Allison Strong
The Radioactive Patient
Ok, so I’m trying to help my father self-publish his book. He hired a top sportswriter for the LA Times to ghostwrite it and it’s fabulous. I’m very proud of him and his accomplishments and believe the world needs his story. At 90 years of age, he doesn’t want to wait around for an agent to pick it up and then spend even more time during the revision and submission processes. That’s why he wants to self-publish.
But guess what? I’ve never self-published a book before! With my own work-in-progress, I’m taking the traditional route and am patient with the process.
I called this one company, BookBaby, and I spent so much time on hold that I worried their customer service department was understaffed. Since much of the work is done on an online dashboard, I might well need customer service for tech support and not have the time to hang around on hold after giving them Dad’s hard-earned money. So I’ll look for more companies, I guess, comparing cost to difficulty level.
This is the thing—most of these companies want their money up front, and I’ve known so many self-published authors who’ve been disappointed at how their books turn out with these companies.
About self-doubt in this context: I worry that I won’t be able to do this. That Dad will be angry or disappointed. But most of my fear has to do with not knowing how to proceed. The only thing to do is keep going, and try to adopt an attitude of gratitude for the opportunity to learn new things.
Because who knows? I might self-publish my own book and need to know this stuff.
Booyah!