecting and editing the contents of your book. Make improvements and corrections even after it is published.
5. Get Testimonials: Make great efforts to get testimonials and endorsements. You must never stop asking other guru’s in your industry and celebrities to write them for you. Keep adding them to your book and to your book’s blog. Convince one of these guru’s or celebrities to write your book’s foreword.
6. Set-up Blog: Set-up a blog to support your book. This is not difficult or expensive. By far the best way to do this is to set up a blog with a big company like WordPress. These blogs are specifically designed to be user friendly. They are also designed to work very well with search engines like Google.
7. Max-Out Third-Party Websites: Max-out your use of every website that lists your book. Many websites, such as Amazon, allow you to add a large amount of information about yourself and your book. Doing this will be like giving your book another website devoted to you and your book. Take advantage of everything Amazon has to offer.
8. Avoid Bookstores: Do not put your book into the bookstores by using a wholesaler or distributor. This step is for much more advance publishers, and self-publishers with big bank accounts. Bookstores sell very few books – especially by self-publishers that are not big-name celebrities.
9. Use All Major Online Retailers: Get your book into every major outlet such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble online, Scribd, etc. – just to mention the major ones. Using services like SmashWords, BookBaby, and Lightning Source, will get you into the big-name ebook outlets. Also, some professional organizations allow their members to list their book in the organization’s catalog.
10. Market, Market, Market: Getting your book online is the easy part. Making your book financially successful is the time-consuming part. But now, because of the internet, it is not difficult. The more effort you put into marketing and promotion, the more financial success your book will have. Even if you are not a business-minded person, you will find that marketing and promotion is a very interesting process.
This article was written by Joseph C. Kunz, Jr. and originally posted on KunzOnPublishing.com