I know this has been said over and over again but I feel like reiterating. Plus I made the mistake of purchasing a book that had zero reviews, and now I need to complain about it.

There are a few little problems with self-publishing. One is that anyone can do it. ANYONE! It kind of reminds me of the cartoon ratatouille. Anyone can cook, but not everyone can create a five-star restaurant. (I know, I’m butchering the moral of the story a little.)

Don’t get me wrong, I love that anyone can write something they love and have these outlets to let other people enjoy it as well. It’s liberating, and allows many who, before, would have never been able to get their stuff out there. Me for one! =^_^= But it hurts my heart when I read something that looks like it might be a first draft, or that the author didn’t even reread their stuff.

Kudos to those who buy un-reviewed books. I honor your bravery—however, you’ve lost a member. Thus ends my complaint about others. On to more personal stuff.

Another problem with self-publishing is that you have to do everything yourself—that is, unless you have little vampire rabbit minions to do some of the work for you. Mine went awol—so if I want to update my bio, I can’t just do it on my website and be done with it. I have to go to amazon, smashwords, B&N, and my print company. I’m sure there are other sites I’m forgetting. Then I have to figure out where all those sites are all hiding the bios, so I can update them

I guess I could just leave all the old bios, and not give a crap, but that’s just not me. If I can make something better, I’m going to put the time into doing it. Oh, and totally off topic, soon I’ll have an updated website, with cool new features for you guys. 😀

I’ve published my book in all the e-reader formats necessary, and set it up for sale in the major online book outlets. So what do I do now? I was intending to be an e-writer only but, after doing a little research on what it will take to publish a physical book and get it distributed in all the right places, I’ve decided to do a print version of my book, Demon Possession.

What does this mean?
What this means I that I have to completely reformat by book for print, get back and spine cover art, because I only worried about the front of the book for Internet purposes, and choose the right company to print and distribute my book for me. I need to figure out what size book I want to go with, what paper to choose, what size text I want in my book, because there’s no changing it like there is on e-readers. I need to decide at what price to sell my book, so it’s not too outrageously priced, but I’m not paying the printer every time my book is purchased.

Whew, that’s a lot.
Self-publishing is not an easy road, and I didn’t expect that it would be. I spent a year just writing my book, while studying the in’s and out’s of self-publishing. There’s a lot to it, and I knew that going in. I also know it’s going to be a while before I have the kind of readership that will allow me to write full time. There are still a lot of hardcore, old school readers out there that still only purchase printed books, and I’m hoping the print version of Demon Possession will help to increase my readership.

Why self-publish?
I’m an artist from birth, I’ve moved from creative outlet to creative outlet since I could hold a pensile, a paint brush, click a mouse. I love everything creative. What I don’t love is being rejected; none of us do really—unless you’re a little sick, but to each their own. I also don’t like people telling me how to be creative, and if I had gone the traditional rout, I know from speaking with published authors, that everyone has an opinion about how you should change your book. That’s why I chose to bypass the whole mess.