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Top 5 Mistakes People Make Self Publishing a Book!

By on December 6, 2017
Top 5 Mistakes People Make Self Publishing a Book!

Self-publishing is a tricky business. On the one hand, it has made it possible for so many aspiring authors to achieve the goal of seeing their book in print, getting reviews, and making money (however much or little) from their creative writing. On the other, it has made the competition fiercer than ever, and even more difficult for writers to get their work noticed.

So if you do want to self-publish your book, and want to give yourself the best chance of making a success of it, it’s essential to make your book stand out from the crowd. It’s so easy for people to rush into publishing (it is exciting after all) without considering their options or thinking about what they hope to achieve from the process. Doing so can mean you end up making easily avoidable errors that could have a severely detrimental impact on your book sales.

So what are the top 5 mistakes people make when self-publishing a book, and what can we all do to avoid them?

1 Designing your book cover

We’ve all read loads of books right? And seen many different books covers? So how hard can designing a book cover really be?

This is the assumption that many novice writers make when self-publishing their work. They don’t consider the different design elements necessary to create a good book cover, or what it will take to get your book noticed. It’s the same when it comes to the layout of your book. There are many features that only a professional would know about, and any attempts to do this oneself will immediately show your book to be unprofessional and therefore probably not a very good read! Don’t put your readers off before they’ve even given you a chance and leave editing and designing the layout of your book to the professionals.

2 A poorly edited read

Hire a professional editor to adjust your manuscript before you publish it. A book full of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes screams of amateur, and you’ll quickly see the bad reviews pouring in, and with them, your sales plummeting.

3 A non-existent marketing plan

You need to build a platform from which to sell your book and you need to be willing to put in vast amounts of time and energy into finding potential audiences and marketing your book in every possible way you can think of. If you simply upload your book to Amazon and let it sit there, chances are you’ll see very few sales in return.

4 A bad book description

If your book description is poorly written or just lacks a bit of ‘Va Va Voom’ no one is going to be stirred to buy it. Work hard on your book description and learn what to include to make it sound as compelling as you possibly can.

5 No budget

Self-publishing isn’t entirely free. If you want to do it properly, you need to have a budget for your book design, for editing and marketing. If your primary goal is to make lots of money yet you don’t want to invest any in yourself - you can expect a pretty weak return.

By avoiding these common self-publishing mistakes, you are giving your book the best chance of success. So make sure you don’t fall into these pitfalls, and be prepared to put in the hard work that’s needed to make any self-published book sell.

Bethany Cadman -author of 'Doctor Vanilla's Sunflowers'

Bethany Cadman -author of 'Doctor Vanilla's Sunflowers'

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