I Can Self Publish

By Terance Shipman and Milan Ristic

Dr. Terance Shipman had an idea! He wanted to publish a book. He did the research and learned, through trial and error, the best way to write, edit, self-publish, market, and sell a book. Not only did he self publish one book, he has successfully self-published over ten books in five years. His books have been purchased in every state in the Uni

• Language: English
• Publisher: Team Shipman Publishing
• Release date: Aug 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781954940468

Book preview

People come up to me and talk about a book they are writing and haven’t finished or an idea for a book they want to write. The first thing I tell them to do is just write. I think aspiring authors really overthink the writing process. Many of them feel that to publish a book, everything has to be perfect, but that’s not the case. Before they can begin writing, most writers obsess over paper, pencil, pen, computer, food, drink, clothes, the weather, and the list goes on. But my suggestion is just to start by writing.

Yes, just write! Get those thoughts out of your head. Don’t worry about punctuation, capitalization, or sentence structure. Get words on paper. I keep saying paper and pencil because I’m old-fashioned. I like the art of writing words on paper. I love to put my ideas on paper and to be able to see them come alive. Writing gives me a natural pace. There are times when ideas fly quicker than the pencil can move, but there’s nothing like the art of putting the pencil to paper.

There is no book without the finished manuscript. You can’t publish a half-written book. Take your ideas and write a book! Get through the first stage and just write. Set a goal for when you’re going to finish your writing and stick to it. Get the first and most important thing done: finish writing the book.

Now that you have put your thoughts on paper, it’s time to shape up your manuscript. If you haven’t typed it, go ahead and do so. You probably will make changes, but don’t spend a lot of time editing at this point. Instead, focus on getting your manuscript typed and saved as a digital document.

Once you get the original manuscript saved in digital form, begin a soft editing process. When editing, it is important to save every version of the edits separately. Being able to