In June 2014, I clicked a button on a website and felt and emptiness spread within me. I called my wife and told her I was asking myself, “What have you done?” What I had done was self-publish my first e-book. It was a decision to become a professional writer and one fraught with anxiety but I had done it for several reasons.

Self-publishing a book should be done with care and not with sudden leaps of optimistic excitement. So the question is, when, what and why to publish? I can’t tell anyone the precise answers to this bundle of questions since everyone’s situation is unique. However, I can share my reasons and maybe it will help someone else consider their own strategy.

Why did I self-publish what I did and when? First of all, I didn’t publish The Black Bag with high sales expectations. But there were several reasons…