10 Author Mistakes to Avoid

The most common question I'm asked when I do podcast interviews is what is one of the mistakes you see authors make the most? And the answer is that there are a lot of mistakes and it varies widely depending on what phase of the project I'm looking at. But today I'm going to share the 10 mistakes that I see the most and that also have the biggest impact on the book's success and its ability to achieve the author's goals. So if you want to make sure that you don't make one of these mistakes, this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the book Broad, founder of a fabulous self publishing services company called Book Launchers. At Book Launchers, we help you write, publish and promote a nonfiction book to grow your business. We work with people from all phases of the process, from having an idea all the way through to helping get it into readers hands. And that's why I've seen all kinds of mistakes, because I see books coming to us in all shapes and forms and stages of the process. So today I'm going to make sure that you're not making any of those common mistakes that make it really hard for an author to achieve their goals at the end. So let's get in to the 10 most common mistakes. Mistake number one, thinking the book is for everyone. I have this conversation with authors every single week. Some have written their book without a clear audience, while others are looking for help with the process. But either way, they they believe the book is for everyone or they think they've dialed their audience in because they say oh, it's for women or oh, it's for anyone who wants to find success. Well, you can only get away with writing a book with a general audience, like people who want fulfillment. If you're famous and everyone knows who you are because your name and your celebrity factor is going to sell the book for the rest of us. We have to have a niche market and solve a problem for them. So say it with me friends. If my book is for everyone, it's be going to going to appeal to no one. So avoid this mistake by getting super clear on who your audience is. It's not someone looking for fulfillment. Maybe it's for parents whose kids are leaving their house and they're retiring from their career and now they need to rediscover who they are without a career and kids to handle day to day. Here's an example of a niche I heard the other day. Now it's for a charitable organization, but it's a great example of what would be a great audience for a book? The charity served split Special ops people after they leave the service and helps them figure out how to have a new personal mission when you're not assigned missions anymore. So essentially, who are you when you don't have a uniform on anymore? That's a niche audience. So, yes, there's a limited number of people you're marketing to, but it fills a deep need for that audience, and that audience is very clear so you know where they're hanging out and how to find them. Mistake two, thinking that once your first draft is done, your book will be out in a couple of months. I mean, it's possible, truthfully, you can publish a practically unedited book tomorrow if you want to. But if you care about producing something that's great and you want to be proud of what you've created, your first draft is absolutely a milestone. You should celebrate. But you still have miles to go. Typically, you're going to need six months after your first draft is done to get through editing, design, layout, and into launch. For most authors, code, content edits, copy edits, and a proofread take at least three months, and that assumes your draft was solid to begin with. Many of our authors that come to us that didn't work with our coaches or our writers, they just bring a first draft in and they go to content edit. We then pair them with a writing coach or a writer to rework the manuscript. So getting out of content edit itself actually takes about three months. So be patient. This is the part where your book goes from oh, okay to great, so it's worth investing a bit of time. Mistake number three, launching the book and then trying to figure out how to market it. This happens all the time. We now at Book Launchers have a marketing booster service for authors who do this. It's by application and invitation only because the book still has to be great for us to do this. So marketing has potential to get results. But it's so common that we have people coming to us with books that were launched without marketing and that we want to help those authors. So the challenge with launching a book, having it not sell, and then trying to get marketing going is that it's like you've got this gigantic boulder and it's not only sitting there, it's stuck in mud, and you've got to push it really hard to get rolling. If you actually had the boulder already rolling, even if it was slow, it's already got some momentum and it's much easier to get moving. So even if you don't do a lot of things before your book launch, at least have written the book with marketing in mind, have done some metadata research and start getting book reviews for your book so you've got some momentum to build upon so that the boulder is at least rolling a little bit. Now, if you want a guide to make sure you're writing your book with marketing in mind, Self Publish and Succeed is your guide. Grab that book now because I wrote it for that reason. Mistake 4 Designing your cover yourself Some people have a good eye for design and they come up with decent cover designs. But but there are book cover considerations that are specific to cover design that you really need to be taking into consideration. There are category considerations and also you should be looking at what is the reader's expectation and what's going to draw their eye in. It's a far more complex process than most people realize. Now you can come up with an initial concept and that can help your cover designer, but have a professional cover designer refine it. I promise that that it will make all the difference. Your cover is the first impression your book will make on a reader, so it really needs to be the best possible impression. Mistake 5 not asking for reviews and asking for reviews again and again and again. You need reviews. Lots of them. The more the better. And just when you think you have enough, Amazon will remove a bunch. Thanks Amazon. I was just about to crack 100 reviews with self publish and succeed when Amazon took five of them down for who knows what