5 Biggest Mistakes to Avoid When Self-Publishing Your Book

Write, Edit, & Publish Podcast

Episode 02

In this episode of the Write, Edit, and Publish podcast, I'm thrilled to guide you through the intricacies of self-publishing with expert insights and strategies. Join me, Lynn Smargis, as we delve into the essential steps every aspiring author needs to master for a successful publishing journey. We'll start by discussing the critical mistakes to avoid, such as the importance of creating a solid outline before diving into your manuscript. Think of it as your book's GPS, ensuring a logical progression and helping you identify content gaps.

Next, we’ll explore the art of targeting your audience by crafting a detailed reader avatar. Understanding your ideal reader’s demographics, lifestyle, and pain points is key to creating content that truly resonates. I can't stress enough the significance of professional editing—skipping this step is like showing up to a job interview in pajamas. A polished manuscript is vital for credibility and success.

We'll also talk about the power of a professionally designed book cover. It's your book's first impression and can make or break a sale. Lastly, I’ll address the misconception that the work ends once your book is published. Proactive marketing strategies should start at least six months in advance, including social media, virtual tours, and book signings. Tune in to transform your self-publishing journey into a fulfilling adventure of creativity and strategy. Keep writing, stay focused, and let's make your publishing dreams a reality!

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00:04 - Lynn (Host)

Hi, friends and future authors, this is Lynn Smarges and I am the owner of Unicorn Publishing Company and I am the ghostwriter at Unicorn Publishing Company. I am so excited to bring you another episode of the Write, edit and Publish podcast. This podcast is designed for thought leaders and speakers and professionals who are looking to write their own book. You're not in writing because you are writing to make money. You are writing because you understand the value of the book and how that's going to accelerate your career. So if you're a thought leader, a speaker, an executive and you're interested in self-publishing your own book, this is the podcast for you. In today's episode, we're going to talk about the five big mistakes to avoid when publishing your book. So you have to publish if you're going to publish your book right. Everybody makes mistakes along the way. It's inevitable. We're human. You're going to publish your book right. Everybody makes mistakes along the way. It's inevitable. We're human. We're going to make mistakes. But if you, the more you know, the less mistakes you're going to make, because mistakes not only cost us money, they cost us time, and time is something we can't get back right. We can get back money, but we can't get back time. So we're going to talk about the five biggest mistakes and how you can avoid them when you are self-publishing your book. All right, mistake number one I see this so often People just start writing but they don't have an outline.

01:37

That is such a bad thing to do. That's like writing. Would you write a screenplay for a movie but not know what you're writing about or the storyline? No, you wouldn't right. So if you wouldn't know your storyline for a movie and you can't write about it, why would you write a book without an outline? I see so many people do this. They just start writing because they're like I have this passion, I have this idea and I want to write about it. But you're actually wasting your time by just jumping in without any outline at all, because if you just start writing, you're going to start writing information that may or may not be good for your book. Now, this isn't to say that every piece of information you're ever going to write for your book is going to be put in your book, because that's not true either. But you don't want to throw spaghetti against the wall, so to speak, when you're writing your book. That's just not a good use of your time and you want to efficiently and effectively use your time when you are writing your book. So what I suggest is that you want to make a book outline.

02:35

There's multiple different ways to make a book outline, but what I like the best and I recommend to my clients is to make what's called a. It's basically called a word mind map and so with this mind map and it's not a new concept a lot of people publishing like this new concept of the mind map. Now, I was a teacher for 10 years before I was writing for seven years, so 17 years ago I was using mind maps in the classroom. It is not a new concept. It's a new concept, a newer concept, I should say, in publishing. So what a mind map is is you take your main idea, whatever that is. Maybe your main idea is how to publish a book and you put that in the middle of your mind map and then you're going to write little spokes around it and then you're going to put some supporting topics on how to publish a book around that and then you're going to make lines from those circles and then you're going to put supporting information on that. So that is your outline. Or you can do a traditional Roman numeral outline.

