Having a well written book with a poorly written title and design cover has a negative impact on sales
By Linda Jummai Mustafa
1. Writing for the wrong reason. For most authors, the main reason why they publish their books is to make money. Statistically, writers who do this may be disappointed. Instead, write a book for cogent reasons such as having something reasonable to say to your desired readers, you have a new idea you want people to know about or you want to meet the intellectual challenge of writing a book.
2. Proper Organization. Proper organization makes your book easier to read. Th e content fl ows in a more logical order and it is easier to understand by the reader. Th e trick to developing a wellorganized book is to begin by developing an extremely detailed outline before you start writing. Just because you‘ve decided to write a book doesn’t automatically mean that you are a good writer. Many authors spend years fi ne-tuning their craft. If you feel that you don’t have the skills to create a well-written, full-length manuscript, seriously consider hiring a co-author who is a professional writer and or a really good editor to work with you.
3. Not hiring a good editor. A well written book contains absolutely no spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, inaccurate information, misprints, incorrect details (such as incorrect names) or mislabeled fi gures and captions. Writing and copy editing are two diff erent skills, while writing may not require much brain work, editing on the other hand needs intense concentration and observation. Hiring a professional editor to review your manuscript before it goes to the press is very crucial.
4. Designing your own cover. Having a well written book with a poorly written title and design cover has a negative impact on sales. Th e cover is one of the most important marketing pieces for your book, so hiring a great graphics designer is money well spent. As an author who wants to be well read internationally, your aim is to entice people to read your book. If the cover is badly done then many readers may not read your book even though you have written a very good story. Th e cliché “you can tell a good book from its covers” sums up all the reasons why you need to do a thorough job on your cover.
5. Not building your marketing platform in advance. Self publishing is not a serial process where you can write a book and then worry about marketing later. You need to start building a marketing platform as soon as you start writing because the process can take up to a year. You should have thousands of followers on social media who have been following your book and would want to buy your work.
6. Using a word processor other than Microsoft. Admittedly, word is beast, and you will need to fi rmly wrestle it to the ground. Th ere are cheaper and more elegant word processors but nothing has the paragraph styles capability of word or the universal acceptance from the reviewers, testers, editors, designers and resellers like the Microsoft word processor.
7. Inadequately testing your ebook. Do not assume that if your ebook looks right on the platform, then it would look right on all the others. Th e only way to truly know is to examine your book on each platform.
8. Selling only an ebook version. Th e ebook format is in vogue but in adult fi ction. If you write any other genre, you should still produce a paper version. Most paper version of good books usually out-sell their ebook copies.
9. Depending solely on social media and word of the mouth. Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Linkedin are powerful inexpensive marketing methods but old-fashioned PR is still necessary. Spending a good amount on advertising your book through other media networks can make you sell more than you can ever imagine. One-on-one talking to people about your book, going to schools and telling students/teachers about your book and taking it to business centres where a lot of people go to are novel means of selling your book faster.
10. Not tapping the crowd.
Th e crowd is a beautiful thing-there are always people out there who know more than you know and are willing to help you sell your book. Tap the crowd’s expectations of what they would like to read in your book when you start writing and also tap their potentials after you have published. You may be surprise what you fi nd at the end of your survey.
11. Having only one plan. Th ere are at least three plans to getting your book published. Plan A is to fi nd a traditional publisher; Plan B is to self-publish: and Plan C is to implement Plan B in order to attract a traditional publisher and reinstate Plan A.
Th ere is no right and wrong; there is only what works for you and what doesn’t, so be fl exible.
12. Bad timing throughout the self publishing process. As you complete the various steps in the publishing process, pay careful attention to scheduling, lead times and deadlines. Rushing steps, cutting corners or taking shortcuts is a sure way to failure and making costly mistakes. Timing also refers to when your book is made available to readers online or at retail. Choosing the most appropriate release date is essential especially if the book is somehow tied to related occasions such as Christmas, Independence Day, birthdays or memorial days. Mustafa wrote from Niger state
