RE: Self-Publishing with ProWebWriter on a $0 Budget - Part 2 - Editing, Proofreading, and Cover Creation
Nice post. But a word of caution for people creating a self-published book on a budget...do not skimp on editing and your book cover. I made this mistake with my first two books.
Customers on Amazon are ruthless and will tear into you if they find any grammatical or punctionation mistakes in your book. They expect it to be perfect. What's worse is that if you have to re-upload your manscript to KDP / CreateSpace, your book may go off the market for 24-72 hours causing you to lose your best-selling ranking.
If you do your due dilligence, you can find affordable (and sometimes free) editing. If people are interested I can discuss this in detail.
Regarding your book cover - you can get a high quality cover on Fiverr for anywhere from $5 to $30 too. Your book cover is the 1st thing people see on Amazon...and if you don't "wow" them in a few seconds...you may have lost a customer.
Anyways, great post...just wanted to post this comment for this reading your blog post to make sure they know the consequences of skimping on editing and book cover design.
I agree, don't skimp, but don't pay a million dollars for it either.
Any money you invest puts you in the red. Make sure you find the right people to work with. <<< This is harder than it sounds.
I have edited all of my own books first, and then had friends, family, and beta readers run through them as well. I haven't had a problem with bad reviews.
It was more important to me as a writer to publish my work than to not do it because I couldn't afford to pay someone a living wage for services.
I also didn't have much success with Fiverr cover designers. That's why I don't mention it in my article. It adds more moving parts to the process than there needs to be.
Utilize your network first.
Thanks for taking the time to write a well-thought-out comment.