03:33

There's also some other methods out there that other people have developed on making an outline. One of my clients came to me on a method that he found online that he really liked, which is making your outline based on a timeline, because he's writing a memoir and he writes this timeline and then each timeline has an epic and so each part of his life has six subset ideas that he writes about in that time of his life. So it's very well organized. So, whatever way you pick, make sure it's well organized and it appeals to how you want to write. But writing your book without an outline is like you know I talked about the writing the screenplay without knowing what you're writing about.

04:12

Or setting off on a cross-country road trip without a map, right, you might get to your destination, but you're going to be driving all over the place and wasting a lot of time with detours along the way, right? So a solid outline if you're going to use the when we're using that road trip example is like. A solid outline is acting like your book's GPS, so it keeps you on track and keeps your ideas flowing logically from one chapter to the next. It helps you see the big picture and spot any gaps in your content. Also, as you're going along the outline, it might change along the way, and that's okay.

04:47

Right, writing is a process. I'm going to say this a lot Writing is a process, it's an art form. You're going to step back from it sometimes and when you come back to it you're like, oh, I need to add this or oh, you know what. This isn't so relevant to my memoir. I think I don't want to focus on this, right, so you might change your focus a little bit, so that might take some stuff out. You might change your focus a little bit and that might have to add some content into your book. Whatever, it is right.

05:13

But you want to break your outline down into chapters and sub points within each chapter. The more detailed your outline, the easier your writing is going to be, because you're going to have more prompts to write on and more ideas to build content with, right. So you're basically giving yourself sort of like a paint-by-numbers template to follow, and that's really, really good. Now you might change the order of your chapters, and that's okay too. So don't feel like, oh, I've had this outline and I can't you know, I can't deviate from it at all or everything's going to fall apart. No, you can deviate from your outline, you can add chapters, you can move them around, reorganize them, take out chapters, but what I always recommend to my clients is when you're writing your book is you don't ever want to just throw content out, okay?

05:58

So, like, if you say, like oh, chapter six, you know you decided to change your focus, maybe chapter six isn't relevant anymore. Don't just throw it out, right? I always have a folder for my clients of um. It's basically like extra content, right. Like content we're not using right now, but you might want to put in this book later or you might want to use it for another book, so don't throw out the content altogether. You might want to use it for a blog post or an email newsletter, right? There's lots of other ways tourpose that content. So don't throw out your content that you've worked so hard to build. Just put it in a folder of like extra content that's not in this book and that way you can access it later if you so choose. But don't throw it out, all right.

06:39

Mistake number two not having a clear target audience. I'm going to say this probably so many times when you're writing your book, you want to write it for a niche. What a niche is? If you're not familiar with that term, it's a very specific subtopic. So, for example, my other podcast, travel Gluten-Free you specifically know that's for people who are like to travel, who are gluten-free. Now there are a ton of travel podcasts out there. There's a Amateur Travelers podcast, there's a Made in Italy podcast for people that want to just travel to Italy. There's all sorts of different niches, right? So travel is the main category, but a niche is like okay, what is that subtopic of travel, right? So I have a friend that has a travel budget savvy podcast called the Thought Card. Her name is Danielle Desir, so she talks about budget-friendly travel not just travel, but budget-friendly travel. So you know, if you're into budget-friendly travel, the Thought Card's a great podcast for you. If you are gluten-free, travel Gluten-Free is a great podcast for you, right? And you love to travel. So, depending on what aspect of travel that you like to do, there are a lot of niches out there.

07:49

So you want your book to be niche, which means you want it to have a specific, not just general topic or category. Right, but that niche category that's going to really target in your audience and you might hear some people say, oh, no, no, you want to have a broader audience, you want to have a broader whatever. You don't want to have a broader audience and I'm going to tell you why. And that might seem counterintuitive because you may think well, lynn, wouldn't a broader audience like appeal to more people and then I would sell more books? Not necessarily, so. People want really targeted information. And if you just write a book about travel, like you know, that might not be for everybody, like I have multiple food allergies, so that travel book probably part of it, at least 25% of it's not going to relate to me because I won't be able to eat at most of the restaurants that are in that book. So you don't want to be really general, you want to be super niche.

