Publishing a book is fun, easy and rewarding if you do it well. With a bit of homework and planning it should go smoothly. If not, it can be a disaster and cost you months of hard work and thousands of dollars. I’ve seen it happen often. Here are a few hints for a smoother project:
Rushing the content
It’s exciting to write and publish a book and you might be really keen to see it in print. But if you are investing in this book and want it to be successful once in print, take the time to ensure that the content meets the desired intention. Make sure the structure is sound, that images (if you have them) are engaging and good quality and you have obtained all permissions if you need them.
Not paying a professional editor to edit the manuscript
The most common statement we get is, ‘My sister is a schoolteacher [insert similar field] and she’s edited my book.’ Your sister may be good with words, but she isn’t a professional book editor. Editing isn’t just about good spelling and knowing where a coma goes. There are other elements to consider such as structure, style, consistency, voice, copyright and meaning. You cannot self-edit either because you are too familiar with the content and will miss too many errors. If there is only one aspect of your book project that you can afford to pay for, get it edited please! There’s nothing worse than thinking your content is good, then having it typeset and the proof-reader finds oodles of errors that need to be fixed, costing you hours of time or money through your typesetter.
Having no plan for the project
If you’ve never self-published before, do some homework or get a company like ours to project manage it for you. Publishing a book is not rocket science but it takes planning to make it run smoothly. Don’t suddenly decide that you want a book out by Christmas when it’s already October if you want to take advantage of Christmas sales. Not having a plan to roll out will just mean that you get stressed and overwhelmed, which will lead to costly mistakes.
Doing things on the cheap
At a guess, about 30 per cent of our projects are fixups. By this I mean that the client has tried to do their project on the cheap or used a cheap ‘self-publisher’ who has made a mess of it. We then need to try to make sense of it and sort it out. This can sometimes cost more than if we had started from scratch. Many times, I’ve bumped into someone who published their book elsewhere (cheaper) when I had quoted for them and they said they wished they’d gone with us. After 500 books, we should know what we’re doing!
Starting the promotion late
As soon as you know the title of your book, get a mock-up of the cover using a professional book designer. Start promotion straight away. If you’ve created a publishing plan, you should know a launch date for your book. Ideally, you can set your book up on your website with a sales button. You can start pre-selling it which will also help you determine how many to get printed when it’s ready. The more hype you can create in the lead up to the launch, the better and you can start getting a return on your investment immediately. The other advantage to these early sales is that it makes it real for you and you will keep momentum going through the publishing project.
These are the most common mistakes I see people make. If the publishing doesn’t go well, the author may feel like a failure and think of publishing as a total sham, waste of time and costly, which is a shame because it should be a positive and powerful undertaking. Check out some of our authors here.
Blaise the book chick