Self publishing

For those who haven’t yet tried it, self publishing offers new and exciting prospects for writers. Here are some of them:

• You get to be in control of everything, including
• When you publish
• What you publish
• The look of the book, including cover design
• Marketing

Anyone can do this, all you need is a cracking good book, a bit of time and patience and, when it comes to marketing, a lot of tenacity.

Before embarking on your self publishing adventure however please click here for an article I wrote on the pros and cons of self publishing for the magazine Writers’ News in July 2014.

There is also more information here: https://patsytrench.com//2015/08/16/self-publishing-for-family-historians/ And here: https://patsytrench.com/2020/02/10/self-publishing-for-family-historians-again-2/

The nuts and bolts

Self publishing involves:

• Writing the best book you can
• Sending it to a professional editor
• Ditto to a proofreader (optional)
• Designing a cover
• Formatting for print and/ebook
• Uploading onto retail platforms such as Amazon
• Marketing the book

So the first decision the writer needs to make is how much he or she wants to do herself and how much she is prepared to pay other people to do it for her. For myself, I did everything myself except edit the books and the design the covers. Proofreading was done by friends and family who read my books. Formatting takes time, and patience, and not everyone has either. There are plenty of professionals who can help with this, for a reasonable price, but be careful who you hire.

Click on the links to find out how to convert your book into an ebook, creating a print book, information on cover design and marketing.

Patsy Trench
patsytrench@gmail.com