Quality, Not Quantity

In self-publishing your book, do so as a professional author operating without publisher and agent. Ignore hearsay in the self-publishing community as well as unsubstantiated claims by self-publishing portals and self-proclaimed experts.

Quality—not quantity—marks a true professional.

Ignore the rush encouraged by self-publishing [SP] portals and self-proclaimed gurus inside the self-publishing community. Rushing a book to market is the first and greatest mistake; it is nearly unrecoverable without extreme measures, which will cost you in other ways.

Once a rushed publication has gone public, your reputation is at stake for all future publications bearing your [author] name. Switching to a [new] pseudonym will not save you, for you are then starting over in building your reputation and reader base.

These among other ill-advised practices separate a “self-publisher” [SP] from an “independent author” [IA]. These terms are not synonyms.

Become the latter through professional practices for works of the highest quality. The true measure of a book valued by customers—only “readers” after a book is “read”—is if the book is read more than once by the same reader. There is no greater (lasting) measure of quality in the works of any author.

Excerpt from the pending
The Independent Author's Black Book
A Manual for Self-Publishers & Self-Publishing