4 Expensive Author Mistakes To Avoid

Avoiding the mistakes that others have made on your journey to write, publish and sell a book, or sell many books is smart. Why repeat the mistakes when you can avoid them? If you want to avoid some expensive mistakes, you're in the right place. And this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the book broad, three time author, soon to be four and founder of a fabulous self publishing services firm, Book Launchers. At Book Launchers, we see all the places that authors sabotage their own books. We call sometimes these moments the author freakout moment. The moment where imposter syndrome rages strong and causes them to change a word in the manuscript ten times, or make endless revisions to an already fabulous cover, or just not be able to finish writing the last chapter. But some freakouts and some mistakes are just a lot more expensive than others. So here are the most expensive mistakes. Number one, Writing a book with a co author but not agreeing to all the details in advance. I've got a great video on co authors for you that I'll share at the end. But ultimately, when you include other people in your writing project, you really want to make sure you have a shared vision for this project. You've figured out how to handle different voices on the project. You have talked about how you'll settle disagreements about, you know, different things, like even choosing the COVID You know who will be doing what when it comes to marketing, and you know how you're going to split up expenses and handle royalties. There are a lot of details that make a partnership work or not work. And when you co author a book with someone, you're tied to them for the life of that book. We've seen more co author situations not work than we have seen work. And peeling out a partner from a project is expensive and time consuming. So, so set expectations before and save yourself a lot of time, money and energy later. Expensive. Mistake number two, getting the book to layout, which is the interior formatting phase, and then deciding to revise an entire chapter or make a big revision. We've had authors in the co writing situation get to this phase only to have one of the authors pull out of the project and we had to remove the content of the other writer. But this can happen in other ways, like additions to chapters or extra chapters and and to make changes that are more than a word edit or punctuation. Change in layout means the entire book has to be laid out again and reviewed to make sure errors didn't come up anywhere else. If it isn't double or triple checked, the new errors can arise, causing another edit to be needed. Things happen like the case where the co author pulled out of the project, so sometimes changes in layout can't be avoided. But generally speaking, taking a little edge extra time when your book is in edit to make sure you're comfortable and happy with the content will make the layout phase so much simpler, easier and faster, which also usually means cheaper. We help authors go through the editing phase with fact checks, putting books through three different kinds of edits content edit, copy edit, and proofread. And we also do quality control checks as well. Expensive Mistake number three Being afraid to fail so instead you don't act Failing fast is the secret to many people's success. Failure provides valuable lessons, so the faster you can act, the faster you can learn and move on to create massive success. It's much better to act, learn, revise and relaunch than to tool around seeking perfection that just in publishing does not exist. This is usually imposter syndrome or fear of judgment talking in your ear, or possibly a relative or unhelpful friend. But but trust your gut and go with it. If something wasn't quite right, you can learn from it and change it later. Now this is different than rushing to launch with a terrible book, but I am saying when it's good enough and the professionals are telling you it's good enough to go into the world. Waiting 10 years to publish a book is missing out on a lot of lessons, opportunities, and exposure. So just get it out there. And part of failing fast is being willing to learn and adapt. So when data comes back that something isn't quite right, be okay to change that cover, add that chapter, or even write a new book. I've talked openly about the fact that my second book, the New Brand you'd has a title problem. I did a ton of podcast interviews when the book came out, and almost all the interviews called the book the brand New you. As soon as I realized this was an issue, I could have relaunched under a new title. It would have been a bit of work to do that, but if I was still building training and education and workshops in that space, that's exactly what I would have done. Instead, one of my future books will probably be an author branding book using some of that content. It's still a really good book. It just has a title and even a cover that just doesn't help itself, so I can fix that. It just hasn't been a priority for me yet. Regardless, I don't regret publishing that book. Instead, I'm using it as a great example of why title testing is so important and how bad titles can kill good books. There's always something good to come out of every action you take, so don't try to make everything absolutely perfect because it will never be perfect. Instead, Godin's words, you just have to launch or ship it. And in someone else's words, well, I don't know who said it, but your book will never be perfect. But it will be due, so launch it. Mistake 4 falling for promises or Guarantees in the publishing world, writing a book in 90 days is possible, but then you have to spend six months editing it, so it's great. Your book can be a bestseller, but if you game the system to get it there, you may mess up Amazon's algorithms forever. Editors are necessary, but hiring the cheapest editor often will require you to rehire editors again. Many authors try to rush the process and they end up with a book that doesn't achieve their goals. Or they hire the wrong people and end up having to hire other people to redo the work that's already been done. All of these things are expensive, so expect the entire process to take at least a year. Plan to invest in hiring quality people for your book and know that marketing your book is a commitment and there are no magic bullets that are sure to work. So read the fine print on the contracts and terms from anyone making guarantees of financial results, awards or best seller status. Ultimately, the most expensive mistake you can make is one of missed opportunity because you didn't get your book done. You never know what could have been. So the sooner your book is out, the sooner you can use it as a tool in your business. The sooner people will discover you. The sooner you can learn what wasn't as good as it could have been in that work so you can create something even better next time. Don't fear the mistakes you will make. No, you'll make them. We all do, and instead look forward to being better because of the lessons you learn because you've taken action. Now this video is the one on co authors that I mentioned and this one is on book editing. So you hire the right editors in the right order. Both are pretty darn important to get this process right. So click on over and say hi, I look forward to learning more about you and your book.