Here’s something I’d like to share for all the writers on Substack who also author or aspire to author books.

I have three books published and a fourth coming out shortly. For the last three books I have managed the publishing process myself. I don’t use a traditional publisher or a self-publishing company. I write the manuscript, and then I source all the necessary steps to publish the book and have it sold online via Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and all the other major online book distributors.

I received advice from a couple of other authors to pursue this path. And now that I have, I’m passing along this advice. It may seem a little daunting at first, but it’s an incredibly satisfying thing to look at the finished product and know you did that all by yourself.

The best part of being your own publisher is that you take control of the entire art form.

For my first book, I was just the writer. The publishing company had complete control of the layout and what the book would look like. I had little say in that. And I had no artistic input.

As the publisher of my second, third and fourth books, I had complete control over what the book looks like. And in doing so, I had an epiphany. The art form of writing a book does not stop with the manuscript. It extends to the layout. Because in a book, you’re creating an entire reading experience for your customer. The reading experience is not simply the words you wrote, but how you laid them out on the page. And by being your own publisher, you can create that reading experience. @followers