Avoid these 5 Common Author Mistakes
No one’s perfect. It’s one sermon I preach to myself as often as I preach it to others.
It’s even more so true with authors and their books. But even if you never quite achieve perfection, you can at least get closer by avoiding certain common mistakes. Working on ten (or so) books a year, I’ve taken note of those common mistakes—in both clients’ and my own work.
So if you want to automatically make your book better and not spend as much time and money on editing and rewriting, here’s the 5 most common mistakes you need to avoid.
MISTAKE 1: Forgetting the Reader’s Journey.
Sometimes I’ll see a nonfiction book proposal come through with a familiar mistake. It will say something like, “The author would like to use Joseph Campbell’s framework of the Hero’s Journey as a structure for the book.” So why is this a mistake?
It’s a mistake because Campbell’s framework of the Hero’s Journey isn’t about writing a book—it’s about literary analysis. The problem is that aspiring authors will google, “What's the best way to write a book?” and then they are met with a wall of articles that mention the Hero’s Journey.
Now, a quick caveat: If you’re writing fiction, it's a different story—literally. By all means, feel free to use the Hero’s Journey as a framework.
But with nonfiction, the Hero’s Journey isn’t going to help you out. Instead, you should be more concerned with the Reader’s Journey. How are you getting the reader from Point A to Point B?
The mistake I see is when authorrs put themselves in place of the Hero. But in nonfiction, you’re not the Hero. The reader is the Hero. They are the one embarking on a journey into the unknown. If anything, you're the Wise Counselor, the Wizard, the Seer, who is guiding them on their quest. They are Frodo…you are Gandalf.
Forgetting the Reader’s Journey is a surefire way for your book to go astray. You’ll end up making it about yourself and when the reader can’t see themselves in the Story anymore, they’ll close the book and move on.
MISTAKE 2: Skipping the Outline.
As writers, we often divide into two groups: Planners and Pantsers. Planners are those who like to outline every beat of their book. Pantsers just launch from the idea straight into the writing, flying by the seat of their pants.
Among fiction writers, you’ll find the balance shifts more towards Pantsers. And in nonfiction, you’ll find Planning is almost always expected. So if you’re already a Type A planner, you likely won’t run into this problem. But if you’re the visionary, go-getter type who likes to do and “just figure things out,” then the exercise of an outline is going to feel like pulling teeth.
In nonfiction, skipping the outline is one of the worst mistakes you can make. To recall the house building analogy, it’s like trying to build a house without any foundation. You might be able to white knuckle your way for a while on pure grit and gumption. But eventually, a strong wind will come along and everything will come crashing down.
One of my clients spent eight years trying to write a book on his own. He’d pull his laptop out during flights and write 500 to 1000 words here and there. When we started working together, he handed over a 20,000-word unfinished manuscript. Many of the ideas were great and made it into the finished book—but there was no cohesion. He hadn’t developed an outline at all.
In the course of our work together, we continually revisited the outline and made adjustments. This should be comfort for those of you who struggle with being “tied down” to an outline. You don't need to be. It’s not written in stone. It’s not a sacred text. It’s just a guide—and you’re welcome to change it up as needed.
Just don’t skip it!
MISTAKE 3: Trying to Sound Smart.
All too often, new authors make the mistake of thinking they need to convince the reader they are smart. In one conversation I had with an author, this came up through their admiration of Malcolm Gladwell. “He’s so smart,” they gushed. “I want to sound like him.”
So I gently dropped a bomb on them. “Yeah, I like Gladwell, too,” I started. “But did you know he only writes on a ninth and tenth-grade level?”
Their expression froze for a moment, then their brow creased. “No, that can’t possibly be true,” they said. But then my client’s head tilted a slight degree as they considered my point. “Wait…I think you’re right.”
Trying to sound smart almost always backfires. Overusing jargon and using the thesaurus liberally to try to “upscale” your vocabulary will only lead to confusing your reader.
Your job as an author isn't to sound smart—it’s to make the reader feel smart. If you make them feel smart, they’ll ascribe the intelligence to you, not themselves. It’s actually the smartest move you can make.
“This is what Gladwell does best,” I told my client. “He’s gifted at making you, the reader, feel smart. Which shows just how smart he really is. He doesn’t need to prove it.”
Now the big question—how do you avoid this mistake? A good place to start is by never using words you wouldn't use in real life. Don’t make concepts more difficult than they need to be—make them easier. Make the reading process so easy that readers forget they’re even reading a book.
Are there exceptions? Sort of. But you should always write to the level of the reader’s expectations. If you're writing for academia, then it’s appropriate to use more academic language. If you’re writing for teenagers, then you should be writing more on a seventh-grade level and liberally using slang—though I suggest having it beta read by real-life teenagers so you’re not using outdated fuddy-duddy language like “rad” and “groovy.”
Worry less about whether you’ll be seen as an expert. Instead, be confident in the expertise you’re sharing. Self-proclaimed experts rarely last. Better for others to recognize you as one. But it’s not the language you use that makes others recognize you as an expert—it’s your Story. Your knowledge, your experience—those make up the heart of your authority.
