Avoid the Top Ten Mistakes First-Time Authors Make When Self-Publishing

00:01 - Lynn (Host)

Ready to elevate your career with a professionally published book? Are you simply not sure where to start? Have you been searching down the internet rabbit hole for a self-publishing resource worth your time? Your search ends here, my friend. Let's walk the publishing path together and bring your book to life.

00:14

With the Publishing for Professionals podcast, I'm here to coach thought leaders, executives and speakers on how to successfully self-publish your book while avoiding common pitfalls. I'm Linda “Elikqitie” Smargis, chief ghostwriter, editor and founder of Unicorn Publishing Company, and have stood by the sides of many professionals just like you to walk them through the publishing process and successfully launching their book. Every industry pioneer faces the same daunting challenges how to convert your hard-earned wisdom into a book that builds legacy, with a voice that reflects your personal and professional brand. Join me each week to acquire practical wisdom and proven strategies and find out what the traditional publishing companies simply don't want you to know. Let's work together to tell your story with a book. This is more than just a podcast. It's your roadmap to becoming a published author. Get ready to write your blueprint for book publishing success with the Publishing for Professionals podcast.

01:02 - Speaker 2 (Host)

Hey, hey, friends and future authors.

01:05 - Lynn (Host)

Welcome to this week's episode, episode 28, on the top 10 mistakes new authors make when publishing a book. Now, these are not all the mistakes I have seen people make when they publish their book, but these are the top 10. So these are the top ones you'll see with new authors. Now, obviously, other people besides new authors can make these mistakes as well, but typically I see a lot of new authors making these mistakes and it's just because people don't know what they're doing, because you're a new author and when I was a new author, I didn't know what I was doing either years ago. But welcome to the podcast. I'm your host, lynn Lickety, and we're going to be diving into the biggest mistakes that people do make when writing their book. But by the end of this episode, you'll have a clear roadmap on how to avoid these costly and time-consuming mistakes, which will not only save you money and book publishing costs, but will save you time and get your book published on time instead of having to wait to publish your book. So these are based on real-life publishing stories. Let's go through and make sure you go down the right road so you have a smooth publishing journey. So let's talk about identifying and avoiding the most costly mistakes that derail first time authors, and it matters because these mistakes can waste months of work, thousands of dollars and it could possibly damage your professional reputation, especially if you're going to put a book out and you missed two or three of these. I have seen books that actually have damaged people's reputations because they put it out. It's not professionally produced and it looks horrible. It sounds bad, it's not professionally edited, so we'll go over that today as well. These are real mistakes that I have worked with from real authors, and they're all preventable. So it doesn't matter what type of genre you have and where you're publishing or what type of marketing you do. All of these I've seen and these are all preventable. So let's start off with mistake number one writing without a clear audience in mind.

03:01

Now, this is a really bad idea. I recently had somebody pitch me via email and say, hey, I want to write a book. I'm looking for a book editor. We want to have this book geared towards consumers and towards businesses. Now, you can't gear a book towards both. That's impossible, so you really need to pick one. You can always do two versions of the book, right. So like the same version of the book, but one is for consumers and one is for business professionals, because the information the business professionals are going to need is not the same information consumers are going to want.

03:35

Obviously, because it's two completely different avatars, so you don't want to try to speak to everybody or make generalizations. The everyone will love this book is a horrible trap to get into. Do not do it, my friend. And everyone's not going to love your book, and that's okay. Like my first book, I put out the Guide to Traveling Gluten-Free. Obviously, everyone's not going to love it because not everyone is gluten-free and that's okay. I didn't make it for non-gluten-free people, unless they're buying it for a gluten-free people, unless they're buying it for a gluten-free person.

