Self-publishing is on the rise. Final 2018 statistics haven’t yet been released, but according to Bowker, self-publishing grew 28% in 2017 (up from 20% in 2016) and 1,009,188 new titles were released. You might be thinking, That’s a lot of books! I’m thinking that, too — but I’m also thinking about how important it is for self-publishing authors (as most of my author-entrepreneur clients are) to produce a book that’s as professional as possible. With that many books being published, you want your book to stand out in a good way. Self-publishing used to have a bad rap in the industry, and the main reason was because the barrier to entry was so low that some truly bad books (in content and form) were released. And by “some,” I mean “a lot.”