8 Mistakes Self-Publishers Can (and Should) Avoid
With five self-published books in my belt and a sixth one imminent, I’ve been at the SP game long enough to know there are several general mistakes—some of them seriously detrimental—that indie authors need to be aware of and avoid.
(9 Ways Self-Publishing Changed My Life and Will Change Yours Too.)
The key to benefitting from this list (and any advice you receive from experienced authors) is NOT to assume you’re the exception to the rule. If you are doing (or not doing) one of the things listed below, you may be in danger of sabotaging your self-pub career.
Here are the items and the logic behind the advice given. DO NOT do the following:
1. Create your own cover.
Leave it to the professionals, please. I’m amazed by how many homemade covers I still see in 2024. A cover you make yourself is fine if you don’t want to be taken seriously. It’s not fine if you want a career writing books. Good covers don’t just happen. Find a worthy professional!
2. Edit your own book.
You could be the best editor known to man, but that doesn’t mean you’ll do an A+ job on your own book. The brain works in mysterious ways, and when it edits its own work, it tells itself that work is perfect. In other words, when you self-edit, you are sure to miss mistakes—even the glaring ones. I’m an author and a professional editor, and, yes, I rely on other editors.
3. Skip the proofreading pool.
As a self-publisher, you need a TEAM of proofreaders. Why a team? Because every reader will potentially notice different errors. With each proofreader, you’ll weed out more and more mistakes until hopefully there are none left for the public to find. I recommend six proofers per team (three for a first round and three more for a second).
4. Forgo the professional reviews.
A good prepublication review written by a well-known entity (Kirkus, BlueInk, Foreword, to name a few) will provide your book with much-needed clout. If it’s your first book, no one knows you. Why should they take a chance on buying/reading your book when they can get the latest Taylor Jenkins Reid? A good review will assure readers, “This one is worth it.” Depending on which review company you use, your review could end up in the magazines that librarians and bookstore owners read. That’s the kind of advertisement self-publishers need.
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5. Fail to put together a Street Team.
Who’s going to toot your horn if you don’t have a Street Team? Who’s going to read the ARC and write those early reviews you desperately need on Amazon? The Street Team is your grassroots organization. Together, they make up the seed that’s going to grow your fan base via word of mouth. Even if you only have a handful of people on your Street Team, it’s much better than having no Street Team at all.
(How to Develop a Street Team for Your Book.)
6. Say No to an author website/email subscribers list.
Those who are interested in you and your book are going to look for you online. An author website gives them a place to land and gives you a place to control what they see. It is an opportunity for interested parties to learn more about you—and when your next book is coming out. If they really like you, they’ll want to follow your author journey by subscribing to your email list.
7. Spend a lot of money on marketing when you only have just one or two books.
I’ve been guilty of this one, and so have many of my author friends. We want our books to do well, so we buy adverts and promos to help them along. The problem is, when you spend money on advertising or the promos that drive readers to a discounted or free book sale, you’re not going to recoup the money you spent if you only have one or two books. The hope is to make it back (and more) in the long run, but doing so is no gimme.
When you have a backlist of titles five or 10 books long, on the other hand, the promo dollars you invest during your launch or sale help to sell all of the books you have made available. When you have a backlist, a book promo for one of your books is advertisement for all of your books.
8. Get frustrated over low numbers of followers on social media.
Don’t worry, they’ll come to you as your popularity grows. Not all the social media apps are good at “selling” books. What they are good at is providing a place for you to express yourself and offer quality content. That’s all you need them to be. So, find a social media app that you somewhat enjoy, and start interacting there. A few minutes a day (or even every other day) will be enough.
Check out Kim Catanzarite’s The Moon Children here:
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There you have it. Eight negative circumstances you can easily avoid. Your book is important to you. If it wasn’t you wouldn’t have taken the time to publish it. So don’t go the route of saying, “This is good enough” or “My book’s so good, I really don’t have to do that.” It’s not and you actually do. Follow the basic, proven guidelines, and you’ll give your book its best chance at success.