04:03

Make sure that you don't have vague targeting leads or unfocused content. You want to make sure you have the one reader exercise, which means who is going to read your book, okay? So like, for example, when I publish my book Sensible Senior Solutions, it is geared towards people that are my age Generation X who are typically 40 to 60 years old, who have aging parents that they're caring for and they're dealing with the financials and the home and the selling stuff and all that. That is exactly my avatar and typically it's more geared towards women than men, because I typically would speak with more women when I was in the senior care industry. So that is a specific target audience. Demographic okay Generation Xers between the ages of 40 and 65 who are taking care of their elderly parents, and they need this resource to help them. You want to be very specific, as specific as possible, because the more specific you can niche down your target audience, the more appealing your book is going to be for people who do purchase it.

05:03

Okay, mistake number two skipping competitive research phase. This is such a bad idea because it's so easy to do. Literally all you have to do to competitively research your topic and your book is to go on Amazon and just type in the topic that you want to write about and you'll see all the books on Amazon, because 90% of people will publish in Amazon because most books are sold there. So all you have to do is literally go on Amazon and search up your book topic and see who else is publishing in your space. Right, and you might be writing a book on marketing. I just wrote a book on marketing, but it's not like marketing for business. My book specifically is SEO Basics for Business Entrepreneurs. So it's geared towards small business entrepreneurs who don't know anything or very little about SEO. So you want to make sure that you don't do mistake number two and skip your competitive research phase, because I did not see an SEO book specifically geared towards beginners, who were entrepreneurs.

06:02

So, even if you're writing a book and someone else has a similar topic, what is the niche or subtopic that you can put into your book that's going to make it stand out or be different from the other books that are on Amazon, because there's a lot of books under the same topic. Like, for example, there's a ton of cookbooks. There's a ton of cookbooks on the Mediterranean diet, but then people break it down into like Mediterranean diet if you have diabetes, or Mediterranean diet for, like you know, people in competitive sports, or Mediterranean diet for women over 50. So you can niche down your topic to make sure you don't do mistake number two. Skip your competitive research phase, because you need to look at what are the missing opportunities that differentiate your approach from everyone else's and also the pricing and positioning when you're on Amazon, see what else other people are selling their books for and then you can competitively price your book. Now I will recommend don't try to underprice people, because Amazon will see that and they'll take your book off.

07:00

I had that happen with my guide to traveling gluten-free. I was not underpricing it, it is a travel guide, so I priced it accordingly at $15.95. Amazon saw all these gluten-free cookbooks that were publishing for $25. So they upped my price, without asking me, to $24.95, because they said I was trying to undercut the competition. And I had to write Amazon a letter and saying I'm not trying to undercut the competition, you're pricing me with cookbooks. Cookbooks are more expensive because the insides are color, there's a lot more work that goes into them, a lot more formatting, so you have to price them higher because cookbooks are more expensive to produce. A travel guide is not, so I had mine priced right where travel guides should be and Amazon saw all the gluten-free cookbooks and thought, oh, gluten-free and gluten-free, but mine's a travel guide and these were cookbooks. So two completely different general topics for a book. So make sure that you know what your price and position is relative to your competitors.

07:53

Okay, mistake number three starting to write before clarifying your why. I see several people do this. I've had clients who have done this and I understand why people write before they do their why and it's simply because, like, people are excited and they just start writing with no outline and no anything. But that's really not a great idea. I mean, if you start, that's not a big not like a big big deal, right, because you can always go back and edit your content no matter what. You don't want to get 75% through your book and then go oh, I want to change my why, because then you're rewriting a whole book and that's a lot of time wasted on something that you could have just easily circumvented by knowing your why first.

08:34

So why are you writing this book? Are you just wanting a memoir to pass to your family? Do you want to write a book that's going to be a great handout to your prospects or leads to impress them, to show them that you do stand out among your vertical because you are a published author in your space? Do you just want to write a book because it's on your bucket list and you want to check that off? If you want to write a book to make a lot of money, you can do that. However, I always tell people it's going to take a lot of marketing effort to make your book blow up. Okay, so you can blow up your book. It takes a lot of marketing effort. People don't realize how much it takes until they get into the publishing space. Make sure you know why you're writing your book before you start. Okay, it's because that's super important to focus your writing on what you're going to write about.

