After writing and selling over 125,000 copies of Creating Your Own Destiny, spending ten years in publishing, and mentoring client-authors to get their books published, I’ve seen all kinds of mistakes made by new authors. Unfortunately, many errors are serious and completely eliminate the possibility of the book having any chance of success. Due to publishing errors, many new authors never see a return on their investment and their book dies prematurely.
According to the Publishing Marketing Association (PMA), 98% of authors will never sell more than 2,000 copies of their book. What are the biggest mistakes that prevent this 98% from experiencing real success with their books? How can you avoid these mistakes, end up in the top 2% category, and achieve big sales with your book?
1. Write your book for a small niche market: Don’t bother writing the book if there aren’t 50-100 million people worldwide interested in the focus of that book. Your book must have mass appeal if you are going to sell it successfully.
2. Not securing the URLs for your name and book title: No matter what, you must own the domain name for your book title and your dot com first and last name. If you can’t get your book title as your domain, you need to change the title to dot com.
3. Have your name listed somewhere for your publishing company: Choose a unique name for your self-publishing company to avoid the delusion that your book is self-published. He wants to make a publishing imprint unrelated to you.
4. Selecting a publisher with high printing costs: Some publishers won’t let you retain ownership of your entire book. They will force you to pay outrageous printing costs. Your printing costs should be $2-3 per book, rather than the $8-12 many print-on-demand publishers will charge you.
5. Select your own book title: Unless you’re an expert on book titles, always pay a professional to help you find your book title. A good headline makes all the difference in the world and a professional will help you make your headline catchy.
6. Put your own photo on the cover: Unless you are famous, under no circumstances should you put your image on the cover of your book. This is a dead giveaway that your book is self-published. Your book isn’t about you, it’s about your reader. Place a small photo of yourself in the bottom corner of the back cover.
7. Make your own cover design: As children we are taught not to judge a person by their appearance. In publishing, this is primarily the way books are judged. Creating your own cover design is possibly the biggest mistake an author can make. Hire experienced graphic designers to make your cover make an amazing first impression.
8. Forgetting to include the URL on the back of the book: Besides the title of the book, the most important information on the cover of your book is your domain name. Your domain draws buyers to your site where you offer “Free Stuff” to capture email, and then you can sell them your products for life.
9. Allow someone to preface your book: Only allow people to preface if they are going to buy a large number of your books. Write a book, co-branding with different companies with their individual forewords. Then sell a large volume of these co-branded books to the company whose CEO’s foreword is in your book.
10. Skipping the Proofreading Step: After your book is edited, written, and ready to print, you need a professional proofreader. Hire a proofreader to read the book cover to cover. Studies suggest that today’s books average at least 20 errors.
11. Sell the rights to a major publisher: Unless you get a six-figure advance from the publisher, you give away all of your profits when you sell the rights to the book. The big publishers used to spend money marketing their books, now they are nothing more than a company that pays for printing.
12. Trust someone else for advertising: Few people can do a better job of advertising your book than you. The industry is full of authors who have spent a lot of money on publishers and received little in return. If you don’t honk your own horn, no one else will.
13. Don’t work with major distributors: It’s important to close a book deal with a major distributor so you can get your books in bookstores around the world. Distributors can get your self-published book from stores around the world, giving you even more credibility.
14. Focus on bookstore sales: Bookstores are a lousy place to sell a book because there are simply too many other books competing. Find several outlets outside of bookstores to sell your books where there are no other competing titles.
15. Selling books one at a time: It takes the same amount of time to create an invoice for one book as it does for 10,000 books. Focus on selling books in volumes of 10,000 at a time. There are many high volume opportunities waiting to be created.
16. Not following up on leads: The “Rule of Seven” states that it can take up to seven bits of communication between seller and buyer before a sale occurs. When you send out a review copy, follow up frequently with prospects to sell books, get speaking engagements, and secure new training clients.
17. Do not sell from your own website: This is extremely important. You always want your customers to buy directly from your website. Lose 40-60% of profits through commissions with each sale from third-party outlets. Sign and ship your own books and keep all profits.
18. Hoarding all your books: Too many authors never turn in review copies, and your sales suffer as a result. You should send 5-10 review copies per day to book buyers around the world who have the ability to buy in volume. This is the best way to sell millions of thousands of copies of your book.
19. Leverage your credibility as an author: Once published, you should also branch out into speaking, advising, and consulting. Use your book as the “hook” to attract more customers. Your book is really nothing more than a lead generation tool to talk, advise and consult, which can become your main sources of income.
20. Give up and write your next book: A successful book is five percent writing and 95% promoting. It is better to write a book that sells 250,000 copies than to have 12 books that only sell 250 copies each. When you sell large quantities of your book, you will attract the attention of major publishers. If you decide to “sell” yourself to a publisher, you are now in the driver’s seat and can negotiate a much larger retainer.
21. Trying to go it alone: Study people who are successful and learn from their successes and failures. Hire an editorial consultant and you’ll save time and money. Be willing to learn from others who have already had success selling large volumes of books, picking up coaching clients, and making many keynote engagements.
If you can avoid these mistakes, I have no doubt that you will successfully sell thousands upon thousands of books. Everyone you come into contact with should know about your book. Your book cover should appear on the back of your business cards as well as in your email self-signature. My best advice for publishing a successful book is to market it every day and spend years and years of your time promoting it.
To find out how I’ve sold over 125,000 copies of Creating Your Own Destiny, and to benefit from my roadmap of book publishing, book promotion, and speaker training, call or email me directly to schedule a FREE publishing consultation. of 30 minutes and without commitment. Dream, plan, execute and fly!