08:40

So one of the books that I just came out with is called Sensible Senior Solutions. So it's specifically made for the sandwich generation, so people that are my age, between 40 and 65, who are taking care of their elderly parents. That is very niche topic and a very niche audience. So when you're writing your book, who is your niche audience? One of the things I suggest is to actually make an avatar. An avatar is an example of that person, so give them a name. So your avatar might be Shannon, who is a 55-year-old Gen Xer who has two parents who are 80, and she's taking care of their parents and they're dealing with Medicare and multiple health issues. So she is a perfect avatar for my book, sensible Senior Solutions. She's also a perfect avatar for my podcast, caring for your Aging Parents, because they have the same avatar, because I'm marketing to the same group of people, right?

09:40

So when you are thinking about who is your target audience, right, you don't want to write your book for everybody. You want to have a specific reader in mind, because if you don't, it's going to be a scattered, unfocused book that's not going to resonate with anybody, right? You want it to really, really, really hit the cords of people and resonate with them. So they're going to want to be like oh, I'm really excited about this topic and buy your book. All, right, before you put pen to paper, right, make that detailed avatar. What's their demographics, right? Like what? Like? What are their demographics? Where do they live? How do they live? What's their lifestyle? What challenges are they facing? What's going to? What is your book going to help them solve? Right, what do they value and what are their pain points? What pain points are you solving from them? Because when you have this level of clarity with your target audience, that's going to make every step of your publishing process, especially your book marketing, so much easier and more effective. It's going to save you so much time because you're going to go from writing to editing to marketing really easy, with a very specific audience in mind. To target right, you have a very specific target to hit and you're not gonna be throwing spaghetti against the wall. So when you know who you're writing for, tailor your content, your tone, your title and your subtitle, and even your book cover design, so you're gonna attract and engage the people who are the best fit for your book.

11:05

All right, let's move on to mistake number three skimping on professional editing. Oh, this makes me cringe. This is like in podcasting, when people are like I don't need to edit my audio podcast, oh my gosh. Like I don't need to edit my written book, oh my gosh. I have seen so many self-published books that are clearly not edited because you see grammar mistakes all over the place. Who is going to take you seriously as a professional if you can't even get the grammar right. Right, like nobody's going to take you seriously as a professional. You need to make sure that you are getting professionally edited book right. So every book needs a professional editor, even yours, right. It doesn't matter how brilliant you are, how well you write, right, every author has blind spots.

11:58

Because when you are writing and you're a professional, right, you're not writing from square one in your head. Typically, you're writing from oh, I know how this works and then you're going to miss out on those blind spots and those pieces where people are like and I've done this before, right, I've written several books and I send it to my beta readers and they're asking me basic questions like hey, what about this? And I'm like, oh my gosh, I didn't even think about that. That, right, it's like automatic for me, it's a habit. So make sure that you do that, because that's super important.

12:33

Skimping a professional editor, skimping on professional editing or skipping a professional editor, is like showing up to a job and reviewing in your pajamas. Right, it's so unprofessional, like I said before, because not only is it grammar, but it's like you know, you might be missing some blind spots. You also might not have it really well organized and you might jump around a lot and it's not flowing and people are like reading it and they're like this doesn't make sense, right? So the other thing is, too, it's always great to get a different perspective on your writing, like even for me. I've been writing for seven years and I've written six books. I've published three and I always get a beta group for my book because I want them to go through it and get a different perspective like six or seven different perspectives on my book and an editor to go through it and to get a different perspective on my book as well. So that helps me be a better writer because it shows me how to improve my work. But it also helps with the value I'm bringing my readers right when I edit the book or have it edited by somebody else. Then it brings more value to my readers because it gives them a fresher and better content in my book that I'm delivering to them.

13:47

A good partner excuse me, a good editor is your partner in making your book the best it can be, because, again, they're not just fixing typos, they're looking at plot holes and consistencies, pacing issues right. Where can your message be stronger? That's what an editor is looking for. It's an investment, but it pays so well because you're going to get better reviews, you're going to get better word of mouth, buzz and, ultimately, more sales because you're going to have a better book. Right, don't shortchange yourself by looking unprofessional and skipping the editing right. So get an editor. That is mistake number three. That people do in self publishing their book is skipping the editor. Get a professional editor. I do book editing. If you are looking for a book editor, we're going to talk about how to find a great book editor on another episode of Write, edit and Publish All right. Mistake number four designing your own amateur book cover All right.

