The dream haunts all of us who write: "This is a great book! It's going to get out there! People are going to find it! People are going to love it! Word will spread! Bestseller lists!"
And then reality hits.
Self-publishing, alas, is a form of publishing, not a form of writing. That's a business at which most of us aren't all that good. Of the dream, everything between "This is a great book" and "bestseller lists" is closer to magical thinking than it is to a plan, in most of our cases. It...