I chose to self-publish my first book, The Randy Scuffle Papers, because I couldn’t stand the idea of throwing my work into the ocean of agents and publishers to see what would happen. At least this way I have more control of the look and feel of the publication, as well as my destiny. Self-publishing allows me to work on my own schedule, and I can continually work on the content, while managing the marketing. To me, that’s more productive than waiting around for an acceptance letter, the inevitable delays, the promised publishing date, and the painful “sorry, we decided not to publish after all.” I’ve heard all of these stories before. There’s also something rewarding about taking a project from an idea through publishing. You learn a lot and then get started on the next project.
After looking at most of the other self-publishing platforms, I selected CreateSpace. The process was pretty straightforward. It wasn’t without problems however, and I had to make a few adjustments. Actually, I thought turning the book into an e-book was more challenging than publishing through CreateSpace. I spent my last vacation figuring out how to do that. I know it should be simple but there were circumstances that added some level of challenge to this task. – Phil Reebius