09:17

All right, let's go over mistake number four trying to cover too much ground in one book. Recently, I do a couple of collaborations with book writing with other people as well. So we collaborate and write books together, and one of my friends was like let's put this in and let's put this in and let's put this in. I'm like holy stop, because we're supposed to have like a very small book and I said, if we write about a full length book, so we need to take one of these topics that we just talked about and make our whole entire book about one of these subtopics we talked about today. So that's what we did we took the subtopic and then we made it into eight small chapters and then all of us are writing like two or three chapters and so that works right.

09:54

So you need to make sure that you're not putting so many topics into your book. Like when I wrote my guide to traveling gluten-free, I made sure I specifically wrote like here's a chapter on cruising gluten-free. Here's a chapter on flying gluten-free. Here's a chapter on road tripping gluten-free. Okay, so it's all about just how to travel gluten-free. In these different ways to travel, you want to make sure that you are doing just your niche, what you're talking about.

10:20

Okay, and you don't want to keep expanding and expanding and expanding right, because when you keep expanding and you keep writing your book, then it ends up just having a lot of fluff in it or having more content in it and the readers are going to drop off before they finish your book. So you don't want to do that. You want a book that's very focused and creates a lot of impact. Impact is more important than how many words it is. I always get that question how many words should my book be? Enough that it's super impactful and gets your point across with some great stories, but not a ton of fluff? Okay, so you can put a little fluff in there here and there no big deal. But who likes to read fluff? I know I don't like to read fluff and I'm sure if you're listening to this, you probably don't like to listen to fluff either, because I do not do fluff on my podcast.

11:05

Make sure that you are writing really succinct. Focus on impact. Save additional content for future books. Okay. So if you write that book and you switch your why out and you know like this isn't going to be my why anymore, make sure that you do put that and you make sure that you do take that, or take that out and put it in another book, right? So there's no reason why you can't take content from there and save it in a Word doc or your Google Drive or whatever. So save that and then use that later. So we're on to number five Mistake. Number five is inconsistent voice and tone throughout the manuscript. This happens a lot.

11:41

I see this with people who use AI to write their nonfiction book. Now, I'm not against using AI as a tool. I use it as a tool, but I use it as a tool as in. You know, here's a chapter I'm writing about. Please give me some title suggestions that are good for this chapter, and I usually take pieces of different titles they give me, and or I'll use that mixation and create titles, or I'll take some information from my book and I put it into Claude AI and I say please write me an Amazon description for my book. Things like that are great for AI, but writing your book I would never do, especially a nonfiction book, because 25% of that is going to come up as copyrighted material and then you get sued and nobody wants to get sued.

12:23

So make sure that you do write your own content and then you can use chat or Claude or another AI to make descriptions of your book or social posts or things like that, because that's fine, but you just don't want to make. You don't want to write your book using AI, because then your voice and tone easily changes. You might start formal and become casual or vice versa, and that voice inconsistency can really confuse readers. So make sure you establish and maintain your author voice whatever that is okay professional, quirky, witty, comedic. Establish that early on and use it throughout the book. And this is where an editor comes in and we're going to talk about editing and another mistake. So, my friends, we are going to take a break right here, but when we come back we are going to talk about the other five mistakes you can make while writing your book.

13:14

Hi, friends and future authors, I know what it's like to sit alone at your desk and to stare at your manuscript and wondering if anybody else out there feels the same as you do, my friend. That is why I created the Publishing for Professionals community, a sanctuary for leaders like you who are crafting books to elevate your thought leadership. Imagine having a professional ecosystem where you can find other professionals who truly understand your struggles and celebrate your victories, a circle which offers genuine support and a place where fellow thought leaders gather. The road to authorship is better traveled together. Come and join an alliance who speaks your language, who recognizes that your book isn't simply just a page with words. It's the process of creating your forever legacy. Join the publishing for professional circle at wwwwriteforyoume and click on community. Use the sign up form and register today to gain confidence alongside others who now share your journey towards authorship.

