Christina Kaye
Are you an author, and you feel like you just keep messing up, or like you have no clue which decision is the right one to make when it comes to writing your book?
We all make mistakes, even the most successful authors still make mistakes.
So much so, I recently sat down to make a list of 10 mistakes authors make frequently, so I could create some video content around the solutions.
But the list kept growing, and I wound up with a list of THIRTY very bad decisions I want you to never make!
Table of Contents
This is the first in a three-art blog series in which I’ll cover 30 common but deadly author mistakes and how you can avoid them now, so they don’t kill your career before it even begins..
Let’s begin with writing and mindset issues.
Comparing yourself to other authors
Comparing yourself to authors like Sarah J Maas, Colleen Hoover, or any other author who has already achieved recognition and bestseller status is completely unfair to you, and it’s like comparing apples to oranges.
Even the best, most famous author you can think of started where you started, and I promise you that even they have work somewhere deep in the recesses of their computer hard drive that they are ashamed of, and they’ll never let see the light of day.
Instead of fixating on the success of others, focus on improving your writing and storytelling, building your reader audience, and learning all you can about the publishing process.
Not learning and studying before you write
Diving headfirst into the deep ocean of this journey toward authorpreneurship without a clue about how to properly write a story, let alone the business and marketing aspects of publishing, will be the kiss of death for your author career.
If you always dreamed of being a Rocket Dancer, you would never be able to just take that dream, hop on a bus to New York City, walk into Radio City Music Hall, and join the Rockets on stage!
Before you even sit down to write your manuscript, take some time, and first study every aspect of being an author like you would for any other successful career.
Read as many books (in your genre) as you can and study how the author tells the story, listen to popular podcasts, and read trustworthy blogs written by season veterans (like this one) before you sit down to start your manuscript.
Diving into publishing with no plan
Being an author, especially an indie author, is the same thing as running any other small business because that’s exactly what self-publishing is…a business!
You couldn’t start a sticker store, a t-shirt shop, a bakery, or any other business without first having a plan for all aspects of your new venture, like hiring staff, purchasing inventory, learning how to be the best at what you do, and figuring out how to effectively market your new shop.
The same goes for being a successful author, so you need a plan for both your publishing career and each book you’re going to write.
Get your finances in order, invest in professional services, begin marketing day one, and track all your numbers from the beginning, so that you have the best chance possible at succeeding at your dream.
Writing what you think will sell well
You’ve probably heard the debate in the author community about whether to write to market or write what you know.
The truth is, like most debates, the answer is…neither.
Just writing what you know significantly limits your potential, and writing only what you feel is currently trending is pointless because trends shift and change constantly.
And in the indie book world, if you have a story idea that is unique and compelling, and you write it the best you possibly can, and you find your readership and build that up daily for at least 3 months before your launch, then trust me, the readers will come, and they will read your book, no matter the subject matter.
All readers really care about is that you tell them an amazing story, write it well, and allow them a temporary way to escape their everyday lives.
Pantsing your manuscript
Yet another ongoing debate among authors is the whole “plotters v. pantsers” issue.
Half of authors prefer to plot out every single beat and detail of their story, while the other half think they can only write if they sit down and just start typing.
But diving right in with at least your first manuscript is a very bad idea because the risk of leaving plot holes, having flat characters, and/or one-dimensional settings is far too high.
This is why I teach all my coaching clients my Ultimate Novel Outlining Method, and you can even access the same workbook I give my clients by CLICKING HERE.
Trust me, you’ll save so much time in the long run if you spend just one week developing your characters, building your world, and creating a basic chapter outline before you type the opening line.
Plotting your manuscript
Along the same lines, spending days, weeks, or longer completely plotting every single scene and beat of your novel takes up way too much of your valuable time.
As I mentioned above, you need a plan for your career and the launch of each book, and after your first book (which does come with a learning curve and takes more time), you need to quickly get to a point where you can publish 2 – 4 books every year.
So, instead of typing up some huge plotting document or wasting time with all these plotting method platforms, again, I highly recommend you follow the same process I teach my clients.
