Indie authors, what aspect of self-publishing were you totally unprepared for? The more niche the better.

Mine was having to figure out the US tax forms on KDP and Google Play. Especially the latter - I've just ticked boxes by best guess and hoped for the best. I may get hauled off to San Quentin in future, who knows.

I'd dealt with publishing a book for someone else, so I was quite prepared. I didn't know that Amazon reviews are divided according to marketplace, so at the moment I've got one on amazon.co.uk, one on amazon.com and two on amazon.it. It would have been nice to have them all together.....

I was surprised that people actually bought my books. My research suggested that it was unlikely.

Also, although I wasn't expecting much, it still surprised me just how badly giveaways preformed.

Also, the absolutely unfair wording on the release form that Ingram Star wanted me to sign before it would let me release a book with the same ISBN as had been used by a different pod publishing platform surprised me. Making me responsible for any copyright issues that arose seems reasonable. Forcing me to take responsibility for ANY issue of any kind with the book is blatantly unreasonable. What if the issue was a printing error? Why do I have to take responsibility for that?

I didn't sign.

I didn't think that marketing would be so difficult (and expensive).

>2 JLCrellin: It's pretty ridiculous. For one of my books it looks like I have no reviews, but on the US market I have 22.

I have suggested an amalgamation in many emails.