My Self-Publishing Journey

AKA: All the things I did wrong

Publishing for the first time can be a daunting adventure. You have no idea what you're doing or how you should do things. I've decided to write all about my experiences from start to finish. I'll tell you everything that went right and wrong and hopefully if you're thinking about self-publishing, you can learn from my mistakes.

The Beginning

Though the original concept of my debut novel dates back to around 2004, I never seriously thought about making a book back then. I've used bits and pieces of the story and characters in small script excerpts, RPs, and game ideas. It wasn't until 2021 that I made the decision to put it together for real.

As I began typing up my initial draft, I started sending chapters off to friends, eager to share what I was writing before it was even finished. This was my first mistake. My story wasn't ready to be read and my friends were not the best people to assess it.

I ended up with the vast majority either not reading it at all or only reading the first chapter and then quitting. To make matters worse, if I had to revise the story, no one was willing to read it again from the beginning.

Editing?

Unable to get anyone to read it for free, I thought I would make better progress if I found someone who read and provided input as part of their job. Thus, I turned to seeking an editor. I went to an online forum where people were advertising their editing services and contacted one. This was mistake number two.

My story was not ready for an editor and thus was the wrong way to find one. The editor I hired seemed promising. He was familiar with the type of story I wanted to write (Light Novel) and spoke with competency about my aim for the book. What's more, I was already familiar with him as we previously hired for a game project in the past (me as a proofreader/writer and he as an editor).

Unfortunately, the actual experience was very bad. I paid him according to the whole story's word count but after several months, he was still stuck on the prologue. He kept rewriting my story in his own words, line-by-line. This isn't what an editor should do. Not even a developmental editor is supposed to work this way. It felt more like he was trying to be a ghost writer taking a base idea/outline and writing off it.

To make matters worse, once he had finished going through a few paragraphs, he insisted on going back over it again instead of moving forward. This is why there was a severe lack of progress. When he finally finished the prologue—you guessed it—he wanted to go back over it again from the beginning instead of doing the first chapter.

I expressed my displeasure and attempted to make my expectations clearer. I said I didn't want him to rewrite my work. I wanted to keep my own voice as an author. I just wanted to know what the mistakes were so I could correct them myself.

Even after this, the amount of progress he made through the first chapter was about as much as I've written in this article so far. This was despite telling me his schedule was about to free up because he switched jobs. I tried to be patient and understanding, but eventually I was ghosted and out the money I spent.

I assumed this was just a one-off bad experience and looked for a different editor. This one was the other side of the coin. While he didn't suffer from the issues the first editor had, he lacked the positives from the first editor as well.

Editor #2 agreed that Editor #1 did it wrong. He said an editor should never overwrite an author's narrative voice. He said he would only do one chapter to see if I was happy with his feedback rather than charging for the whole book upfront. We agreed to take it one chapter at a time. He was also fast, not leaving me hanging for several months.

The problem was, he struggled with my writing format. He wasn't familiar with light novels and complained a lot about things that are standard conventions in them. He also didn't grasp tropes of the genre/setting and took many issues with the story itself, often calling for me to drastically rewrite my characters in ways that didn't make sense.

Despite this, I used him for three chapters until he too ghosted me.

What an Early Draft Really Needs

At this point, I wondered if I was just a horrible writer. Editors were abandoning me, one questioned every decision I made. My friends would read my drafts either. I was at a loss.

In a completely unexpected place (the Discord community for a game making engine), someone happened to mention that she was writing a story and part of a critique group. This was something new to me. I eventually inquired because I had no idea what a critique group was.

If you don't know either, you can get together with a group of other writers and share your works in progress. Everyone gives their feedback on each other's work to help one another improve.

This specific setup wasn't for me and I knew that right out the gate. As strange as this may be to say for an author, I don't enjoy reading. Not the way "readers" do. I have liked some select books, but I've very picky. I could never join a group where I'm expected to read everyone's story, because odds are, many won't be for me. Luckily, I found an alternative.

Critique Sites

There exists websites that facilitate getting your story critiqued. They work on a point-based system. If you critique people's stories, you get credits you can use to post your own stories and (hopefully) receive critiques on them in kind. The two major ones I know of are Scribophile and Critique Circle. I tried both, but found Critique Circle to work better for me. Like I said before, I'm very picky, and CC had a wider array of stories that caught my interest. This made acquiring credits easier. The system for gaining credits also felt fairer.

One of the great things about a site like this is that you can build relationships. If you write a good critique on someone's story, there's a good chance they'll return the favor. You can end up with regulars that you can count on to give you feedback over the course of your novel. These people may even be among your first customers when you publish the final version.

Filtering Feedback

One of the biggest lessons to learn when starting out is that not everyone is right or knows what they are talking about. It's easier to feel intimidated when you're new to writing. You assume that these are all more-experienced writers, and their advice is absolute. This couldn't be further from the truth, however.

Most people on critique sites are just like you. They're aspiring to be published authors. Sure, some have a few books under their belt, but many are still working on their own debut novels. They don't necessarily know what makes a good book. They may also be working in different genres or simply have different tastes. Some of their criticisms won't be valid.

You can't get discouraged if other authors tear into your work. While they're trying to help, they may not be representative of your target audience. They also may nitpick at things that regular readers won't even see.

This doesn't mean you should ignore all advice (what would be the point of using the site in that case?). You need to develop a skill for assessing the critiques you receive. Does it make sense? Does it work for your story? Even if some suggestions seem off, you might be able to take something from them. The critique could initially feel off-base, but you need to ask yourself why the person had that complaint. Is there something you could do to make the passage more clear or otherwise eliminate the problem?

