Self-Publishing: Hiring a Freelancer

Self-publishing is the process of taking your completed manuscript and publishing it yourself. However, during the self-publishing process you may hit a stumbling block and consider opting to hire some help.

When should you think about hiring a freelancer?

This is completely OK!

Please do not feel like you have failed at self-publishing if you need to outsource! Self-publishing can be a labour of love and often a long-winded task and sometimes taking on the whole process is not necessarily suited to everyone. Maybe you will excel at cover design but struggle with some of the more technical aspects like POD platform management. Maybe you have a keen eye for detail and fly through the proofreading process but graphic design is not your forte.

Remember self-publishing doesn't mean that you have to complete each step alone. Self-publishing simply means that you have full control of your manuscript and what happens to it on it's journey to becoming published.

If you reach a part of the process and recognise that there is probably a professional better suited to the task, you may choose to outsource.

Reasons you may choose to fully self-publish without outsourcing:

• You have time to learn the required skills

• You want to minimise costs

• You have creative flair and are confident you could produce a high quality book cover

• You are ready to embrace the challenge of learning about formatting and print-on-demand upload platforms

• You've done it before!

Reasons you may choose to outsource during the self-publishing process:

• You don't have time to complete every aspect of the process

• You know where your skills lie and where they don't

• You know professionals that could help you out

• You don't have the desire to learn certain new skills

• You have budget to outsource

• You know you could complete it on your own but you want your book to be the absolute best finished product it could be - and for that, you need to bring in the pros

Hiring a Freelancer

These days it’s easy enough to find someone to do pretty much anything for you online – but will they be any good at it? Or will they take your money and run...

It’s certainly tricky to differentiate the pros from the con artists. So here are a few places you can hope to find professionals who will deliver your money’s worth: 

• Reedsy

• Social Media (Facebook, Facebook Groups, Instagram)

• LinkedIn

• 99 Designs (this is an auction based design platform and it’s fun too!)

To summarise, there is no wrong answer and whichever route you choose to go down is clearly the right route for you. But, however you choose to self-publish your book, remember the job must be completed to the highest possible standard to maintain the high standards of the book industry.

You can read more about the Hiring A Freelancer process in my new book "Self-Publish Your Book Like A Pro", including how to avoid scam artists and what to include in a contract when hiring a freelancer.