Not Just Self-Published

More than once or twice, I’ve heard an author apologize, “I’m just self-published.” That phrase hurts my heart. Why? Because what I hear beneath their choice of words and tone is something I want them to hear:

“I wrote something straight from my heart that I believed in so much, I backed it with my time, energy and money so other readers could believe in it, too.”

While this has rested on my heart and mind for a while, two takeaways have surfaced. They go together, though, so please don’t read one without the other.

1. Wash that just right out with a shot of confidence.

Before I dive in here, please take extra note that I wrote confidence. I did not write pride or hubris or boasting.

Now that we’ve got that clear, you are just as much an author with your one book that you published as an author who’s been published countless times by one of the Big 5.
You plotted and outlined—or pantsed—your way to a first draft where you went beginning to end (or zigzaggy) until you had a completed story baby.

Then you revised, rewrote, edited, rewrote, got help and feedback and critiques and outside—hopefully professional—edits and rewrote again until your book shone as bright as any polished diamond.

Read the rest of article at Joy E. Rancatore.