14:07

All right, my friends, we are back. Let you know that I'm hosting a virtual writing retreat in September. You can click on the link in the description or go to wwwwriteforyoume and click on the events page. So in the description would be like in the YouTube description or in the show notes, and it's going to be a virtual writing retreat on September 19th from 8am to 3pm Pacific time and come on in and join other authors who are future authors, who are working on writing their book. We're going to have a live Q&A session with me and we're also going to have some networking lunchtime. So it's going to be really fun where you meet other professionals, you'll get some chance to literally just block off time to write your book, and you'll get professional ghostwriting advice from me at the virtual workshop retreat. So I hope to see you there.

14:52

All right, so let's go on with the other five mistakes people typically make when they're writing their new book. So mistake number six writing chapters that don't build on each other. So this comes along with what we call in the industry a blog book. Okay, so people are like oh, I can write a book because I got tons of blogs and all they do is copy and paste them and they throw them in a book, but they don't make any sense because they don't flow.

15:12

Okay, you need to start your book with an outline, and it's not to say you cannot use blog content while writing your book. But what you should not do is you shouldn't just taking blogs and copying and pasting them and making them a book. Okay, because, first of all, blog the way you write a blog and the way you write a book is a little bit different, so you'll need to change it up. And second of all, you want to make sure it has good flow, and just copying and pasting blogs and making it a book doesn't have good flow. So you first want to start off with constructing your outline so you know what the topics are going to be. Then, when you know what the topics are going to be, you take content that you have and you put it into those chapters. Now, you're not going to have content for every chapter, but the ones that you don't. You can write those chapters, but it does really reduce the time you have to write. Make sure you create a nice narrative flow and a logical progression for your chapters. Okay, because disconnected chapters weakens your content. It weakens your touch points with the reader, because people aren't going to understand where you're going with the book if you keep jumping around everywhere. Okay, so it really reduces the impact of your book when you don't have a good flow and logical progression.

16:21

Stake number seven neglecting the editing process. Oh my gosh, this is the one that really gets under my skin, because neglecting the editing process. Oh my gosh, this is the one that really gets under my skin, because neglecting the editing process is like you're going to go to a big gala ball, right, but you're wearing your summer casual dress. That's it. That's all I have to say. Because I have seen people and they're like, well, I'm a good writer and then I see their work and they're an okay writer, but it's not professional, it's not like at the professional level yet.

16:51

So you really, really, really want to hire an editor for your book, my friends, and here's the deal with editing. What you want is a line editor. Okay, that's what most people need. And people think, oh, I need a proofreader or I need a developmental editor. So, a line editor, what they do is they go through every sentence of your book and they edit it for clarity and for flow, and that's what most people have the hardest time with, because if you're not a professional writer, you don't have good line. You typically don't have good line editing skills. Okay, and that's not, obviously, everybody. Some people are not professional writers and they have great line editing skills All right, but your self-editing does have limitations and blind spots, even for me as a writer.

17:32

I have other editors check my work because I know I have my own personal blind spots. I have my beta readers, who are also professional writers, check my book for blind spots because I know I do things like I have habits, like repeating stuff that I said more than once in my book. So I hire editors to make sure that I'm checked and I'm a professional writer. Okay. So you cause you've got a lot of different types of editing, but definitely, definitely hire a line editor. Okay, because if you don't hire an editor, it really reduces the quality of your book.

