‘Self’-publishing

They call it ‘self-publishing’ like I did the whole thing myself. Spoiler alert: I did not.

Yes, I put my heart and soul into writing ‘My autistic fight song’ and I am incredibly proud of the story it tells. BUT I would not have this book without an amazing team of professionals and experts helping me along the way.

After finishing writing the book, I was sure almost immediately that I didn’t want to pursue traditional publishing. Predominantly because I wanted to retain full control over the telling of my own story. As an autistic adult I didn’t want to have to deal with endless back and forth with a company that owned my story, worrying how it would be sold. So, I decided to retain full rights and do it myself.

But of course, I didn’t do it myself. The moment I decided to self-publish I also knew I wanted my book to have the same professional standard that traditionally published books have. I wanted to do right by my story and ensure I hadn’t slaved over the words, for it to be let down by other aspects. So, I set out to find some professionals and experts to help me along the way.  

First: an editor
I am very proud of the story I wrote. But gosh am I glad I got it professionally edited. I didn’t expect to learn so much about commas and find out what the word interrobang means (!?).

I hired an editor from New Generation Publishing. Not only did they do an incredible job, but they took the time to educate me on why certain aspects needed changing. I am not a writer by trade. I have never studied writing. I’m a writer because I have a story to tell and experiences to share.

Second: a cover designer
This was always the part I was willing to invest in, both financially and in effort. I wanted the right cover. The story of how I found her is quite incredible and honestly most of you won’t believe it!

To choose my cover designer I scrawled through the best-selling charts to find some covers that ‘jumped’ out at me. I settled on one called ‘Once upon a river’ as something about it stood out to me. When I found the artist and their website, I knew it was meant to be because her previous work included my all-time favourite book cover. I have been utterly in love with the cover since I saw it: The Queen of Tearling. I have spoken to family members about it endlessly, and even bought hard copies of the books that I had already read digitally. It felt meant to be and I enlisted her to do my own cover, I think we can agree Sarah Whittaker did an incredible job!

Third: formatting
This one wasn’t so planned. Upon receiving the final cover design, I uploaded everything to KDP. I was gutted to see it was all a complete mess. I had completely messed up the formatting of the books. After much stress and disappointment on spending all that time on getting it wrong, I decided to hire experts to do it for me. EbookOrPrint did an amazing job of the formatting.

Fourth: Family, friends and beta readers
A huge thank you to my older brother Charlie who put a huge amount of time into supporting me on this journey. From reading the very first drafts, and every draft after that, to helping me with all of the above steps he has constantly stepped up to help me through this process. I am forever grateful for his help and guidance.

My family have been nothing but supportive throughout this creative journey. From my Mum reading drafts to my sister being very excited at getting a proof copy they have never failed to believe in this journey.

I was lucky enough to have brilliant beta readers. Some I knew personally, and some were ongoing supporters of my blog. The feedback I received was invaluable and fed back into the final version.

First time publisher
I knew I would get a great quality from all of these guys, it’s why I invested in going to experts. My grandparents always use to say, ‘stick to what you are good at and pay someone else for what they are good at’, and I absolutely stuck to this on the development of the book.

I was of course at times a fumbling mess of a first-time author. The editor took the time to educate me. My cover designer took the time to answer obvious questions. When I messed up the formatting and had to crawl back to the cover designer and ask for a spine amendment due to page changes, she kindly did it. The formatting guys guided me through even though I sent them incorrect files and wasn’t sure what I was doing.

That’s why I wanted to do this post to shine a light on these guys. Any one of them could have made the process so much more difficult, especially for an autistic person who struggles to communicate. They were patient with me and guided me through each step.

Self-publishing really isn’t self-publishing at all half the time.

The end result is a book I hold in my hands today that I am incredibly proud of. Edited to be polished for you guys, beautiful cover, and perfectly formatted. I wanted to give you the best product I could, to wrap my story in the best book it could become, and I believe I have done that.

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