14:41

I've seen this so many times and I'm going to start off with this right, your people make decisions fast. You would not believe how fast people make decisions right. Time yourself the next time you're on Amazon and you're looking at book covers and see how long it takes you to pick the ones you like. So there is a institute that does marketing that's called the Ehrenberg Bass Institute of Marketing and they have a report called Shopping Takes Only Seconds and it says that the average consumer spends this is crazy 13 seconds purchasing a brand in store. This is based on multiple studies of consumer product purchase behavior. On the average, they spend 19 seconds to purchase and some people spend less than 10 seconds. Do you think they are going to get past your book cover in less than 10 seconds? No, they are not. So while this is called limited learning curve, right or sorry, this is a limited learning curve.

15:46

It's called mental availability. It's basically how much mental capacity you have to think about that shopping purchase before you shop for it. And it's not a lot, because people are emotional shoppers, right. They see something, they love it, they buy it. They see something, they love it, they buy it. It happens all the time. Think about the last time you went shopping.

16:05

Why do you think they put point of sale products right at the register? Because you're like, oh, I want that Reese's candy bar, right, or Reese's peanut butter cups, or I want that Almond Joy candy bar, right. And it's emotional and you really have to control yourself not to buy these point of sale items. Because they know that those point of sale items are up there to play on your feelings and your I want right. Like, oh, I want that, and so you're going to buy this point of sale things, right. So that's what you want your book cover to be. You want your book cover to be that sexy, amazing, beautiful book cover that's going to really show what your book is about and also, you know, be very attractive, because people are going to gravitate towards it. If it is a sexy, attractive book cover, so that mental availability, that's very limited.

16:59

Right is why brands do memory structure. So memory structure means repeating your brand over and over and over again so people just automatically recognize it Like Coke, is it right? Or like, if you're from the 70s, like me, tony the Tiger, they're great, we're Lucky Charms, it's magically delicious, right? All of those things are memory structure. We know those because we've heard it so much, we're seeing it so much. Like the Nike swoosh, right, where we know Coke, coke, is it? So a lot of these things have memory structure because they've been repeated over and over and over again, sometimes for decades. So we automatically know what they are and we gravitate towards those things.

17:38

So make sure that your book cover is like that, right. So we make these snap decisions and we think really fast, without even being aware of making that decision and using very little mental effort, and this is what 99% of consumers do. So we need to make our book cover so that it's beautiful, it's sexy and it's going to be. People don't have to think a lot about it to click on it and buy it right. And why do we have this? You know decision-making process. Well, this evolved of a thousands, thousands and thousands and millions and hundreds and thousands of years of our ancestors being hunters and gatherers, and the ones that made the really fast, successful decisions were the ones that survived. So we make these fast decisions now, but now we do it with money. So keep that in mind when you're designing your book cover right.

18:25

And we've all heard the phrase don't judge a book by its cover. But honestly, people judge books by their cover. I know that's a nice way of saying like hey, don't judge it by the first impression, but people do that with books. So that is absolutely not true. Your book cover is your number one marketing tool and sometimes the only chance you have to grab the reader's attention. They might be reading three lines of your description and that's it. So that's another reason why I love to make the first three lines of my book description questions on the pain points that people are facing. So, unless you have a professional design training or experience where you're really really, really, really good at designing.

19:04

Don't do your own book cover. I've seen so many people put like, do their book cover and I'm looking at it and thinking, oh God, this is not good at all. They're like, isn't it beautiful? And I'm like I would never buy that book based on that book cover alone. Like, people have these images and these like landscapes and they think like, oh, this landscape is so beautiful. But unless you're doing an outdoorsy book, you don't want to really put a landscape on your cover.

