For every new journey, there is a learning curve. And when it comes to self-publishing your book, although, that curve can be steep. After you spend all that time and effort writing your book, you want to make sure that you do everything right or at least as right as you can.
The shiny side of the coin is that a lot of authors have already made their mistakes and many of them have been kind enough to share both their trials and success. In other words, you are now in a very enviable position where you can learn from the mistakes made by the authors before.
Here in posts, there mentioned some common mistakes made by professional self-published authors that you should avoid while getting on the journey.
So, let’s start without much delay.
Skimping On Cover Design
When it comes to your book sales, there is a saying that first impressions are not just important; they are everything. Many authors want to save money and create their own front covers. Unfortunately, unless you have a background in book publishing and serious design skills, going the DIY route might mean a sales disaster.
Many ways available to invest in your book with your hard-earned cash, but the best possible value for you is to hire a professional book designer. Many professional book publishing services provide a cover design facility to their clients that you can check out.
Not Optimizing Your Book Description
Every retailer gives you a page in which you have to describe your book to the readers. It is another case of making your first impressions count because there is nothing that will send your readers running faster than a description that is boring, rambling, and full of self-congratulation. The best way to train yourself to write a good description is to read as many of them in the book related to your genre as you can.
You will soon notice a common structure to the writing and what kind of plot points are highlighted. Then you can plan some time reading the book jackets at your local library or bookstores or on your computer and cruise your favorite online book retailer.
Not Much Research And Market Analysis
According to Forbes between 600,000 and 1,000,000 books are self-published every year which is a lot. To maximize leverage for selling books, you have to figure out which books are bestselling, what the readers want to read right now, what is your book demographic, and how you will reach them, or if you have any competition.
Without enough market research, you cannot make your book a success. It will be on shelves for years just because you don’t understand that market and your readers.
Slacking The Editing Step
Editors are adept at spotting typos, spelling mistakes, and grammar errors a mile away. They will also be merciless about inconsistencies, plot holes, poor structure, and cliches. Thus, before you hire one, first, you should edit your book by yourself and try to get it as clean as possible.
Then you can make sure that you understand the different types of editing available – development/content editing, line editing and copyediting, and proofreading. It is nearly impossible for a single editor to accomplish all levels of editing in one pass, and manuscripts generally require different types of editing.
Bad Timing
This point might surprise you but many authors have published the book at the wrong time. Books about the election after the Presidential election, Christmas books launched on Christmas Day, beach reads in November – they might be a failure.
You should look for your calendar and do a little digging online to find a timely connection that might help position your book as relevant. This especially comes in handy when you pitch it to the news media or plan a book tour.
Conclusion
So, now you have known the mistakes that you should avoid. Although, you need to make new mistakes. You might tackle these but might make some other mistakes which you can share with the upcoming writers and digitally avoid in the future. Self-publishing is a learning process while writing your dream book – so publish your book with minimum mistakes.