I think every author should read this guest post by Joel Syder. Joel is a consulting writer and editor at Dissertation Help and PhD Kingdom. He enjoys helping people pursue their career and lifestyle objectives and is a successful published author. His articles are also available at AcademicBrits.com.
Top 10 Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs When Self-Publishing
Self-publishing gives authors the opportunity to earn a lot of passive income compared to other careers. The reality is, though, that an average self-published book will make less than $500 in its lifetime sales. Even if they are good books, many of them are suffering from self-publishing mistakes that prevent them from being more successful. By avoiding these mistakes, you can start building a steady monthly income.
1. Not Blogging
It’s quite easy to start a blog and it’s helpful for writers to stay on track with their writing habit. It’s also a great tool for marketing your books once you’ve published them. You can brainstorm ideas and what you want to write about, then post a chapter every week as an article on your blog. Once a few months have passed, you can combine all the articles into one book, format it, and you’re ready to publish. This strategy helps you stay on schedule and link your blog to your Amazon page for free marketing.
2. Not Planning
A lot of writers have given up on their books because they failed to plan and schedule their writing. It can be helpful to plan out your book and write a schedule to follow, outlining each chapter in detail. According to Taylor Prince, a book editor at Write My X and Brit Student, “if you’re writing a non-fiction book, look at reviews of books on similar topics and find out what readers would have like to see. By creating a detailed outline it’ll be easy to write each chapter.”
3. Self-Editing
You may be tempted to edit your book yourself because you don’t have any friends or colleagues that are able to review it and you don’t want to pay for a professional editor. However, editing your work will make a big difference in how many sales of the book you’ll make. Even if the content is fantastic, having grammar mistakes and typos will lead to poor reviews and no sales.
4. No Cover
No matter how much people say not to judge a book by its cover, the reality is that people do. You need to get a nice, professional cover to entice people to read it. Get some different options and ask your friends and colleagues to pick their favorite. Better yet, make a blog post about it and ask your followers for their input.
5. Poor Amazon Page
You can put as many as 600 words in your Amazon page description and you can add sales content in many sections. It is important to use this space to convince readers to get your book. Amazon is just like Google and your description should help your book rank higher when people look for a topic related to your book.
6. Not Asking for Help
There’s no harm in asking for help from friends and family. Reach out to your network directly, one-on-one, and ask if they would review your work. It’s important to also ask during your official launch, and ask for purchases before reviews so your book starts ranking.
7. Not Getting Enough Launch Reviews
Reviews are a big factor in ranking your book even if they don’t directly influence it. As Georgia Harris, a publicist at 1Day2Write and Next Coursework, explains, “sales are the biggest factor but to get sales you need to make your book visible and well-reviewed. The magic number is over 10 reviews so you have a strong book, and these can be easily received from family and friends.”
8. Low Pricing
Most books shouldn’t be less than $2.99 on Kindle, because anything under that will only give you 30% of the sale, which isn’t worth it. One idea is to launch your book for $0.99 to get ranked on the paid chart, then after a week or so increase that price. The best range for financial success seems to be between $2.99 and $4.99 per book.
9. No Audio Version
You should also have a paperback and audio version because people are still willing to pay double for a book in paperback format. For audio, you can do it yourself and post it on Audible easily. However, it’s always best to hire a professional to read your book. There are services that let you work with professionals on a commission basis, so that’s an option to explore.
10. Quitting
The final mistake is quitting the process after one failed book. The reality is, some books just won’t sell. If your first book doesn’t do well, don’t give up. Success rarely happens overnight and chances are that you need at least three books before anyone notices you.
Thank you, Nicholas, this is great advice.
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So glad you found it useful, Roberta! Thank you 🙂
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This is great advice and I’m glad to say I live by most of it!
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Yay! Well done, Ritu 🙂
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😁
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Wonderful tips as always, and more reasons for me to conclude that it is a great deal of work and headaches publishing a book! 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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Ha ha –fair enough!
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I’m not sure about something in #7. We get in trouble for having friends and family review our books. Those get taken down if discovered even if the person is just a blog commenter. I know someone who has been blocked from reviewing ‘Legends of Windemere’ too. Amazon is still very strict about this, so it comes with a risk.
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Ah, Amazon and reviews… It’s kind funny–if a family member left a one-star review, I’m pretty sure Amazon would allow it. Indeed, they’d be loath to remove it, no matter how much you begged them to!
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You’re probably right. Even if it’s reported, Amazon won’t do anything. They’d think the reporter is lying to improve the rating. Yet, you say a 5-star is the author’s grandmother and the hammer comes down.
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Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog.
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thanks, C
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good advice – and esp #3 – getting editing help can also provide some relief and decompression time
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That’s true. Unless you have more than one pots cooking 🙂
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🙂
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Excellent. I need to get the audio books rolling
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Me too, actually!
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As always great information, Nicholas! Thank you very much, and have a beautiful start into the new week! Think in Creece the temperatures will be higher than 20 degrees (C). 😉 Michael
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True, we’ve had pretty good weather lately! Have a lovely (and dry) week, Michael 🙂
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Great to hear, NIcholas! Thank you, and have a nice week too.I’m not surprised. The gods live on Mount Olympus. LoL Michael
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I have 3 books, and still feel I have more to learn. Thank you for this concise list! ❤️🦋🌀😉
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Oh, absolutely. I have some 20 books by now and learn something every day. It doesn’t help that everything changes every 6 months or so!
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I’ve got a long way to go! Still working on book two. Great advice Nicholas. 🙂
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G;So glad you found it useful, Marje 🙂
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And another excellent post. Thank you for reminding us about all that.
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Thanks! So glad you enjoyed the post 🙂
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Pingback: Top 10 Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs When Self-Publishing — Nicholas C. Rossis | When Angels Fly
Good advice and thank you! Katie
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Thank you, Katie 😀
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3. SELF EDITING
I think I’m a fairly competent proofreader as I did it as a teacher for 34 years and have done so for authors too. . But I am not so vain or self assured not to let others review my work. Often we don’t catch our own errors because our mind sees what’s supposed to be there and misses what is actually in print. Being advised of alternate choices of words is also helpful. If we want to sell books we have to write for the readers and what better advice is there other than from other readers ?
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How true! Thank you, Carl 🙂
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It’s not a matter of being competent. What is more important is how our brains work. What we think we see on the page isn’t what’s on the page. Eye-tracking software picks up saccades, momentary longer stretches of time when our eyes linger on a word or phrase. To you and me that’s a simple grammatical error or typo. But our brain switches off (not literally) and we overwrite what we think we see. I’m a competent proofreader of other folk’s work.
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Same here! I’m pretty good with other people’s work but terrible at proofreading my own stuff 🙂
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Reblogged this on Kim's Musings.
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Excellent tips!
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Thank you so much, Jan 😀
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I observe you use blogging very well to market your books.
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I’m so glad you think so! I always feel I’m underselling my books, to be honest. But I don’t really care because I so enjoy blogging 😀
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