In 2014, I self-published my first book, “An Expat’s Guide to Ireland” using Amazon’s KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). In 2018, I published a new book, “How to Manage Your Manager.” I expanded beyond Amazon publishing to Smashwords as well. You can read about my comparison here. Now, I am working on my third book to be published this year.
Through the journey of writing and self-publishing, I gained a few insights. Therefore, here are some lessons I picked up along the way while self-publishing my books.
Find a Good Editor
Even though this is the last step in the process, it is so important that I want to call it out first. I am notorious for having bad grammar, to the point that a few people have accused me of having dyslexia. I don’t, I’m just the result of a standard public education. Or, as I like to say, “I’m too creative for the confinements of grammar and spelling.”
For my first book, I found someone that seemed like she knew what she was doing, so I sent it to her for editing. She sent it back with the edits, which to my ignorance looked good. After publishing the book, however, people left a few comments on the grammatical errors included in the book missed by both of us. The cost of this bad editor was $150 dollars. For my second book, I spent $460 dollars on the editor. He…