19:25

Okay, there's a lot of different rules, like the rule of thirds. I rarely see people use the rule of thirds when they're designing their own book cover if they don't have any experience. But you need to use the rule of thirds and what that means is a third has like a title and then two thirds has a picture, or a third on one side, on your left, and two-thirds on your right. So that rule of thirds is very visually appealing and people are attracted to it. So you want to use the rule of thirds when designing your book if you are designing your own book cover. But either way, it's got to look professional, be genre appropriate, visually intriguing and give that tantalizing hint of what is coming inside that content that these people are going to get value out of and what's going to solve their pain points right, it's a tall order and it takes a designer that is skilled to pull this off.

20:11

If you are looking for a professional book cover designer, definitely don't hire somebody that doesn't have a lot of experience or isn't good at book cover design. And one of the things I found on Fiverr is that people put up all these book covers I don't think half of those book designers that's their actual book cover, because I've hired a few of them and I've gotten the book cover back and it's literally like they put a graphic on it that's like a clip art and I'm like no, I don't want a clip art graphic as my book cover. So they're not good book cover designers. But if you want a professional book cover design for your book, definitely get a hold of me at wwwwriteforyoume through my ghostwriting service. Once I have my new publishing company website up, you can get a hold of me through that as well.

21:01

All right, mistake number five thinking your work is done once the book is published. Haha, jk, it's not done. Here's your biggest work. Everybody says, oh, now that you finished. Now the saying is in the publishing industry, now that you finished writing your book, now you have most of the work to do, which is your book marketing. So many authors are like, oh, my book is out and then they don't do anything to market it and they wait for the money to come flowing in. That is a big mistake. It's not like that movie build it and they will come. It's not write it and publish it and people will buy it. Right, if no one knows about your book, how are people going to buy it? How are you going to make money? So you're not going to make money off a book that has no marketing. And the hard truth is your work as an author is just beginning when your book is published. Right, writing the book is the easy part. You have to get out there and sell it.

21:53

I always recommend to start planning your marketing campaign at least six months before you have your publishing goal date, and that's just planning it right. And I always recommend to start marketing your book three months before you actually publish your book, because then you will get a good amount of time in there. I was planning on doing that for this last book, sensible Senior Solutions, and I ended up in the hospital for a week, so that thwarted a lot of my plans and I did not get my marketing out there. So that is something I was like, ah. But I still wanted to publish my book so I didn't want to put it off again for a third time because I had some other health issues earlier in the year. Anyway, it's out on presale right now, but I don't have my whole marketing campaign completely written out and posted yet. But such is life. Sometimes that does happen. But ideally you want three months of marketing before you put your book out there. That way it gets a buzz about your book and that is a great way to do that.

22:51

All right, some ways you can market your book is social media. Pitch yourself to podcasts, which is great. Plan a virtual book tour. Another thing is where is your idealist ideal reader, right? So for me, a lot of people in retirement living are going to be my ideal reader. So I'm going to be planning on some workshops and book signing at retirement communities in my area. So think about where your ideal people are. So for my travel gluten-free book, I would go to gluten-free conferences and sell my book. I was just at a vegan conference, a vegan expo, for Christmas Bazaar sold several copies of my book.

23:26

So you have to find out where it is. Don't just do a general book signing at a Barnes and Noble or any something like that at a bookshop. Typically you're not going to get a lot of people there. You want to go where your target audience is going to be and sell your book there. All right, my friends.

23:40

So I hope this episode has given you some valuable food for thought as you embark on your publishing journey and talking about the five biggest mistakes people do make when writing their book. So remember, knowledge is power and by being aware of these common pitfalls and taking proactive steps, you're avoiding them, you're avoiding losing money and you're avoiding wasting time. You're already ahead of the game and you're setting your book up for success. If you enjoyed this podcast episode and you have a specific question or an idea for a future podcast episode that you'd like answered on the show, please submit your question by going to my ghostwriting website, wwwwriteforyoume and filling out the contact form. I would love to hear from you and love to find out what your ideas are for a future episode and I would love to answer your question you have about publishing your book on a future Q&A episode of Write, edit and Publish. All right, my friends, until next week, make sure that you keep on writing and keep going on getting towards your goal of publishing your first or next book. See you next week.