18:05

One of my clients who I edited her book. She has a client who recently published a book and she said, lynn, I opened this up and in the first three pages I think I saw 10 grammar mistakes and she's not a proof reader or a professional book editor. So if she's seen 10, I'll probably see 25. It really diminishes your authority, like if that's what you're doing to introduce yourself. Think about that. What if you got a book from somebody and it had a whole bunch of errors in it, like I've seen books like that and I've literally lost respect for that professional? Because if you're up on stage and you're saying I'm a professional and here's my book. Your book better look professional because it's your calling card and people will lose faith in you if they have a book that is not professionally edited. So make sure you spend the money. It is a good investment to get your book professionally edited.

18:52

All right, let's jump on to mistake number eight skimping on professional cover design and formatting. Oh my gosh, the don't judge as book buys. Cover does not apply to books, my friends. I'm sorry, it just doesn't. You need to make sure that you have a not only a professional editor, but a professional formatting job done and a professional design right. So how do you know what looks professional? If you go on Amazon and you look at books, you can tell what books have professional book cover designs. Some of them literally look like something that one of my former middle school students have done, and literally they do, and that does not look professional at all. So you want to make sure that even if you're not going through a hybrid publisher or traditional publisher, that's perfectly fine. That doesn't mean your book can't look like it has gone through a professional publisher or a traditional publisher. Make sure you do DIY design mistakes that scream amateur and you want to invest in professionals because quality is always better than quantity and if you're not a good designer, don't design it.

19:53

It's like if you're not good at taxes, let someone else do your taxes. I let someone else do my taxes because that is not my forte. Okay, I'm really good at math, I love numbers and I'm very creative as far as like creating content, but when it comes down to doing my taxes, I don't like them. So I have an accountant do mine. That's like the same thing with the book cover and the formatting. So if you're not good at design, don't do it on yourself. Don't do it all yourself. And obviously you can learn how to do that, but then that's going to be add months and months onto your publishing. Now, if that's not a big deal for you, then that's okay. But if you are a professional and you have a deadline my leads I'm talking to he has a TEDx talk. Okay, so he has a deadline is when he has to have his book out, because if he doesn't have it out by his talk, he can't talk about it, say, by my book. So if you have a deadline, get a professional, invest in the money. It's a good investment. If you don't have a timeline. It's not a big deal, but you still want to make sure that your book looks professional. If you need a professional cover design, please come and chat with me and grab a discovery call on my website. I'd be happy to help you with that.

20:55

All right, mistake number nine rushing to publish without proper quality control. This is so bad because this leads to premature publication and quality checkpoints that don't get checked off before going live, and early publication mistakes definitely damage your long-term credibility. So one of my recent clients didn't check his manuscript before he uploaded it into Amazon, because we formatted it, and I said make sure that you go through this page by page and read it to make sure that it is correct. And then he found that someone's name was misspelled and it was the same name. It was an uncommon spelling of a common name and it was in like six different chapters. And so I said well, this is why I said read through your whole manuscript before you put it on Amazon. So you really, really need to make sure you're ensuring there's quality control so that your book comes out a quality book, not just a book that is going to show that you're not taking your publishing professionally, because then that can damage your long-term credibility. All right, we're on our last mistake.

21:58

Mistake number 10, ignoring legal and business considerations. This is a huge one, and this is mostly just people not understanding what it's about. So one of the first things I always tell people, the first thing you want to do when you are, before you even publish your book you want to form an LLC. Now why do you want to form an LLC and not just have a single proprietor business ship? Because a single proprietor business, your personal assets, like your home, your car, your boat, whatever things you have equity in, are tied to your business. So if somebody, you write something in that book someone doesn't like and they decide to sue you, even if it's not legit and they win, right, or even if it is legit and you spend all this money, if they win, they can actually take your home and other personal assets and you don't want that. So you always want to publish your books under an LLC. That is protected. So if you publish under your LLC and someone sues you, they can only sue you. Now, that's obviously not good, but they can't take your personal property. Okay, they can't take your home, your car, your boat, your RV, whatever you have. They can only sue business assets, so it reduces your personal liability by protecting your personal assets. So always get an LLC.

