The World of Self-publishing is Like a Shark Infested Body of Water. It’s Full of Sharks Just Waiting for You to Make a Mistake.
When you enter the world of writing and publishing, especially self-publishing, it’s easy to get excited and make some simple mistakes. They might not seem like such a big deal at the time, but often, it’s very hard to recover from bad reviews or a poor start. We have compiled a list of five of the easiest mistakes self-publishing mistakes and why you need to avoid them. They’re listed below in no particular order.
The Following are Five Mistakes That You Need to Avoid and Why!
1. Don’t Try and Use Your ISBN on More Than One Book.
No matter how poor your sales are or how expensive it was to buy. Your ISBN is the unique way that people can search for your book. Each edition of a book, Kindle, paperback, hardcover, etc., should have its own ISBN. If you were to try and use your ISBN on another book, then the information on databases would be mixed up and confused, hurting sales of both books.
2. Never Use Song Lyrics, Quotes From Other Books, Movies, Poems, Etc. Without Permission.
It doesn’t matter how popular or common something is. It doesn’t mean that you can use it in your own book. You need to be extremely careful about how you utilize other people’s property. Otherwise, you could be liable for some very expensive compensation.
3. Don’t Cut Corners with Photo or Image Quality.
Just because you copied a photo off the internet and it looked great on your computer screen doesn’t mean it is good enough for your print book. When it comes to photo quality in print books, you need at least 300 dpi. The way an image looks on a computer screen or device will vary greatly when it is printed out. Don’t cut corners on your images. Otherwise, your printed book will end up with blurry, pixelated, or low-quality images.
4. You Don’t Need to Print 10,000 Copies of Your Book.
There are plenty of ways that you can get some copies of your book printed. You may think you have gotten a great unit price on your book, but unless you start selling them, they are just going to take up a lot of space. There are places available like CreateSpace and Lulu that can print off copies on demand for you at a reasonable price. These businesses offer lower prices for authors and maybe a more cost-effective solution than ordering 10,000 copies.
5. Don’t Cut Corners on Your Cover Designer.
We would all love to believe the old saying, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover,’ but many readers still do it. A poor-quality cover or a misleading cover can be an easy way to lose sales. A cover is part of the book where a small investment could pay off. There is a large variety of cover design companies online, and even independent designers working through freelancing sites like Upwork or Fiverr.
5 Things to Avoid When You’re Self-Publishing – Conclusion
There are five tips to try and help you stay out of trouble! We’ll constantly be updating and adding new blogs, so make sure that you follow the site and bookmark it to ensure that you don’t miss out. You can also like us on Facebook to stay in touch and make sure you don’t miss out on any specials.
At Indie Publishing Group, we’re proud to assist Canadian and North American authors in self-publishing their work. If you are in the process of writing a book and need any assistance with paperback or ebook formatting, cover design, professional editing, or uploading to self-publishing sites such as Amazon KDP and Ingram Spark, please don’t hesitate to reach out and contact us.
Our experienced and professional self-publishing team is standing by to assist you with your self-publishing dreams.
