For those who have self-published: What lessons have you learned from your self-publishing journey that you wish you had known when you started?

I am to trusting and I have paid for being so trusting. I feel when you publish a book every literary agent in the country. And calls you and tells what a
wonderful book you have a masterpiece if you will. You know your book is good and so has a good message or ending. So you pay to self publish and then they ask if you would like to make an audio book for the blind. That sounds so nice. You say yes to that. The money just goes rolling out. The audio book is awful. Now the big bucks go because Metra films called and they want to make a movie. You were short of money on that but the money does not come back. Now I am out twenty thousand, my life savings. My book was not published, the audio book was not made. I was upset. I canceled the publication of both the book and audio book. But they don’t listen and are still trying to my book with an error in it. I wish I was not so trusting and said “no” more often and just got the book published. I would have been much better off.