Last month, I did something I never thought I would be able to do in my life – I published a book and became an author. And while such an accomplishment should come with celebration and excitement – it has instead brought me extreme difficulty, severe depression – and almost financial ruin.

While I would love to blame others for this situation, I have no one to blame but myself. Having no knowledge of the publishing process, I placed my trust in a publisher that I knew and that I have seen publish books before, but rather then guide me in the right direction and help me sell my books – he took the money he made and gave me such misinformation and incorrect guidance and assistance – that I almost lost my house because I could not sell my books.

Let me explain. When someone publishes a book, they are given an International Standard Book Number (ISBN). This number, when registered, legitimizes the published work and allows it to be sold on bookselling websites and in bookstores. When this publisher gave me an ISBN number – he never registered the book and refused to until he received the last payment for his services. This act of obvious greed put me in a catch-22 situation. I could not pay him until he registered the book and started to sell it – and I could not sell it and make money until he registered the book. So I was basically stuck with 1,000 books that were sitting in my house because I had no way to sell them. So having fallen into this situation, there was only one thing to do – become my own publisher and register the book myself.

The first step was to find out how to get my own ISBN number. After doing some extensive research on ISBN numbers, I discovered that God was watching over me once again – because this publisher’s greed literally saved my life. I discovered that if he had registered the ISBN number that he gave me like he should have – I would have lost the rights to my book – because the ISBN number was registered to him, which means the rights of my book would have belonged to him.

Hearing this, I quickly purchased my own ISBN number, got a tax ID number, and created PW Publishing, my own publishing company. I actually now have nine additional ISBN numbers, which enables me to publish nine other books authored either by myself or by someone else.

I had no desire to have to go through all of this, but if you want something done right – you have to do it yourself. And now that I am an official publisher, I will take the very harsh lesson I learned from this unfortunate incident and use it to ensure that when it comes time for me to help someone else publish a book, I will not look at them and their book through green-colored glasses as the publisher I chose did – but guide them toward their dream the way a real publisher should.