It looked attractive, and everyone enjoyed it. I received lots of praise, and no one criticised it in any way, but then, most people were impressed that I even attempted to do it.

It was, genuinely, a delicious cake, and, as a homemade effort, I was proud of it. After all, it was only for my friends and family.

And this way, we could have it exactly the way we wanted. It also saved us a lot of cash – it cost about one-third of the price of a professional cake.

What’s that got to do with creative writing, I hear you ask?

Take a closer look.

If I’d decided to go into business making wedding cakes – well, frankly, this standard just wouldn’t cut it.

As an amateur creation, that didn’t matter. but the cumulative effect of many tiny imperfections in its presentation made it immediately obvious that this was not a professionally-created product.

When we decide to self-publish our writing, every small mistake is a jarring note which makes the reader aware of the text, rather than the story.

I’ve been examining self-published books and ebooks for a couple of years, and, leaving aside any consideration of the content and focusing entirely on the presentation, I’ve still spotted rookie errors in every single one. I’ve often wondered if their authors had ever considered looking at a printed book carefully to see what it should look like!

I’m not just referring to occasional spelling mistakes and minor grammatical issues, but these classics:

• Cover image doesn’t fit correctly, leaving a line of the wrong colour
• Cover image or title unintentionally blurry or pixellated
• Title and author name both in lower case with caps (one at least should be all in capitals)
• No title on the spine
• No flyleaves at beginning and end
• No title page
• Incredibly aggressive copyright notice
• Page numbers printed starting on the flyleaf, instead of on the first page of Chapter One.
• Starting the book with an obscure literary quotation for no valid reason.
• Random empty pages at the end of chapters
• Hyperlink underlining/colour not removed on website addresses, even though it’s a printed book
• Random changes of font, even halfway through a sentence!

Whether our readers notice every error or not, the overall effect is amateurish. If we expect people to pay for our work, we can’t just do our best – we have to get it perfect.

Will your next self-published book be a professional product that takes the cake – or be half-baked?