23:08

The other thing if there's any copy or trademark or permission oversights, definitely make sure you check with a lawyer. I have a great lawyer that I use. His name is Gordon Firemark. I'm going to have him interviewed on this podcast and he is the podcast lawyer and talks about all things that are legal and copyright and not legal to copyright. And that brings me to AI. When you see those ads that say, oh, you can just publish a book by having it written with AI, that is setting you up for huge legal ramifications because AI uses content that other people have copyrighted. So, while AI is a good tool to use for certain things, never ever write a book using AI, because that is not a good idea. Again, I am not a lawyer and I'm not an accountant, so make sure you hire a lawyer or an accountant to figure out the legal things, because obviously they vary by country, but they also vary by state. So my state that I live in, oregon it could be different than the state that you live in for legal ramifications, and they probably are. So many general things typically are similar, but then there's always these little loopholes in every state because of different legal aspects, so make sure that you hire a lawyer and or accountant to answer those legal questions for you.

24:18

All right, my friends, this has been great. I hope you have learned a lot of value out of this. I don't want you making these mistakes, because these do cost you a lot of time and money. It can make you really frustrated with the whole publishing process, like I was talking to somebody and they said I'm never writing another book again because it's so exhausting. And I'm like you just didn't have a good book coach because I could have helped them, coach them through all of the issues that they talked about with me and we could have gotten through it literally in a month and it took them almost two years to get through it. Hire a book coach if you need help with that. Reach out to me at writeforyoume.

24:47

ing it's coming out spring of: 2026

25:46

So make sure I always recommend to people don't post dates on your website and if you do, make sure that you put a reminder in your calendar to change that date. If you have to change it, okay, because that looks really unprofessional when you have it up on your website. Now changing the date, not a big deal because you can just say, hey, we had a few hiccups in the publishing process so we had to move the date back a little bit. No big deal, people understand mistakes, but when you have a published date that's past the due date and it's on your website and it's blaringly obvious, that looks very unprofessional. So make sure you don't do that. All right, my friends? So remember, your first book doesn't have to be perfect, but it needs to be professional for your reputation and for your peace of mind and for your first impression to other people who are actually your leads and prospects. Share your first time author challenges and lessons learned with me in the comments below. I would love to hear them. All right, my friends.

26:39

So whether you're starting your book or you're deep in the writing process, I want to invite you to my virtual book retreat in September. It's a complimentary book retreat you can attend from the comfort of your home in your own pajamas. Meet your other professionals who are writing their book network, receive writing and publishing advice in our group coaching Q&A. So head over to writeforyoume and join the virtual retreat by filling out the form under the events tab. And remember every bestselling author started exactly where you are now, but they didn't do it alone Until next week.

27:08

This is Lynn “Elikqitie,” reminding you to keep writing, keep dreaming and keep creating. Your book is waiting to be born. Hey, my friend, thanks for joining me on the Publishing for Professionals podcast. I hope this episode has equipped you with actionable strategies for your publishing journey. Remember, your expertise becomes truly valuable when it's transformed into a professionally published book that represents your unique brand. The insights we've covered today will hopefully give you another piece of your publishing blueprint. If you found today's discussion valuable, make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you get the next episode dropped right into your podcast player. Each week we tackle another essential aspect designed specifically for busy professionals like you. Remember to start the dream of writing your book today, because your strategies could be the missing piece in someone else's success puzzle tomorrow.

27:57 - Speaker 2 (Host)

The information in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. The content shared by the host, guest and any affiliates is not intended to substitute for professional or financial advice specific to your situation. Always seek the advice of a qualified professional with any questions you may have. The opinions expressed on the show by the host or guest are of the individuals and do not necessarily reflect the views of Unicorn Publishing Company. Unicorn Publishing Company, the host, guests and affiliates are not responsible or liable for any decisions made by listeners or action taken here to based on the information discussed in this podcast. By listening to this podcast, you acknowledge and agree to release Unicorn Publishing Company, the host, affiliates and guests for any liability.