How to publish your first book on Laterpress

Note: Authors need to connect a Stripe account to their Laterpress account in order to monetize their books. How to do this is covered in a separate help article. We recommend doing this before publishing your first book. This article covers the process of setting up a book as if you've just created your account, skipping Stripe setup.

Step 1: Log in, or create an account - Click the “Login” button on the top right of the screen. If you have an account, enter your email address and password to sign in. If not, click “Don’t have an account?” below the login box. The next screen will ask for a name or pseudonym, an email, and a password.

‍Step 2: Set up your author details - You will be given options to add a profile photo, website link, twitter handle, and a bio. These fields are not mandatory, and you can return later to edit them whenever you want.

‍Step 3: Click the “Add Book” button - You will be prompted to decide if you want to create a standalone book, create a new collection for the book, or add a book to an existing collection. (Collections are covered in another help article.) “Click Save & Continue” when ready.

‍Step 4: Enter book details - There are fields for the genre, ISBN (optional), and a short description of the book (5000 characters maximum). Highlight text in the description to add formatting like bold text, italics, underlines, or line breaks. You can also upload a cover image. All of these details can be changed later. Click “Add Book” when ready.

‍Step 5: Add the book's content - Click the "Edit" button on the book you just created. In the editor, there are three ways to add content to a book.

1. Write your book directly in the text editor.
2. Copy / Paste text one chapter at a time from an external source.
3. Upload an epub file to import an entire manuscript in seconds.

The "import epub button" is in the options bar on the top right corner of the screen. A file browser will open up, allowing you to choose the epub you wish to upload. Once the file has been selected, click "Open." A text box will ask you if you wish to make this file available for readers to download, to which you may select Yes or No. Either way, the system will convert chapters of your epub into chapters of a browser-based book. Depending on how you formatted the epub, you may wish to manually adjust chapter titles, or make use of our custom numbering feature to designate front matter, back matter, etc. The chapters are added to the end of the book, if you already had chapters before importing an epub.

Step 6: Publish - When you're satisfied with the book's content, click the publish button in the options bar on the top right corner of the screen.  You will be prompted to enter a URL, which is what someone would enter into their browser's search bar to find your book. Most authors use the title of their book, or a shortened version of it. The URL cannot be changed, so please consider it carefully.

You will have the option to decide if anyone can access the story, or only people who purchase a subscription for all your work. This screen is where you can set a price and whether it is for the whole book, or a bundle of chapters. If bundling chapters, you will then have options on the bundle size. Chapter bundles are covered in greater detail in their own help article.

You can also set a preview length, which is the number of chapters someone can read for free without creating an account. At the end of the preview, readers must create an account or log in to keep reading, and purchase your content, if it’s monetized.  

Except for the book's URL, all of these options can be changed at any time from the book's "Settings" page.

In the Scheduling section, decide if you want to make the book available right away, or schedule it for a later time.

Lastly, choose whether or not you want the system to send an email notification to readers that you've published. This is on by default. Emails will go to anyone who has read your books before and opted to receive those notifications.

It gets easier with practice - Getting your books online for anyone to read doesn't have to be hard or intimidating. In the video below, I go through the entire process from clicking "Add Book" to having a readable book online in 50 seconds. (No commentary in this brief video.)