One thing to avoid is being too eager to "fix" every problem presented to you. You have to determine whether or not it's actually a problem. Some people might not read carefully, have low attention spans, or not understand the type of story you're trying to write. If a single person complains, that doesn't mean you made a mistake. If multiple people complain, then you have a legitimate reason to look into it. The more people who point out a problem, the more likely it is to be a real problem.

Avoid Correcting Too Often

Another mistake I made was posting a chapter, getting feedback, and then immediately revising based on this feedback. This caused me to get stuck in an endless loop of working on the same chapters instead of moving forward.

The best thing you can do is create your entire first draft and post it one chapter at a time. You can read the critiques, but don't implement them yet. Wait until the entire story is through the queues and complete. Then go back and revise your second draft at once using all the feedback you received on each chapter.

It's best to do that before re-posting a chapter. This also avoids having your writing quality fluctuate too much.

Let the Story Sit

You're never good at self-editing if the story is freshly written. You may have run a couple of drafts through a critique site and revised. Don't be in such a hurry to publish. There's still more work to do. Take a break from this particular story for a good several months (six tends to be a good number). Come back to it after you've forgotten the exact details of what you wrote and read it again. You'll likely find all sorts of mistakes you made. This is especially true if you were working on a different book in the meantime and getting feedback on that. As you continue to write and get feedback, you'll learn more and improve.

Beta Reading

Did you think getting it critiqued was the end of the journey? I soon realized this was not the case, so I moved on to finding beta readers. These are people who will look over the whole, edited story and give their opinion of it as readers. This is a different perspective than the critiquing. Critiquers are writers who are giving their opinion as writers. They point out what they feel are mistakes. Beta readers are coming from the viewpoint of someone enjoying a good book. These should be people who like the type of story you're writing. Readers of your genre/style. They should be representative of your target audience. You want to get an idea of how your book will test with people you plan to sell to. They're not there to tell you about bad structure or grammar, but rather on how entertaining or compelling the story is. Did they like your characters/setting? Did they find anything contrived? Were there plot holes? Would they buy something like this? This can give you an idea how close you are to being finished.

Editing Take Two

So, it was at this point I decided to explore editing again. My story had gone through everything else, but a professional might help make it publish-ready. A professional editor may not be in everyone's budget and may not even be necessary. Depending on your skill and whether or not you can effectively self-edit, you may be able to skip this step. I was very nervous about getting my first book as good as I could, so I took the plunge.

Given my previous poor experience with hiring editors, I had to take a different approach. Hiring just anyone advertising services online was not the way to go. I needed confidence the person I hired was familiar with professional publishing and what a story needed to be on that level.

I ended up going to the Reedsy marketplace. I heard they were pretty stringent on who they let sell services there. There was a degree of vetting already done and I could check reviews and other works the editor worked on to get a better idea of whether or not I wanted to work with the person in question.

I found a wonderful editor at Reedsy (Angela Brown) who seemed very interested in working on my story. She liked the way I wrote from my sample and I had a good feeling that she would understand what I wanted to achieve.

In the end, I feel it was worth it. There were a lot of minor things she suggested that helped the story feel more polished. I was challenged to expand on missing information and clean up the way I worded things. While the story might have been okay pre-editing, it just reads better now. Having it feel a little less amateur was really important to me.

Now, no one's first novel is a masterpiece. It'll probably be the worst thing you've released. But this is the reason why I wanted it to be as good as it could be. If that's my worse, I want the bar to be high so I can only go up from there.

Selecting a Self-Publishing Service

In modern times, there is no shortage of options when it comes to self-publishing. When trying to determine what to use, you have to think about what your needs are. Do you only want an eBook, or are you interested in print as well? Do you want to just have one or two distributors for easy management, or do you want to go wide? How much control is important to you?

For my purposes, I wanted to put it in as many places as possible. My goal was readers, not money. The more book stores that offer it, the more chances people have to see it. Because of this, I targeted Draft2Digital. They can submit your eBook to a plethora of sites. This includes popular bookstores such as Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, and a bunch of ones I've never heard of before. They even offer it to libraries.

I also made an Amazon KDP account. While D2D does offer Amazon distribution if you meet very specific criteria, I opted out of this. Amazon is the largest retailer of the bunch and where most people are buying their eBooks. Because of this, I wanted to make sure I could directly control my listing through them. I also got an Author Central page so readers could see a profile on me.

Just make sure not to enroll in KDP Select when doing this method. Select requires Amazon exclusivity, which the D2D distribution would violate.

I also signed up for Google Play Books and sent my manuscript there. D2D didn't cover Google, oddly, and I didn't want to leave that avenue out. It may not be popular, but if it's on Apple, why not Google? I don't use an iPhone, but I have an Android one.

For Print, it's a little trickier. For the most part, you can use the same service you did for your eBook. D2D distributes to Amazon for print. Other services, obviously use their own platform. IngramSpark can distibute to physical retailers. Of course, print quality will vary from service to service. You can also use press instead of a Print on Demand service, but this is extremely costly. You would have to order hundreds or even thousands of books to get the cost-per-book down to a reasonable price. This probably isn't something you can hope to sell for you debut novel.

For my self-publishing journey, I experiemented with serveral services so I could know what I liked best for the future.

Since that's a more complicated topic and this article is already really long, I'll discuss the details of how my venture into print publishing went in a future article.