This is a part of the How to Write a Book series, check out the rest of the parts when you’re done here.
Landmines that Nobody Warns You About
When you first walk into the world of being a published author, there’s a lot of new stuff to learn. Just like learning any new skill, there will be a lot to pay attention to, quite a bit of information to process, and often misinformation that can land you in a heap of trouble if you’re not careful. Writing a book is a big process, but the actual sitting down to write your manuscript is the most straightforward part of the entire process.
Getting into the publishing aspect, there’s a whole bunch of “you don’t know what you don’t know.” If you’re not careful, you waste a lot of time and money, and potentially lose the rights to your own book.
In this section of the “How to Write a Book ” guide, we want to ensure that if mistakes happen, they are just honest mistakes and you’re not falling prey to predatory practices. Let’s spot those red flags before they cause damage and make this difficult experience a whole lot less enjoyable.
Pitfall #1: Partnering with the Wrong Publisher
If you’ve made it this far, you have probably had a chance to read about the different publishing options. Traditional, hybrid, self… which is the best way to go? Without going too deep into it, you can go back to the previous post on publishing options to recap the key differences between the three of them.
There’s a sneaky fourth option out there that was left off the list for a reason; it’s not a good choice for really any author. The vanity publishers disguise themselves as hybrids, but they’re really just a take-your-money-and-run type of “professional.”
Vanity publishers differ slightly as they market themselves as a traditional publishing company, but operate as a hybrid publisher, and they usually come with incredibly high fees, generally low-quality work, and gouge you wherever they can.
What will often happen is you think you’re getting in with a traditional publishing company. Great, no worries about editing, design, marketing, and the like. You lose a little control, but you should become more famous and well-known, right?
What happens, though, is that you pay them to publish your book. The high fee comes with empty promises like they will guarantee you become a bestseller, or they guarantee you will be in bookstores (sometimes even promising prominent displays). There’s very little transparency, and the deliverables are vague.
Whenever you see guarantees, be skeptical. Whenever you, the author, have to pay the publishing company, you’re not teamed up with a traditional publisher. To avoid a very costly mistake, do a lot of research before jumping into bed with the wrong publisher.
You can even go as far as asking them straight up how they make their money, get a detailed breakdown of costs and services, and search for reviews from those who have used their services in the past.
Pitfall #2: Paying Pretend Professionals
You’re a writer, you create outstanding words that paint pictures, offer encouragement, teach, help, and inspire. You can probably do a little bit of editing. But since you’re good with words, design likely isn’t your strong point (it’s rare to find someone who can design and write).
What I’m getting at is that most authors can’t (and really, they shouldn’t) do everything on their own. Yes, you might want to save money by going it alone, but paying a professional saves you headaches and time. It should get you a better-quality end product.
Unless you fall victim to a pretend professional.
Some of the common mistakes that new authors make include:
- Hiring a designer instead of a book designer. This isn’t discounting the skill that goes into graphic design; they have talents way beyond what I have. But they aren’t educated on what goes into book design. A book is much more than the cover; the cover, spine, and back need to form a cohesive design. And that’s not even to mention the interior formatting.
- Hiring an editor who doesn’t have book experience. Editing social media posts is a very different skill from editing a book. Editors of newspapers or journals look at things with a different eye than a book editor would. And while Grammarly, Hemingway, or other AI editing software can help, they often will ruin your voice if you rely on them too heavily.
- Using a marketing agency that has a one-size-fits-all approach. If you run a boutique store that sells shabby chic décor, you wouldn’t hire a marketing company that specializes in law firms. If you are a Realtor, you wouldn’t hire a marketing company that specializes in brick-and-mortar stores. So why hire a marketing company that doesn’t know how to market a book launch effectively?
The problem we get into, though, is that there are a ton of phony professionals out there. Just look at the Fiverr platform – you can get just about anything done for really cheaply… but often those professionals don’t have a clue what they’re doing.
So, when you’re looking around to hire out these aspects of your book, be suspicious of:
- No portfolio or samples
- Vague testimonials
- Prices that are “too good to be true”
- One-size-fits-all packages (AKA “yeah we can do that”)
To avoid having your money become their money with little or nothing to show for it, ask a lot of questions, review past work carefully, compare pricing to industry standards, and know that cheap now likely means expensive mistakes later.
Or find a few people who have published books and ask them who they used and whether they were happy with what they received from them.
