By BueInk Review
It’s the New Year: time to reset the clock, refresh your attitude, recalibrate your approach to your life’s goals. In other words, it’s time for a few resolutions to get you headed in the right direction — especially when it comes to your self-published book.
At BlueInk Review, we’ve seen thousands of indie books and talked to countless authors. And we’ve seen too many of those authors make the same mistakes. If you’re hoping to find success with your book, here are 7 resolutions you can’t afford to ignore.
In the coming months, resolve to:
Hyre a kopee editer to currect your spilling, gremmer and punctchatiaon.
Have some trouble reading that? Let us recap in better English: Hire a copy editor to correct my spelling, grammar and punctuation.
You might laugh, but this is the kind of spelling we come across far too often. If you ignore all the other resolutions, we beg you: don’t overlook this one. Bad mechanics immediately mark you as an amateur. This doesn’t mean that you can skate through by asking your friend who majored in English check over your manuscript, either. Hire a professional copy editor. Professionals know how to make the writing mechanics consistent, which is subliminally critical to readers; your English major friend does not. Pay up. Your readers will thank you.
Hire a content editor before publishing your book.
You may think your book makes perfect sense. But you would—you wrote it. Get a professional opinion before paying thousands of dollars to print your book. We can’t count the number of reviewers who tell us a book could have been awesome – if only the author had hired an editor to give them better direction.
Find a title that matches the content of your book.
You’d be amazed at how many times we open a book expecting a high-tech thriller, for example, only to find a memoir about the author’s life growing up in New Jersey. For those who love high-tech thrillers, this is akin to opening a birthday present expecting fine jewelry and getting a whoopee cushion instead. Titles create expectations. Be sure your readers won’t be disappointed or jolted when they start reading your book.
Write a snappy description of your book and put it at the TOP of the back cover.
Readers shopping for books follow an age-old browsing routine. They check out the title, then flip the book over and look at the top of the back cover for a description of what’s inside. Self-publishers seem bent on frustrating these potential buyers. They often leave this description off the book altogether, write it in convoluted prose or bury it at the bottom of the jacket. Give readers a break. Follow this simple convention: write a crisp, enticing summary of your book and don’t make readers break a sweat hunting for it.
Ask yourself: who will read this memoir?
Sure, you can write the story of your life. But don’t print too many copies if that life will only interest your family and friends. Memoirs attract readers when the author is able to write artfully and poignantly about an exceptional life – either exceptionally troubled or exceptionally successful. The vast majority of us live lives in between. Those lives, alas, don’t often attract widespread readership.
Study the market before finishing your book.
Heart surgeons follow certain procedures that differ from liver specialists. Writers must learn their specialties, as well. Readers expect certain conventions when it comes to suspense, romance, mysteries and so on. Study the type of book you are writing. What do the covers generally look like? What expertise do the authors generally have? What sort of story does the audience expect? If you ignore this resolution, you risk confusing readers and your book’s chances for survival diminish considerably.
Keep your eye on the ball.
It’s easy to get discouraged and distracted and to just want to get the darn thing done. But stay focused, and 2019 will bring you the success you seek.
BlueInk Review offers credible and unbiased reviews of self-published books exclusively. For more information: www.blueinkreview.com.
