Nearly 5 years ago, I had an idea for a science fiction book based on an unusual protagonist. The idea hit me and I acted on it by beginning to write the book. I quickly gave up on the idea of writing a book and halted my progress. During the early days of the Covid-19 Pandemic in 2020, while working from home, I gave the book another look. I started writing regularly and finished the book in 2021. I was pleased to have finished the book. However, it did not take long for me to realize that there was so much more that goes into getting a book 100% ready for publishing. I decided early on that I would opt for self-publishing to get my new science fiction book out to the world. That is when the hard and plentiful lessons began for me. You don’t know what you don’t know, as the saying goes. This was so very true for me because there was so much I did not know. I knew that I would have to secure the services of an editor. That was pretty much it in terms of knowledge required to release a self-published title successfully. Let’s see, there is the need for a formatter for the book. If you do not know about book formatting, there are outstanding folks out there who can format your book for a fee. I would later come to learn about book formatting software like Atticus and Vellum, considered two of the best in the self-publishing world. I would also later learn about the possibility to format using Microsoft Word. I wrote the book in Word, but I did not know that you can format using the program. Many self-published authors take the time to learn how to format using MS Word. I opted to pay for a lifetime subscription for Atticus for my formatting needs. I learned about Atticus and other formatting options after I had already paid for the services of a formatter. With self-publishing, authors need to build a team of folks who will read the book as you are writing, which helps to find mistakes in the early writing process. This team of readers is called Beta Readers. Beta readers help you not only by catching mistakes but by making writers aware of changes in the tone and flow of the writing that may need to be made. I did not know about Beta Readers and I could surely have used a team like this for my first book because I made mistakes that the editor missed. I read through the book a few times and still I missed mistakes that were caught by someone who was willing to read an advanced copy of the book for me. Speaking of advanced copy, I learned that, besides a Beta team, I also needed a team of ARC readers. ARC stands for Advanced Reader Copy. Advanced Reader Copies are copies of the finished book that are sent out to folks who read the book before it is published. This allows for any last-minute mistakes to be found and corrected before publishing. Book covers are incredibly important. I learned after completing my first book that readers pay close attention to the cover of books. It can be very instrumental in the decision of a potential reader to purchase your book. Writers should never cheap out on the book cover. Get the best artist that you can afford to create your book cover. Book blurbs are also incredibly important. The book blurb is the book description that you see on the back of the book. It is important to create a great blurb that draws in potential purchasers of your book. I did the best that I could do with the blurb on Grandma Goody. Getting great book reviews is probably the most important thing that needs to happen to help a book succeed. It is difficult to get folks to commit to reading a book and leaving a review. I had absolutely no idea about how important it would be to find folks who would be willing to read my book after I completed it, hoping to get them to leave an honest review of the book on release day. This ties back to the need for ARC readers. Excellent reviews help a book to be picked up on searches on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing site, which is where I will sell my book. There are so many other mistakes that I have made, but I have learned from those mistakes. While writing the second book, I plan to avoid all the mistakes made on the first book.