Category: Ramblings

There is a mantra among many writers: to be a good writer, you need to be a good reader. Many have taken this to mean that you need to read widely, reading every published book you can get your hands on. Some insist that you need to read at least a book a week while others spout that it’s one a month. However, is all that reading of the published works really doing your writing any good? Let me explain.

There are many out there now self-publishing. Their decisions to head down this path have come about for a variety of reasons, and there is nothing wrong with it. There have been many successful writers who have self-published, just as there has been many writers who have been traditionally published that  bombed.

In some cases, writers elect to push for self-publishing because it's the fastest way to get your book out there. For time-sensitive, non-fiction books, this is likely the path you'll take. However, there is a HUGE difference between (1) producing a quality product that was self-published and (2) self-publishing because you want it out there.

In a previous post, I spoke about rushing the process. One flavor of the rush-the-process beast is the publish-without-editing variant.

I’m self-publishing, but I can’t afford to get it edited right away. I think I’ll just publish it on Amazon. After a few reviews come in, I’ll take it down, then edit it.

This is a MASSIVE mistake for any writer to make.

Time to take a look at the reasons why.