I had a few goals with my first book, and they weren't particularly lofty goals--I wanted to write something that I would enjoy reading, I wanted to get the book all the way to "published", and I wanted to sell more than 100 copies. This set of goals determined some of the choices I made, of course. To get it across the finish line, I decided to use Amazon, for instance, despite some issues I have with the company. I kept the book short and sweet, not particularly complex, so I would actually finish the damn thing. And, I decided to not hire a professional editor. A few good friends helped me edit the book, and they gave me great feedback, caught a lot of errors (some simple and some not-so-simple). It was also fun to interact with those people, people I know and trust and enjoy getting constructive criticism from. There was some awkwardness regarding some of the folks I know who I didn't ask to do a read of the book, but (gratefully) most of those folks didn't