A couple weeks ago I wrote about my author friend Tina Susedik. This week I want to tell you about another, Beth James. Beth self-publishes and currently has three books available on Amazon. A fourth will be out soon…I hope.

Self-publishing isn’t for everyone, certainly isn’t for me, but I know a number of writers who do self-publish and I admire them for it. It’s hard work. You have to do everything. If you’re smart, after you write the book you hire a professional editor to go over it. Unless you have graphic artist talents you hire someone to do your cover art. Your techie side formats and downloads it to Amazon. You do all the marketing. You pay to have it printed and then you sell it, one copy at a time, at author events and festivals. It always amazes me how my self-publishing friends can find the time to write their next book when they have to spend so much time on the first. But somehow they do.

All that being said, I may one day find myself doing just that…self-publishing.

We’ve all been disappointed after spending money on an Amazon deal for a self-published book that was not very good: confusing plot, horrendous grammar and punctuation, and all the typos. (Drives me crazy! I even marked up one with my red pen and then threw it away when I was finished. And it was a really good story.) As I said earlier, if smart, a self-published writer will pay a professional editor to catch what they’ve missed. Fortunately, not all self-published authors are that untalented or sloppy. Beth is one of the outstanding ones.

Then why not go the traditional route? There are many reasons. Even good novels can’t always find a publisher. The publishing business is tough. They get inundated with submissions, many not so good, but many are really good and they just can’t take them all. It comes down to cost vs income. They need to pay their bills, too. Some authors prefer to keep complete control over their work. They don’t want to have to make edits they don’t like. They don’t want to accept a cover design that doesn’t represent their view of the story. As for profits, publishers and agents do get a percentage of the sales and not all authors are willing to pay that when they believe they can do the job just as well themselves and keep all the profits. It’s all about control.

I recently finished reading Beth’s “The Promise of Return”, book 2 of her three book series “A Dream or Reality”, and I can’t wait for book 3 to find out what happens. After book 3 I may have to back track and buy her debut stand-alone novel, “Gitana – Life Plan”. I hear that’s another great read.

You won’t be disappointed with any of these reads.