Pitfall #3: Purchasing Phony Publicity
If you run a business, you have probably been hit up by the grifters. I get it all the time on my Instagram page. They’re the DM’s offering to get me 1,000 or 10,000 followers for a few hundred bucks. If I paid for this, my Instagram would have a thousand new followers – all of which are bots or people who just get paid a couple of pennies per person they follow.
In the book world, it’s similar, but different. You need reviews of your book to gain traction, visibility, and, ideally, rank higher in Amazon’s algorithms and make more organic sales. The phonies know this, and it’s really tempting to give your book a little jumpstart with a bunch of glowing reviews.
But that’s not really how the Amazon algorithms work… not entirely anyway. Amazon is looking at four things to boost your visibility:
- Sales Velocity
- Verified Purchases
- Traffic Consistency
- Legitimate Reviews
One of the biggest benefits to your visibility is how many sales you are doing, and whether they are consistent. Your launch should be selling a bunch of books, but if you keep up that velocity, Amazon says, “Ooh, this one’s popular, let’s make more money off him!” and now your book is shown to more people, so the book overlords can make more money off your hard work.
When you try to fudge the reviews, it’s a big red flag to the algorithm that says, “Hold up, we got a lot of reviews, but not any of the traffic or sales.”
And upon investigation, if it’s discovered that you did indeed purchase phony reviews, you’re violating the Amazon terms of service, and you risk having your book removed, your account suspended, or, if you’re a repeat offender, being permabanned from the platform.
How do you get more reviews legitimately?
Build your network of readers. Some advanced or beta readers, and some that just love you and want to support you. Get honest reviews (not just positive ones), and focus on organic momentum over time.
Pitfall #4: Rushing the Process to “Just Get It Done!”
Most writers take a long time to write their books. Especially when it’s their first book. They get bogged down in the process, they get tired of writing, they put it on hold… whatever happens, they end up finally finishing that manuscript several years after they began.
There’s nothing wrong with taking your time writing, but if you don’t want to spend years and years, then the Author’s Mastery Academy is what you need.
After spending so long on the book, it’s common to want to “hurry up and finish.” You can get to publication faster if you just skip editing and beta readers, or by trying to use AI to design and format the book, but I wouldn’t recommend that. This book is your baby, you’re a bit burnt out on it, and you want to move on to the next big things. But what really happens is the book flops.
- Readers have a poor experience.
- Bad reviews not only sour the listing, but make you feel bad, too.
- Momentum dwindles as you have to go back and now revise things.
Don’t suffer from the hurry up and finish condition. Pace yourself so you get a nicely polished book that hits the way you want it to hit, and so readers get the maximum benefit from it. If you haven’t started, or perhaps you’re just a little way into it, set yourself some milestones. Know where you want to be by a specific date, and make sure you hit that target.
Publishing is a process, not a one-time event. And remember, once the book has been published, it’s not time to sit back and relax. It’s time to promote the heck out of that book and ensure you’re capitalizing on the opportunities that it brings you.
Pitfall #5: Giving Away Control Without Realizing It
It’s your book; nobody can steal your intellectual property, can they? Yes, someone could easily just copy the entire thing (we call that plagiarism) and publish it under their own name. That usually doesn’t go far. But what if you accidentally gave away the rights?
New authors are hit up with service offers. And without the proper contracts in place, or doing business with shady people, you might sign away your publishing rights, distribution rights, or audio/translation rights.
If something isn’t clear in the contract, ask for clarification before you proceed. Read things carefully, ask which rights you retain and what your editor, designer, or publication company will get (they really shouldn’t be getting any unless you’re going through traditional publishing). Be ready to walk away if the answers are vague, or if they aren’t what you intend for your book.
There are plenty of options out there; you shouldn’t have to give up more control than you want.
Pitfall #6: Ignoring Search Engine Optimization
Hold up, it’s a printed book, why does it need to be optimized?
I’m not talking about the book content itself, that shouldn’t be printed online where search engines can find it (maybe a small portion of the text can be read by our search engine overlords, but the bulk shouldn’t be available to their prying eyes). What I’m talking about is the book listing and description itself… and to an extent the title and subtitle.
Our world is controlled by metadata. That’s data that happens behind the scenes. We see images, read text, and click buttons. But what’s really going on is a whole bunch of code on one website that tells the computer and the internet what to do. And you can, to an extent, control what that code is all about.
