Five easy steps to avoid that unprofessional look when self-publishing your book
We have all read an eBook that made us want to cringe. The prevailing question is who let this get to the public? The grammar is shudder worthy, the syntax is sinful, and the punctuation would have caused my third grade teacher to grimace. The story was pretty good, but honestly, who could get past all the errors long enough to finish a chapter, let alone the book. No writer who is self-published wants this review. Face it, if we publish at this point we risk laying waste, through self-destruction, to our own dreams of successful self-publishing.
I recently had the opportunity to talk with Karen Cantwell, self-published author of the successful Barbara Marr Murder Mystery Series, and we discussed how to overcome these pitfalls. Right off the bat she told me “this is a business venture so put on your business hat and go to work”. As a business venture we need to seek the advice of professionals who are trained in areas we are not. Creative control is one of the reasons we turn to self-publishing in the first place so we do have the ability to ignore the advice we are given. However, if we approach this process as a business and are willing to listen and make changes when necessary, it will give the finished product a professional shine.
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The next step, Karen recommends on our journey towards offering a professional self-published book is a good proofreader. I consider myself to be a good proofreader, but it has been my experience that I do not proof my own work nearly as closely as I do that of other writers, especially the one who wrote the cringe worthy eBook. This is because I tend to skim over my own words without really seeing them clearly since I already know what comes next and what I mean. For this reason I think it is a good idea to heed this