It was my intention to blog about this long before now but things kept getting in the way. And since next weekend, I’ll be off attending a full-day workshop, I thought I should get the one from August written up first.

On August 7, Ottawa Romance Writers Association member, Teresa Wilde, conducted an excellent workshop (If the Self-Pub Shoe Fits…) on her experience publishing for the Kindle on amazon and other devices on Smashwords.

Pros of self-publishing:

You never have to write another synopsis.
You’re in charge of your own destiny.
You write all your own marketing material.

Cons of self-publishing:

You’re in charge of your own destiny.
You write all your own marketing material.
There are no guarantees.

There are probably more pros and cons that I’ve not listed here but I think these are the biggies.

Amazon’s terms and conditions are long and detailed and what you have to remember is that they WILL change and you have no control over it.

DRM (Digital Rights Management) is a one-time option and if you inadvertently turn it on, you can’t change it after. Make sure you don’t do that!

Something that you might take for granted is the headers/footers and page #s in your original documents. Since the Kindle, Nook, Sony and Kobo are electronic devices, they work in screens not pages which can be zoomed in or out depending on the preferences of the person reading on the device. I’m certain, too, it was mentioned to take out page breaks because the device will automatically deal with that, with the exception of breaks for Chapters. This bit is a bit murky now because I didn’t write the post right away and some of my notes aren’t the easiest to read. If anyone can confirm this last bit for me, it would be most appreciated.

Amazon has put together an excellent video which is available on You tube here. At the end of the video, there are some other related ones that are worth checking out, too.

Before you take the plunge and decide to self-publish, make sure your novel/novella/anthology is in the best shape it can be in. After all, you don’t want to shoot yourself in the foot.

Teresa Wilde writes as Teresa Morgan.