Your first time writing an expert book will be the toughest of all. You’ll run into various problems you hadn’t anticipated and it’s likely to go over budget time-wise.
But through writing your first book, you’ll learn a great deal first-hand and it will help you write your next one, and the one after, and so on.
Here are the nine mistakes to be aware of and avoid while writing your first book:
Writing a Book You Think Your Audience Wants
You may have a topic that you love to write about and that you think your audience will love to read. But what if you write your book and no one buys it? You have to make your decisions not just based on a hunch, but based on real data from your market.
At the stage when you’re brainstorming topics, you need to do some market research and use the results of this research to guide your decisions. Define exactly who your market is and find out what they need. Check out other books and look at their actual sales figures. If possible, conduct surveys on different topics to see what your market is willing to pay good money for.
Writing Without an Outline
One of the most important steps in writing a book is creating an outline. An outline helps you organize your thoughts so that you can create a book that’s coherent and helpful for your audience. If it rambles or goes on tangents, it won’t be helpful. Your book needs a clear topic and each chapter needs to follow in logical order.
It also helps with the writing process. When you have a clear outline, you don’t have to spend your writing time trying to decide what to say. Your outline should be detailed enough that you can just go through it and flesh out the details. This makes the writing process extremely smooth and headache-free, and you can always make changes as you go along.
Failing to Schedule Writing Time
No matter how excited you are now about the great book you’re going to write, life is bound to get in the way. It takes time to write a book and you have other things to do. You can’t neglect your regular life. There’s a good chance that when you get busy, writing time will take a backseat.
You have to schedule writing time and give it the same importance as you give all other tasks. If you’re a freelancer, coach or consultant, make writing your book a “job” with yourself as the client. Set deadlines just as you would with a regular job and manage your time accordingly.
Not Conducting Thorough Research
Researching and fact checking are critical parts of the writing process.
There are three types of research you must do:
1) Market Research. Market research is necessary to help narrow down and decide on a topic that your audience wants to learn about. You will then further validate that they are spending money to solve this problem. You cannot skip this step.
2) Find Sub-Topics. Once you have validated your topic, you will research related sub-topics and create a master list of the ones you want to include in your book. These will be used to create your outline and will become the “meat” of your book.
3) Dig Deep and Fact Check. Now it’s time to dig deep and find out more about each topic on your list. For example, if one of your topics is gratitude, you will conduct research on it as it pertains to the goal of your book e.g., how gratitude raises your energetic vibration.
If you next topic is on scarcity mindset, you will research credible sources to dig deep into this area and find out as much you can so that you can adequately address it in your book.
You will continue doing this until all topics are researched.
Important note: Be extremely careful as you start writing that you never plagiarize and that you never pull from just one source. You want to double check the facts, go through many different opinions (for things that are not necessarily fact), and make sure you have everything straight.
Research isn’t about copying – it is about learning, fact finding, validation and forming your own opinions about what have learned.
While it may seem like a lot of work, it will allow you to get your book written quickly, practically eliminate writer’s block and will leave you feeling confident that the content in your book is solid and on-point.
Do your research well, and you will be rewarded with an expert book that contributes positively to the lives of others.
Trying to Write Your Book for E
veryone
The big mistake a lot of new authors make is that they want to write a book that appeals to everyone.
While it may appear to make sense on the surface to write a book that will appeal to millions, it is a recipe for failure.
When you write for everyone – you write for no one.
You MUST identify a specific target audience that your book can solve a problem for.
A target audience may look like this:
- New moms who need to lose their baby belly.
- Skinny guys who are hard gainers.
- Mid-career women who want to hone their leadership skills.
- Introverts who want to get over their fear of public speaking.
- Retirees who want to start an online business.
- Empty nesters who want to live the RV lifestyle.
- Psychologists who want to start a coaching business.
I know panic is probably setting in right about now…
You may be thinking… But Michelle, won’t I lose book sales if I exclude large groups of people?
No, my friend. You will not.
When you market to everyone you…
- don’t know who you are speaking to so you can’t refine your message.
- you can’t accurately define what problem you are solving.
- you don’t know their specific pain points.
- you can’t create a solution or result that speaks to what your audience wants.
You will write a general book that discusses a general problem with a generic solution and generic result.
You will hear nothing but crickets.
When you market to one specific type of person, something magical will happen.
You will have…
- a clear understanding of what their pain points are.
- a strong message.
- a clearly defined problem they want solved.
- a targeted solution that produces a result they want.
Targeting one million people with a generic book will maybe get you a few sales. Targeting a clearly defined audience of 10,000 can make you thousands of sales.
