Where Self-Publishing Goes Wrong

I've worked on many different books over the years and know just how painstaking the editing process is. It can take a professional editor and writer months of working together to get a book good enough to be published, and even then the odd mistake creeps through.

The number of writers who choose to self-publish their books has increased hugely over the last few years. The standard of most of these books is notoriously low: they've not been polished by their writers, they've not been copyedited, they've been published without any competent editorial or design input, or perhaps they just weren't good enough to be published.

And what of the writers? Many are novices to the game. Many have no idea how bad their writing is, or what is involved in writing well enough to be published. Many have been rejected repeatedly by the more traditional publishers, and are not prepared to put in the effort that's needed to achieve traditional publication, or are too impatient to struggle on without the validation that they feel publication brings.

Meanwhile the few people who self-publish books which do have merit find their work buried under the avalanche.

I want to help those few reach a wider readership. I want to review the best self-published books here, and acknowledge the talent that their writers have. And that's what this blog is for.