When you optimize the title and subtitle of your book for what people are really looking for, you can drive more traffic to your listing. For instance, suppose your book is about helping busy moms regain control of their lives. And you think up a witty title like “From Chaos to Calm: How I Regained my Composure After a Meltdown,” it’s descriptive, but nobody is really searching for that. Instead, a title like “From Chaos to Calm: What Busy Moms Should Know About Mental Health” might be a bit more discoverable.
When you upload to Amazon, your categories and subcategories matter. Choosing a niche without much competition can get you into the top 100 best-selling books for that category – that makes you a best seller. Now you can advertise that you’re a best-selling author (sell one copy in a different country, and now you’re an international best-selling author).
Knowing your ideal keywords and what people are searching for can help you craft your book’s description so it shows up in search results. And those descriptions shouldn’t be summaries of your book – they should be sales copy. It’s what people read when they’re deciding whether to buy your book. Convince them!
When your data and descriptions aren’t up to par, Amazon won’t be able to match your book to potential readers. It fails to appear in “related” searches, and organic discovery has you buried on page 17.
Find the competition, see what they’re doing right, and mimic their style (don’t copy what they wrote; mimic it in your own voice). Write for humans and the algorithms, and know that every bit of metadata you can control is part of your marketing.
Pitfall #7: Relying Solely on the Launch
If your book fails to have a strong launch, you’re boned. Right? It’s go big right away, or you’ll just have to try again with the next book. That’s only partially true.
Yes, the launch is important to spark that initial momentum, but most books sell over time, not in singular moments. You know the book Moby Dick? It was published in 1851, and by 1891 it had gone out of print due to poor reviews and was viewed as a failure. It wasn’t until 1919, nearly 30 years after the author had died, that it soared to popularity and became one of the Great American Novels.
Many authors exhaust themselves and their budgets in the first week after publishing a book. They launch, maybe do a couple of book signings and big social media pushes, and they don’t see hundreds and hundreds of orders pour in. They get burnt out and discouraged.
Instead, push hard the first time, but plan for second and third “launches.” These follow-up waves help drive more traffic, reconnect with those who didn’t see your launch the first time, and spur a new spike in orders (which Amazon loves and rewards).
Your book is a long-term asset. Treat it like you want it to be popular for years to come.
Pitfall #8: Improper Editing
Many authors think of editing as checking for punctuation and grammar. That is important, but what can happen is your book ends up technically correct (which is the best kind of correct), but falls emotionally flat. Remember, there are three types of editing.
Too much focus on grammar can lead to less attention to flow, pacing, and that important emotional pull.
This is why you need an editor, a developmental editor, and beta readers. Your copy editor will help clean up the grammar and sentence structure so people aren’t wading through what appears to be an essay written by a middle schooler (no judgment, sometimes our thoughts and our typing don’t align too well), the developmental editor well help with clarity and flow, and the beta readers can show you where that emotional pull needs to up its game a bit.
Beta readers are not always trained in how to give feedback. You don’t want to give them a copy of the manuscript, ask for a critique, and have them give it back a few days later and say, “That was good, I liked it!” Instead, prompt them with:
- Where did you skim?
- Where did you stop?
- What confused you?
- What stuck with you?
- Did you fall asleep and drool on my book ruining the pages and then you tried to fix it by ironing it and burnt the edges then you were so embarrassed that you’ve been avoiding my calls for the last week and a half?
Make sure you are asking for the feedback you want… and feel free to use my line of, “don’t worry about hurting my feelings, because I don’t actually have any.”
How to Ensure You Don’t Make these Mistakes
The good news: most publishing disasters are preventable. The bad news: most new authors don’t know how to avoid them. The good news: you’ve read this far, so you know how to avoid them!
It boils down to this:
- Education (which you now have)
- Patience (it’s a virtue)
- Question everything (why?)
Seek guidance from those who have been there before, and know that mistakes are going to happen. Just minimize them so you can enjoy being a published author who finds vast amounts of success because you have Scott Sery cheering you on.
Or better yet, you have expert guidance the entire way. Click the big button below and sign up for the Author’s Mastery Academy where we’ll go through this stuff with a fine-toothed comb (or a hairbrush, if that’s more your style). In the end, you’ll have a book in your hand.
Need more details before you jump right in? Book a free 30-minute discovery call with me and we’ll see how well we align.