Reblogged from Graeme Cumming, the first in a four part look at the experience of self-publishing from the author of Raven’s Gathering Parts Two, Three and Four can be found by clicking on the highlighted links.

Sarah Brentyn at Lemon Shark posed a question in her recent blog post and, in the process, threw open the doors for other writers to share their experiences of self-publishing.  I did start to reply, but quickly realised my reply was getting way too big.  I was also starting to repeat a lot of stuff I’ve mentioned in other responses to other bloggers.  So I reined it in and decided maybe I should just get this stuff off my chest once and for all.

In many respects, the theme of Sarah’s post was spot on.  Do read it – it won’t take long.  In short, though, she’s aware of all the advice that’s out there about how to self-publish, makes a terrific comparison with the conflicting advice you get from various quarters for another significant event (seriously, read it – I’m not going to tell you what she said), and proceeds to ask for more…

What she says is true, as there are plenty of self-published authors who’ve had their own experiences, and from those experiences (good and bad) have an opinion on what works best.  Having had some exposure to this process myself, even though I feel it has been fairly limited, I think there are several points worth noting.  Unfortunately, as I started to write what I intended to be a brief blog post, I kind of got carried away, and ended up with a fairly hefty essay.  As a result, I’ve had to break it up into segments, so please bear with me as I gradually open this up over the next few days.

Continue reading here.