Know who your target audience is BEFORE you write your book.
Not Solving a Problem
This one piggybacks on the previous target audience topic.
Once you know who your audience is, you must choose ONE problem that they want solved and are willing to pay for the solution.
If your book doesn’t solve a problem they want solved, no one will care. You can have the most life changing content in your book but if it isn’t positioned as a problem they want solved, they won’t buy it. Period.
Make sure you are doing your research and choosing a solid top-of-mind problem that your target audience is struggling with.
NEED HELP? In my Best Selling Author Quick Start Kit I will give 160 topics that people are actively searching for right now! Plus, a whole lot more… get it here. It’s FREE!
Throwing a Title Together
There are three elements that will sell your book – your title is one of them.
Don’t just throw together any old title for the sake of having one – your book won’t sell. Titles are a critical aspect to all marketing, not just books.
I was listening to an interview recently with a successful marketer. She told a story about one of her clients.
Her client just created an amazing program and was telling one of her friends about it. Her friend happened to be her exact ideal client for this program – she was sure her friend would join.
She gave her a brief description of the course and her friend thought it sounded good. Then she asked for the name of the program. The minute she heard the title, she immediately said, “No, thanks. That isn’t for me.”
If your title falls flat, so will your sales.
Spend time crafting a title that is catchy, results and benefits driven and lets the reader know you have the ability to solve their problem.
If you want to learn how to create a title that sells, check out my Pen Your Purpose masterclass here.
Editing as You are Writing
A big mistake that most new writers make is editing while they are writing. Don’t do it.
You will disrupt your creative flow and waste valuable time. Allow your thoughts to flow without interruption or the urgency to correct typos, syntax, grammar, etc.
Your only goal during the writing phase is to get your thoughts out on paper. That’s it.
Once you are done writing for the day you can do one of two things.
1) You can go back and edit what you wrote for that day.
2) Leave it alone and allow your mind time to rest. Once you are done with your final manuscript you will complete your first draft editing.
You are going to have to hire a professional editor once you complete your first draft. Your editor will pick up the mistakes that you missed so don’t stress over the editing piece.
Stress and urgency will dampen your creativity. You have permission to be imperfect, enjoy the process and just write.
You’re welcome. 😉
Trying to DIY Everything
No one wants to spend money unnecessarily but if you are self-publishing your book, there are certain things that you MUST outsource to professionals.
There is no sense spending tons of time researching and writing a book only to skimp on important steps like editing, cover design, and formatting.
Your readers will know right away if it isn’t polished and they will show no mercy letting you know in their reviews.
One of their biggest complaints is poor editing and formatting – get those wrong and your book will end up with less than stellar reviews.
As previously mentioned, these are the main components that should be outsourced:
Editing: You must hire an editor. No matter how good of a writer you are you will miss things. An editor is essential.
Go to Fiverr.com, Upwork.com or Guru.com – you will find a variety of editors at all different price points. Shop around and be sure to check reviews and ask for samples of their work.
Book Cover: Unless you’re a graphic designer, you MUST hire someone to create your book’s cover. Your book cover and design are critically important and will absolutely influence downloads and sales.
Yes, there are ready-made book cover templates that you can buy however I don’t recommend going that route.
Your book cover needs to be unique and tailored to your topic and target audience. Your designer will ask for samples that you like – show them 3 or 4 covers that you think will appeal to your audience and then let them work their magic.
Tip: Look for competing books in your niche that are selling really well. Those covers are obviously working so give them to your designer as samples for inspiration (never copying – only inspiration).
Fortunately, a book cover doesn’t need to be expensive to be good so don’t worry about hiring someone. Start with Fiverr.com – there are some very good designers for reasonable prices. Again, ask for samples before hiring them.
Formatting: You need to format the text of your book in order for the digital and print books to display correctly.
I don’t recommend formatting it yourself – it is a tedious job and you need to know what you are doing. There is a good chance you will miss something and it isn’t worth the hassle.
Go to Fiverr.com, Upwork.com or Guru.com and hire someone – it will save you tons of time and frustration.
That wraps up the top 9 mistakes most new authors make. But here’s the truth – despite everything I wrote in this article, you will still make mistakes. It’s unavoidable.
Don’t be afraid of the many blunders you will make on this journey – they are just little lessons that will help you become a stronger writer with a much thicker skin. The important thing is that you learn and grow from them.
After you write your first book, reflect on what went well and what didn’t. Keep a record of the problems you faced so that you can overcome them easily when writing your next book.
