What platform(s) are you using to publish your book and why?

After you finish your first draft, what steps do you take before formatting? Self editing, beta readers, developmental editing (paid), copy/line/grammatical editing (paid), then proof reading (paid)?

What are your thoughts? I’ll go first. Spell check is AI. People have been using it in editing for decades. Now we have tools and software that can help us with flow, finding plot holes, and determining overused words. I’m here for it! As long as you are doing the writing and not using AI to write your story, I think it’s fine to have it help you read through and edit it.

I’m going to make a blanket statement based on my research and reporting. IF YOU ARE A PUBLISHED AUTHOR and you receive an email from a “ Book Club” to be “featured” and their email is a GMAIL account, IT IS SPAM/SCAM.

I've noticed something odd. The authors who eventually get the most readers are rarely the ones who write the "best" book. There's a specific reason for that, and most people never figure it out until years in. Anyone else notice this pattern?