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7 Things You Need to Self-Publish, and 7 You Don’t
Stop treating it like traditional publishing
Self-publishing is a difficult thing to get right; treating it like traditional publishing adds unnecessary and costly steps to the process. You’re putting yourself out there in the world — a risky proposition already — don’t make it harder than it needs to be.
When I put my first bestseller — a roleplaying game book — on the market, I began with a Kickstarter to raise funds. RPG books require a lot of art, so I needed the upfront funds to get the project going.
Unfortunately, I didn’t count the cost where it mattered most: the traditional publishing steps.
Beta readers, editors, art directors, developmental editors, layout designers…many positions that I didn’t need, but I didn’t know that at the time. I thought that if traditionally published books have all these things, I’d better have them too. I didn’t want to look unprofessional.
Following the typical advice, I wasted money and made the process take longer than it should have. I almost tanked my career before it began.
Learn from my experience, go into your self-publishing career with precisely what you need, and skip on what you don’t.
