I am not one of those authors who will say that self-publishing is the best choice for every single author, but I am absolutely glad that I went this route. I love that I can fully control and fully own my work, but I would encourage anyone who self-publishes to try and follow the following advice:
- Don’t be a cheapskate – be willing to pay for a professional editor, a professional book cover designer, etc. It boggles my mind that people will spend hours upon hours writing their book and then just take a few minutes to throw some clip art and stock photos together to “design” their book cover. Don’t. Just, don’t.
- Work with professionals – by this I simply mean to not overly rely on friends, family member, and co-workers who will likely just tell you what you want to hear. You need someone who is not afraid to point out the problem areas in your book and provide an honest critique. You already know that you’re mom is going to say she loves your vampire-Scottish-Highlander-billionaire-love-triangle-in-space book that you wrote so don’t even bother asking her for feedback. Instead, pay someone who does that kind of thing for a living…
- Sell, sell, sell – If you are a self-published author and you are not actively involved in sales and marketing for your book, essentially your mini-business, remember, or, even better, you are paying someone else to be actively involved in the sales and marketing of your book, then you are not maximizing the reach your book can have. As uncouth as it might be to say this, writing is only half of what is required to see success as a self-published author. Yes, you need to write a good book, but you also need to effectively market and sell your book (either by hiring someone, or doing it yourself, or both).
You can read more Q&A here and you can go buy my books on Amazon here!
