In chapter 8, Kawaski writes on the importance of editing. This immediately struck me as something I need to read, because, admittedly--I am often a poor editor of my own work. It took me until junior year of college to concede that I needed to give myself a day between finishing a draft and editing and reworking it. My beginning stages as a writer were marked (frustratingly) by trying to produce final draft product on the first draft. It seems obvious now, but no matter how good a writer a person is-- things will not come out publisher-ready the first time around.

Please, judge my book by its cover—first.

At least that's what authors who self-publish should think despite the renowned cliché, as they should feel comfortable enough with the cover of their book to have people make judgements about it, and also feel confident that people will find their cover appealing and move on to what's inside.

And Chapter 10 of APE makes me feel better that if the time comes to create my own book cover, I'll have it... well... covered.

A writer's biggest concern should naturally be the contents of a book on the inside, but many people won't give a book a second look if its cover is shabby and therefore won't read the glorious words an author worked painstakingly to write.

I found Chapter 12 of APE to be an extremely informative and useful chapter. The way the authors broke down the different self-publishing options was super easy to understand and I feel like any author who is just getting interested in self-publishing would benefit from reading this chapter.

The absolute most interesting part of this chapter for me, though, was the Espresso Book Machine. As a coffee lover, the word "espresso" immediately caught my eye and made me seriously crave a Skinny Vanilla Latte from Starbucks (#basic, I know).

These chapters covered very difficult nuts and bolts information. As a writer I like to think that once I write something that will be the end of the hard stuff. Yet, these chapters very much pointed out that the hard stuff is just getting started. There is just so much to the publishing world that it seems impossible to publish anything all by yourself, but it is possible if you are willing to work hard at it.

Wow. APE is one of the most helpful books I’ve ever read. Chapter 13 is especially helpful with all of the book publishing things we’re doing in class now! The authors of this book probably called Chapter 13 the “hairiest in the book” because there is so much to process and get through! This chapter holds a ton of information about the converting process, and there are lots of things to comb through (pun intended). One of the things that is hard about preparing a book for distribution to a wider audience like they talk about in chapter 12 is that you’re going to have to format the file for all of those channels. This takes a lot of time, money, and knowledge about the publishing and converting process for files.