MISTAKE 4: Trying to DIY Your Book.
This one’s a more practical matter, but it covers a litany of mistakes new authors make. Look, I’m DIY to the core. I’ve built furniture, fixed up smaller jobs on our cars, installed fixtures, fixed toilets, and so on. So when I was teaching myself about the publishing industry, I carried on this DIY spirit, trying to teach myself how to do everything—editing, layout design, cover design, marketing…
So take my word for it…publishing your book is not a place to DIY. Not if you want it to be successful. This is especially true in the following areas:
Editing
Book editing means more than catching typos or running the manuscript through Grammarly. As a reminder, you’ve got a full spectrum of editing to consider: developmental, structural, line editing, copy editing, and proofreading. Ideally, you need to hire professionals for all of these.
Formatting, Layout & Design
This is the process in which your book goes from looking like a Word document to looking like a real-life book. Typesetting, fonts, margins—all of that pretty design work. This process is much more difficult and complex than most realize. When I first started freelancing, I provided layout services for clients, but it was so taxing, I eventually stopped.
And whatever you do, please please please, for the love of every god in the universe, don’t attempt to format your book before sending to an editor. It creates a heap of extra work and aggravation for them, so don’t be surprised when they charge you more as a result. Formatting, layout, and design should only take place after you’ve signed off on the book’s copy, meaning you are making no more changes to the text.
Cover Art
You know that whole, “Don’t judge a book by its cover” thing? It’s a lie. You should judge books by their covers. I know I do. Sometimes when I’m looking for a new publisher to partner with, I’ll go to their website and look at the books they’ve produced. If the covers are crappy, I leave the site. It tells me they aren't concerned with quality or helping their authors market their books.
No matter what, your cover art should draw readers to your book. They see the art before they even read the title. So many new authors spend years creating a great book, only to rush the cover design by doing it themselves or hiring some hack who doesn’t know book cover design. Cover dimensions can be finicky because the size changes slightly based on the final page count of the book, so this should only be finalized after layout and design.
Marketing
No matter what your topic is or how you’re publishing, marketing will largely fall on your shoulders out of sheer necessity. Even in the fiction world where new authors may be supplied with a promotion team by the publisher, the author is still expected to get out into the world and talk about their book. Therefore, marketing starts before your book releases. And I don’t mean the day before—I’m talking months in advance.
A whole book could be written on book marketing—and many books have been, so I’m not going to spend much time on it here. The point is, don’t go in guessing. And start talking about your message and your book as you’re writing it. It’s great accountability and an even better way to start attracting readers by building anticipating. A few key components to consider:
Website: Hire someone with a track record of helping authors bolster their websites for marketing, whether you’re trying to sell more books, book more speaking gigs, or attract more clients.
Social Media: Plan out your social media posts to generate excitement for the book. Many new authors make the mistake of saying NOTHING about their book until release and then annoying people with a series of “BUY MY BOOK!” posts which largely go ignored.
Instead, start posting concepts from the book each week, run polls related to your topic to get engagement and spark conversation, and post excerpts from the book—especially if you can turn them into eye-catching graphics.
If you’re not confident in social media by yourself, you can find plenty of companies who will gladly help. Just make sure you vet them really well and ask about other authors they have served.
Guest Spots: Guest spots can include writing a blog on someone else’s site related to your industry, centered on an idea from your book. It can also include going onto a podcast related to your industry, or publishing an article on an industry site or another high-traffic site like Forbes, Inc., or Harvard Business Review.
If you’ve got the cash for it, you can find publicity companies who will help you with these—but once again, vet vet vet by asking lots of questions and verifying who they have worked with.
Which finally brings us to the last mistake, but possibly the biggest…
MISTAKE 5: Failing to Think About Life After Book.
When you’re in the throes of writing a book, it’s easy to see publication day (aka, Pub Day) as the finish line. But publication isn't the finish line at all—it’s the start line.
When authors come to me confused about which book idea to pursue, I always ask them, “What do you want to do in Life After Book?” When you can visualize your life after the book’s release, it changes everything about how you brainstorm, how you write, and even how you market your book.
All the work done in outlining, writing, revising, editing, and designing is all training for the Big Race. The day your book releases is the bang of the starter’s gun. It’s one big circle. Everything else are the steps you take along the way.
Have I made all of these mistakes? Why yes…yes I have. Which goes to show how common they are—and is exactly why I want to save you from making them yourself.
While going through a traditional publisher will help you avoid many of these mistakes, obviously that’s not something everyone can—or wants—to do. But if you can just remember these mistakes and learn from them, you’ll be starting off much better than many authors. If you have a question about any of these or want to learn more about how to avoid these mistakes, consider booking a free 20-minute Q&A with me.
Did this help you? If so, consider becoming a subscriber to the ForWord Writers Newsletter where we share more specific examples of how this tip looks in both nonfiction and fiction!
