How do I self publish?

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I've written a book, which is an autobiography of parts of my life, in a similar style to the Diary Of A Wimpy Kid books (but authentic). I've handwritten my story though, in a neat writing-pad that's as thick as a real novel book.

To self publish it seems you have to have it written on a computer, but I don't like typing, I prefer handwriting, so is there a way I can send my book to somewhere? I also need the names in my story changed as well. Would the editing people do that if I write a list of the names I want to be changed to?

Have you tried Voice to Text software?

/Mats

amazon's offshoot "createspace" (now "kindle direct publishing" or kdp-amazon) has made it easier to self-publish than at any time in history. you only need a pdf of the right dimensions to upload.

the hard part now is getting anyone to review it.

There are editors out there who advertise their services to people who want to self-publish. There's kind of an unwritten rule in writing that you shouldn't ever pay anyone to edit your work - the reasoning being that if your work is of a publishable quality then you should concentrate on finding an agent/publisher who will assign you an editor. But that doesn't really apply if you just want to self-publish something.

An editor wouldn't want to type up your handwritten work though. You could look on one of the gig economy sites like fiverr.com - you'll find freelancers advertising there who will take a hand written source and return a Word document. They'll be pretty cheap too, lots of them are from countries where a few English pounds go a long way. You would have to scan your notebook first though, as I doubt you'll want to risk sending your only copy away.

Once you have it in a Word document, changing the names is easy - just do a "Find/Replace" search in a word processor and it will find all instances of the name and change it to whatever you want.

Then just export to PDF and self-publish on Kindle Direct. As others have stated, the hard part comes when it's published - getting anyone to take any notice of it.

If your hand writing is readable, perhaps you could publish it as is?
I think I'd actually like that kind of book.

/Mats

I really don't know how to go about this. I read you can pay someone to type up your book for you, but I've looked on Google and it seems easier said than done (a lot of information was just on random outdated forums). I'd prefer finding out information from reliable or experienced people that know a lot about writing and publishing.

I suppose I could just self publish, but I need to type out my books on to my laptop. But I don't have Microsoft Word, just wordpad. Downloading Microsoft Word seems expensive. I do have an updated version of Microsoft Office that I bought from the store, but when I used it on my laptop the antivirus wouldn't let me launch it because it thinks it's malware, but it isn't, because I bought it legitimately and not secondhand.

Well, there are alternatives to M$ Office

/Mats

Stimming is jack hammers in rush hour wrecking crews,

Stimming is gentle breeze swingings in warm sunshine,

Meltdowns are train wrecks and punctured blisters,

Meltdowns are resting places from nonstop impossibles

Touching is skin rape by too near strange others,

Touching is love meant, turned upside down around,

And I ken these truthings from my ND-ed non-place!

Thanks Joe90. It seems wrong placed. I didn't do it tho. (Maybe my r-word use did it!) Sorry.