Self Publishing Options and Beta Readers

So, one of the most frustrating things about deciding to self publish might have to be the options.

Yeah, who knew options were bad?!

KDP, Kobo, Createspace, Smashwords, etc and etc.  A few years ago you might have only had one or two places to go if you were deciding on going it alone. These days....not so much.

I'm tempted to go Kindle, simply because they simply 'own' the market when it comes to digital reading, even though I own a Kobo.  The deal is, however, that you can't have your stuff available on Kobo if you publish through Kindle and you can't have your stuff on Kindle if you publish through Kobo.  Smashwords is okay for both but I get the sense that there's doubt about the quality of a novel published through Smashwords.  Looking at their homepage certainly makes me doubt whats available there.

Currently I'm still inclined to go Kindle simply due to the amount of Kindles they've sold.

Now, on to beta readers.  I need some, pretty much.

I sent off my story to a buddy who's an avid reader and his response was.   "Yeah, it's pretty good."

I tried to get him to elaborate,  "Were there any spelling or grammatical errors, did the story lag, were characters developed enough that you cared about them?"

"It was pretty good, not spooky enough though."

I tried to explain that I wanted the story to be more about my character coming to terms with growing up and not about the horror, that the story also contained, but it seemed to fall on deaf ears.

I sent it to someone else, though, and he thought it was great, over the top great.  Scary and he loved the characters.  Still no negative feedback. 

I've read it and reread it and I can't really think of anything I want to change so maybe I'll just move forward and let the world decide?  I'm not sure yet.