reason. So if you have read Self Publish and Succeed or listen to the audiobook, please help me find more people who need to read the book by posting a review sharing who the book is perfect for. Thank you. And if you post a review after watching this, let me know in the comments below. I'll give you a shout out in my next livestream and of course put you into our swag draw. I get it. It's hard to ask everyone for reviews and essentially never stop asking. But reviews are the lifeblood of your book success and the number one way to get more reviews is to ask for them over and over and over again. Mistake numbers. All right, I'm going to get it this time. Mistake number six not publishing. Raise your hand if you've started a book that has not been published yet. Now keep your hand up if it's been years in the making. You're not alone if your hand is up. But it's a big mistake. Your book will not have an impact on your life or the life of your reader. When it's stuck in your head or stuck on your computer hard drive, you must publish the book to have an impact. Now I get it. It's scary. But do you know what's scarier than publishing regrets? Mistake number seven Asking friends and family for their input on your title, cover and book content. Okay, sometimes this can work. But we have seen plenty of good titles go bad after a well meaning family member stuck their nose in the book business. And we've seen book covers also go on massive tangents after people post their cover on Facebook. And someone who maybe unconsciously wants to squash anyone that's creating success in their life says something offhanded about the COVID and suddenly the author is full of doubts. Oh, and the other one is when you have a handful of friends read your book and they all tell you it's great. Are you sure you know whose opinion does matter though? Your reader? So you should ask yourself and if you have access to them, your ideal readers? If the title, cover and content is appealing to them, does it make them want to click Buy now or pull out their credit card? I always find it funny. Well, maybe not funny, maybe it's more interesting. Successful business people would never ask their mom for accounting advice or their friend for legal advice unless their mom happens to be accountant, which YouTube bestie Deborah Lloyd shared was her case. But when it comes to book decisions, they ignore book professionals and give mom or their bestie's opinion full weight. So you can ask them if you really want to, but focus on what the professionals are telling you and feedback you get from people who are your ideal reader. That's where you're going to create book success number eight. For some nonfiction authors, the end goal is, in fact, book sales. Period. They want to sell books. If that's you, I hope you're writing to market, which is where you research the category and write to fulfill it. And I also hope you're mastering Amazon and BookBub ads and really getting into the groove on Goodreads while you write your next book and your next book and your next book, that's what you'll need to do to sell books and have that be the end goal. But if you're like most nonfiction authors, and especially the ones that we work with at Book Launchers, you've written a book to leave a legacy, become a thought leader, get speaking engagements, grow your business, build your brand. The end goal is in book sales, although there's something you want to get to spread your book out into the world. But the end goal is that bigger picture thing. So if my end goal is business growth as it is for self publish and succeed, I like book sales, but I'm driving them to self publishand succeed.com through ads. I don't send that traffic to Amazon. And I'm partnering with North Street Book Award to give all award entrance copies. We're giving it to reviewers. We're using it to test out new marketing avenues that might apply. I'm mailing copies out to speakers that should turn their keynote into a book, and we give copies away at events where we have a booth. Of course I love when people buy the book and it helps, but my first priority was to write a book that we can use as a tool at Book Launchers that will ultimately help grow the company. Number nine Not Building an Email List oh boy. I know there's some of you that are not excited that this is on my list of mistakes, but it is so important to your platform and it's vital to your success in all things surrounding your book. You can use that list to sell books, ask for reviews, share live appearance news, offer courses, consulting workshops and other services. You can sell products, make recommendations, and use that list to leverage you into other opportunities. Always be email list building. 10 last but not least, it's not all about launch. Launch is not your destination. It's a stop along the way. The emphasis on launch I blame the traditional publishing industry for because they make the majority of their money around launch of those books. But that's not the case for indie authors. It's a long game and you can make a lot of money over time with your book. Now if you have a killer launch, great. But if not, don't stop there. Do something every day to leverage your book for the greater goal. Plenty of savvy authors enjoy major success through speaking, workshops, consulting, business growth, the sale of a business media, and more just by using their book day in and out to open doors and find new people to connect with. They do this whether their launch was good or not. A big launch is fun, but it's not the be all end all and it certainly does not determine if your book is a success or not. Plan to market your book for as long as you want the book to be helping you with your business and goals. And with that in mind, I always recommend doing something every day to put the book in front of potential readers and help you find new opportunities. What are some of the other mistakes you see authors making? Maybe the mistake is not hiring book launchers to take them through the process, but let's hear your mistakes. Let's chat about it in the comments down below. Now I have about 10 videos I could send to you after this one, but let's focus on the one about author fears because you should make sure you're driving the bus, not one of your monsters. And there's also this video on book cover considerations. It breaks it out in a way you probably have not seen before. Both are fabulous and I can't wait to see you over there. So click on over and say hello.