[Todd Young]

I think I struggle most with perfectionism, which might sound like a joke if you consider that I am "merely" writing gay erotica (at least under this pseudonym). However, it has been a constant problem for me, one I am making inroads into, I think.

Rather than being the sort of writer who thinks his work needs no editing, I seek out beta readers and with my last novel have paid for editing. Yet still, I sat through an entire text-to-speech reading of my novel over a period of days, all 120,000 words of it, after it had been professionally edited.

It's been a while since I visited this forum, but I often visit the writers' cafe at KBoards, and the idea that you need to be publishing, and publishing often in order to succeed as a self-published author is almost universally accepted.

This doesn't necessarily lead to low standards, but (as this is about what we struggle with most) I would say it is with perfectionism, with the inability to simply let something be good enough, particularly when I am talking about gay erotica, even if the books may mean more to me than they seem to on the surface.

So - perfectionism.

I take Harry's point about the need for editing, but I think there has been a positive move in this direction. I think the more serious self-published authors are routinely paying for editing.

I'm not prepared to put a lot of time into marketing. I'm too much of an introvert and too reticent to friend and message people on various sites. So, yes, marketing is a problem too.

But finally I'd say cover design. It's very hard to get a decent looking cover that fits with your novel and looks good postage size, even if you are prepared to pay for it.