Australian Publishing Press

 Here's a problem most self-published authors run into: they spend a year writing a great book, then wonder why it's barely selling. Nine times out of ten, it's not the writing. It's the cover - thrown together with a free template and a stock photo half the internet has already used. Walk into any bookshop in Melbourne or Sydney and watch how people actually pick books. Nobody reads the blurb first. They grab whatever catches their eye, flip it over, then decide. Your cover is doing half the selling before anyone reads a single sentence. The Real Problem With DIY Covers Canva templates and quick Fiverr gigs aren't going anywhere, and for a tight budget they're a reasonable stopgap. But readers in genres like fantasy, romance, or crime have gotten strangely good at spotting a cover that wasn't made by someone who does this for a living. It's not a conscious thing - it's a gut reaction built from scrolling past thousands of covers. Then there...

  Every book starts as an idea rattling around in someone's head. The hard part isn't the idea. It's getting that idea onto the page in a way that reads well, holds together, and actually sounds like you. That's where a ghost writer earns their keep. If you've searched around for a ghost writing service , you've probably noticed the market is crowded. Freelancers, agencies, one-person operations working out of a spare room, big firms with a dozen writers on the books. Some are brilliant. Some will take your deposit and disappear. So before you hand over your story (and your money), it's worth understanding what a genuine ghost writing company actually offers, and what separates the professionals from the rest. What Does a Ghost Writer Actually Do? A ghost writer isn't just someone who types faster than you do. Their job is to take your ideas, your voice, your experiences, and turn them into a manuscript that reads as if you wrote every word your...

 Writing the book was the hard part, or so you thought. Then you hit publish, and the silence that follows can be confronting. No queue of readers, no automatic sales, just you and a book sitting on a platform waiting to be discovered. This is where most self-published authors realise that book marketing isn't optional, it's the difference between a book that quietly disappears and one that actually finds its readers. The good news is you don't need a massive budget or a background in advertising to market a book well. You need a plan, some consistency, and an understanding of where your actual readers spend their time. Start Before Your Book Is Even Published One of the biggest mistakes new authors make is treating marketing as something that starts the day the book goes live. By then, you've already lost weeks, sometimes months, of momentum you could have built beforehand. In the lead-up to publishing, focus on: Building an email list, even a small one, of...

 Writing a children's book looks deceptively simple. Fewer words, bigger pictures, a happy ending, how hard can it be? Ask anyone who's actually gone through the process and they'll tell you it's a different craft altogether, with its own rules, its own market, and its own set of hurdles that catch new authors off guard. If you're sitting on an idea for a picture book or an early reader, here's what you actually need to know before you start. Understand That Illustration Carries Half the Story In adult fiction, the words do almost all the work. In a children's book, especially a picture book, the illustrations aren't decoration, they're half the storytelling. A good illustrator doesn't just draw what the text describes, they add emotion, humour, and details that extend the story beyond what's written on the page. This means finding the right illustration style matters just as much as finding the right words. A cosy bedtime story calls f...

 You've finished writing. You've been through editing. The story is tight, the characters feel real, and you're finally ready to put your book out into the world. But there's one more step that a lot of authors rush through or skip altogether, and it's the one that decides whether your book actually looks like a professionally published title or something thrown together at home. That step is formatting. Formatting doesn't get anywhere near the attention that writing or editing does, but it has a real impact on how readers experience your book, how retailers treat it, and whether it gets flagged, delayed, or rejected during the publishing process. Here's why it matters so much, and what can go wrong if you treat it as an afterthought. What Book Formatting Actually Means Formatting is the process of taking your manuscript and shaping it into the layout readers will actually see, whether that's a printed paperback, a hardcover, or an eBook on a Kind...

 Your book cover has about three seconds to convince a reader to stop scrolling. That's it. Before they read your blurb, before they check the reviews, before they even know what genre you're writing in, they've already formed an opinion based on the cover alone. That's why book cover design isn't a small detail you handle at the last minute. It's one of the biggest marketing decisions you'll make as an author. This guide walks through everything that goes into a cover that actually sells books, from the psychology behind why certain designs work to the practical steps of getting one made. Why Your Cover Matters More Than You Think Authors often spend months or years perfecting their manuscript, then rush the cover in a week. That's backwards. Readers judge books by their covers constantly, whether they admit it or not. On Amazon, in a bookstore, or scrolling through a friend's recommendation, the cover is doing the heavy lifting of telling peo...