Spend a couple hours max one day developing your characters, take the next day to build your world and scene settings, then take no more than 2 -3 days and use my Ultimate Novel Outlining Method to create your basic chapter outline.
Then, when you sit down to begin writing, I promise, the words will flow much easier and faster, and writer’s block will never darken your mind’s door.
Writing multiple drafts of your book
I hear it so often, and it breaks my author coach heart each and every time, that many authors write way more than just one draft of their manuscript.
I know this is because author feels, like self-doubt and insecurity, can be overwhelming, and it’s tempting to want to write and rewrite and write again until it’s “good enough.”
But the truth is…it’s never going to be good enough…not to you, anyway, and you’ll just get caught in a never-ending cycle of perfectionism, which will hold you back from your goals.
Instead, do as I teach my clients and write one good, solid draft the best you can (after developing and outlining, of course), then run it through ProWritingAid one time, letting it catch all the spelling, grammar, and punctuation issues while you focus on the big picture.
Then, since you must hire a professional editor anyway if you want to succeed, then turn it over to them and let them do the heavy lifting you’re paying them to do anyway.
This will help you get on that 2 – 4 books publisher per year process we talked about earlier.
Asking family and friends for feedback
Just don’t do this, not if you are truly interested in constructive feedback and improving your writing and storytelling.
Let’s be honest…your friends, and especially your family, are nothing more than sycophants, telling you how wonderful it is and how you don’t need to change a thing, and how is that actually helping you?
It isn’t, so what you do instead is find one or two really good author friends, preferably ones who have published before, or even better, who have done well in publishing, and become critique partners with them.
I also highly recommend an amazing online community that doesn’t get near enough exposure, and it’s called Scribophile.com, a platform consisting of only authors where you can post one chapter at a time and get actual, actionable, and constructive criticism in a place that is highly moderated to prevent trolls. CLICK HERE to check it out now.
Writing books in difference genres
This one is going to piss some authors off, but sometimes, the truth is a bitter pill to swallow.
I totally understand what it’s like to be a storyteller for a living and to have numerous story ideas popping into your brain almost daily, including stories that vary in genre.
But if you want a successful career as an author, then at least in the beginning, you must decide what kind of stories you want to be known for writing.
If you want your book to sell well, you have to spend a minimum of 3 months building your audience full of readers who are actively seeking books in your genre and keep doing that throughout your career.
So, at least for the time being, the best advice I can give you is to decide what type of author you want to be for the foreseeable future, then, when you are established and have enough time and money to do so, build a new brand for the new genre of books.
Isolating yourself from the world
It’s extremely tempting to stay hidden behind our computer screens, and for decades…even centuries, authors never had to step out from behind them anyway.
And since we spend so much time not just writing but working on publishing and marketing tasks, as well, it can be easy to spend most of your time solo.
But as I tell my cleints and followers…you cannot do this (successfully) totally alone, and you need two types of community surrounding and supporting you.
First, you need a small and intimate community of just one or two other authors you trust, with whom you can be honest about your feelings, stressors, and struggles and know they will empathize and provide relatable advice.
Next, you need a bigger community of like minded authors, not just for the support and fun of it but also for networking purposes.
I highly recommend you consider joining my author networking community, “Create & Collaborate” on Facebook, and you are welcome to join me monthly for live online events, where we’ll all get together, share our journeys, and most importantly, I’ll help you connect with others in the group so you can collaborate and cross-promote with them.
You can join by CLICKING HERE.
I hope this list of ten deadly mindset and writing mistakes have opened your eyes on at least a few things you can avoid doing, so you can be as successful as possible on your author journey.
And I hope you’ll give serious thought to heeding my advice because, trust me, your future readers will thank you, and so will your future successful self.
Stay tuned next Monday for when I post the second blog in this series on ten deadline publishing mistakes!
And in the meantime, if you are looking for an author coach, who can help you with every single step to self-publishing success, CLICK HERE to request a free consultation with me!
