Why I Choose to Self-Publish: Walking Through My Own Pages

Business matters, self employment and representing yourself.

Invisible Child by Lin Zainab | Waterstones

I have written article about my first book before but this year on the 18th May 2025 my first book turned three, its been out three years, but at first i thought i continue writing with a publishing agent someone to represent me after so many rejections. It hit me.

I said to myself Alina why do you need anyone to represent you as an author, the only person who knows you is yourself, so i decided since im also a freelance fashion designer i create my own mark and represent myself as author/writer, freelance fashion designer and just being me

Self publishing requires a business mind and yes when i published invisible child i was 20 i felt lost where i wanted and needed to be. But now im turning 24 in just two month, i now know and have brief outline of where i want to be, but i am discontinuing my self publishing service with author house as they seemed a little like a scam and self publishing on amazon.

I once whispered stories into notebooks, unsure if they’d ever be heard.
Now I stitch them into sleeves, into shoes, into sentences—because someone, somewhere, needs to know they’re not alone.

Three years ago, Invisible Child was born—not in a boardroom or a publishing house, but in my hands. I self-published because I didn’t just want to write—I wanted to own what I was saying. To choose how it looked, how it felt, how it loved the reader back.

And while it was quietly listed on global platforms like Barnes & Noble, the real milestone came the day I walked into Waterstones Blackburn, heart racing, and asked, “How can I make this visible here too?” The woman at the till smiled. She showed me the system. I wrote everything down. I did it myself. That’s independence. That’s intimacy.

Today, after attending a community event where people with learning disabilities stood on stage and sang This Is Me, I was reminded why I write and design the way I do. Not to dominate the spotlight—but to share it. To shift it.

I didn’t sing. I couldn’t. My voice caught. But theirs?
Their voices filled the room. And I thought—this is what advocacy looks like. This is what visibility really means.

So here I am. Catching up with my own promise.
Yes, I should’ve written this on May 18th, the book’s birthday. But maybe stories aren’t tied to calendars. Maybe they arrive precisely when they’re meant to.

Mine did. And yours will too.so grab your copy no UK readers from waterstones linked attached to this article.

Lin Zainab