Four Big Ways To Fail At Publishing Your Book

Why do most authors fail? Cate Baum, editor at SPR takes us through the most common pitfalls in self-publishing.

1. Scrimping on Editing

A lot of authors reckon they’re ‘good’ at grammar and spelling, and that they don’t need editing because they can do it themselves. This is nonsense. Even the best writers in the world have some form of editing help. Many self-publishers lean on a friend or a partner with a college degree or a teaching qualification to do the editing, but this is a misunderstanding of what is meant by an edit.

You need at least three edits:

1. The copy edit. This is where the editor will assess your story, characters, plot arc, and flow as well as sentence structure and style. Once this is complete, you may have to go back in and substantially change your book.

This is the most difficult part of the editing process, and usually the most hurtful. Home truths will be sometimes hard to swallow, but in the end, a good editor knows how to get your book lean and moving, so it’s best to listen up, accept as much as you can of the notes, and then… well, I always say to put it in a drawer and read the notes again in two weeks when the sting has worn off. You’ll probably find you agree with most of the comments when you’ve cooled off, and your book will be vastly better for it.

2. The proofread. This is where the editor will take your copy-edited manuscript and check your grammar and spelling, as well as taking on some light fact-checking. If you have a specialist subject in your story with lots of names and words not usually used in daily life, you should ensure you yourself have checked these before submission.

3. The beta read. Once you are ‘sure-sure’ your book is perfect, you can ask professional readers, known as Beta Readers, to read and comment on your book in a special report, highlighting points on whether the story was satisfying, and if your plot made sense or was muddy in places. You can then go back to editing if you get the same comments from more than two people. I call this ‘triangulation of opinion’ and it’s very helpful to your writing.

Editing is very expensive because it’s meticulous work. But you have to ask yourself if it’s worth rushing your book out with minimum edits only to get negative reviews and have to go back and rework it to save it from extinction. Unfortunately, it’s usually too late by then, so have a think on that.

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Premade Book Covers

2. Under Par Book Cover Design

Again, this problem usually falls to penny-pinching and/or looking to friends or family for help instead of professionals. Book cover design is a skill all of its own, and that means artists and designers often create book covers without realizing the pitfalls, such as not using fonts, colors, and images that are readable and clear for thumbnail on Amazon and Goodreads, and the way different genres have different styles for their covers to help them sell online.

Without this expertise, your book could fail immediately before readers have read a word because they hate the cover or can’t make out what the font or image is from a distance.

This is one of the saddest fails on this list, as it means the book will die without even being read!

Book covers don’t have to be expensive, but they do need to be made by renowned designers, even if you go for an off-the peg version, such as with Derek Murphy’s bundle for $47 here, these premades from Premade Book Covers for around $69, or these from the Book Cover Designer for around $200 or less.

There’s really no excuse these days not to have a great cover.

3. Pricing Too High

Authors spend a fortune and so much time preparing the book that it seems rather unfair that an eBook sells at 99c. This is not the way to look at it. You are a self-published author, so unless you have built a following of thousands who will buy your book at any price, you need to price in the indie market to get anyone at all to give your book a try.

Remember you are not Ahab, chasing the big white whale of $10 a book. Remember what happened to him? Catch hundreds of minnows instead, and sell at 99c to build your fanbase.

Later, when you write another book you can consider making this first book free for a time to entice readers to buy the second. Don’t let your book go down with the whale of unrealistic pricing.

4. Not Enough Marketing

Why authors think if they slap their book on Amazon and do nothing else they will sell books is just, well, mind-boggling.

When a traditionally published author’s book comes out, the publisher spends thousands on a campaign that might last a year, mixing book signings, interviews, online marketing, editorial, reviews, and more. Because it’s hard, and fiercely competitive out there. You won’t be able to do a little bit of marketing and walk away.

What is marketing? A strategy of many techniques to make people buy your book. It’s that simple, but also, that difficult. You can’t just do one week of things and sit back. You’re going to have to work at it, much harder than when you wrote the book, and if you want to make a success of it, and that won’t be cheap or easy. After all, who would want to describe their book campaign as cheap and easy?!

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In Conclusion

It’s going to cost you a lot of time and money to make this work. But don’t forget, you wrote a book! You may be, in your entire lifetime, the only person you ever meet who wrote a book!

So while it’s possible, in fact, sorry to say, more than likely that this will be a very nasty and steep learning curve, never stop feeling proud of yourself for becoming a real live author.