About Self-Epublishing:

It's a pain in the keister.

Okay, maybe not compared to all the effort that would go into paper self-publishing, especially how it used to be before POD and online distributors like Amazon and Smashwords. But still.

And maybe it isn't a pain so much as it is work, and unfamiliar work at that. But, but, but...

Yep. I'm going through some growing pains. And I'm feeling a tad bit whiny.

It took me around three or four hours to edit and format my most recent story, Hunter-in-the-Dark. It took about the same so the cover, and about the same to do the actual publishing. All told, I'm about 12 hours invested now, not counting the time spent actually writing the thing.

That's not too shabby in some ways, compared to how things were for self-pubbers until the last few years. But it's about three times longer than I want to be spending on a short story. It's also about the same amount of time it took me for the last three.

So, why aren't I getting faster? I've learned a ton in the process of getting the other stories up. That should translate to increased speed, ease, and efficiency. The problem is, I'm also figuring out new things that need to be done.

So basically, my workflow has gotten 'leaner', but it's also gotten more involved. I'm currently resisting the urge to go back and fix all the stuff I had no clue about in the first three stories. Like back matter and cross-links :) I probably will, but later, after I've done a few more and figured out even more ways to improve my presentation.

The concept of which makes me want to simultaneously tear my hair out and jump for joy. It's a strange and nonobvious time we live in, ain't it?

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Important addendum: My publishing company (Step5 Transmedia, of which I am the founder, owner, and PR flack) wants to make sure I let you know that Hunter-in-the-Dark is not actually self-published. Because it's published by, erm... Step5 Transmedia. Yep. I'm recursively shameless.