Must Self-Publishing Authors Be Jacks-of-All-Trades?

People used to be specialists. But the digital age is making jacks-of-all-trades of more of us every day. The transition isn’t always a smooth one. Nowhere is this more evident than the world of publishing. With the explosion of self-publishing and ebooks more people every day are churning out DIY books.

Courtesy of ramsey everydaypants under Creative Commons

People used to be specialists. But the digital age is making jacks-of-all-trades of more of us every day. The transition isn’t always a smooth one. Nowhere is this more evident than the world of publishing. With the explosion of self-publishing and ebooks more people every day are churning out DIY books.

That’s great because it has opened up opportunities to get their work out there. It’s also bad because a lot of the books people produce are not ready to be out there. The reason is that many of the authors who hear the term self-publishing and immediately interpret it to mean that they will complete each step in the process of creating a book themselves. That’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the self-publishing process.

That’s great because it has opened up opportunities to get their work out there. It’s also bad because a lot of the books people produce are not ready to be out there. The reason is that many of the authors who hear the term self-publishing and immediately interpret it to mean that they will complete each step in the process of creating a book themselves. That’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the self-publishing process.

To understand why, let’s look at what a digital publishing professional, Bob Cohn, editor of The Atlantic’s Digital Edition observed about the magazine business as it shifts online. In a post titled Hiring in the Digital Age, Cohn observed, “Today, everyone is an editor-in-chief.” Digital tools make it possible for individual journalists to do a number of things that were previously done by specialists. Says Cohn, “What we're looking for, I've come to realize, is people who can do a bit of everything: report and write stories; write headlines and deks; select and crop photos; fact check and copy edit the work of others; make charts and graphs; oversee social media; manage outside writers. (And hey, can you do some coding?)”

Cohn and The Atlantic are finding these multi-talented people with diverse skill sets. If these folks set out to DIY self-publish, they would probably be well suited to the challenge.

Unfortunately many of the people attempting DIY self-publishing don’t possess the impressive array of writing, design and technical skills Cohn describes. The problem is, many of them forge ahead anyhow and it shows in their books.

Self-publishers need to understand that self-publishing doesn’t mean that they have to do everything themselves. What they do need to do is understand what it takes to produce a quality book. Sound editing, graphic design skills to layout the book’s interior and produce a cover to draw readers to the book, and the technical tools to do all of these things are essential. Some experience with books and the world of printing and publishing are a very good idea.

A self-publishing author who wants her final product to be a quality book should ask herself which of the requisite skills she possesses. It’s great to do-it-yourself if she really is a jack-of–all-trades. But, if there are some skills she doesn’t possess she should consider freelancers to assist her in doing the things she can’t. The resulting professionalism of the book ultimately produced will be immediately apparent.