Self-Publishing Mistakes

February 5, 2014 / Business of Writing, Uncategorized / 35 COMMENTS

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraigBody in the Backyard--smaller

Tax time is making me a bit reflective this year.  Maybe I didn’t have the time to reflect on Dec. 31st/Jan. 1 since I had a January 1 deadline…at any rate, I’m doing it now.

Tax time also always makes me think of ways I could improve.  It’s great that I’m selling books—but I’ve missed opportunities along the way.

I thought I’d share my mistakes here in case you might find yourself in the same boat with some of these things.  And mistakes are just opportunities to learn, after all.

Self-publishing mistakes I’ve made:

Waiting too long to venture into other formats.  This is a big one, seeing the income I’ve made since July that I could have been making prior to that.  Obviously, there can be some cost involved into moving into print (cover design and formatting, if you don’t do those things yourself) but audiobooks can be free.  I’m a cautious person and basically waited until readers literally wrote me and asked me to put these books in audio and print format. I wish I’d moved earlier on this.

Not reserving my cover designer/formatter in advance.  I’ve had to delay several releases because my cover designer or formatter was booked.  Good contract labor gets booked up fast in self-pub.  Ask early. Now I’m getting my covers done before I finish writing my books.

Giving readers a firm release date for my self-pubbed book too far in advance. Oh, this has bitten me several times now. When it comes to production, stuff happens.  Sometimes people get sick, sometimes they have family emergencies.  Sometimes they’re booked (see above).  Sometimes they have internet issues.  I have learned to add a week or so onto an estimated release date. Because readers will get in touch if the book isn’t out…ha!  And it has an unprofessional feel to it when you miss a deadline you’ve made with a reader.

Not monitoring sales.  Bad idea.  If I’m having a slow month (a year ago, this was the case), then I can run a sale…play with pricing.  If I don’t know I’m having a slow month, then I just get the sad little check 60 days later.

Not monitoring income/profits. Putting all our earnings in the same account as other income.  This is also bad.  If we’re making good income, we need to be thinking ahead: estimated tax payments in advance of tax time, money into our 401K/IRA, maybe have more withheld from our day job or our spouse’s day job.  It’s no fun to pay a ton of taxes unexpectedly.  And I’ve been informed that it’s very ill-advised to put your writing business income into your joint account/regular household account…it just doesn’t look great to the IRS, apparently. So maybe open a free regular checking account or credit union account that you only use for writing-related deposits. You can always transfer funds into your regular account afterward.  And you can use your writing checking account to write checks for supplies, pay contract labor, etc.

Not outlining the next book in the series when finishing one.  With the kind of gaps in self-publishing production that I’ve got to deal with as a hybrid writer (deadlines with the traditional publisher come first), this was a problem I’m now addressing.  It takes far too long for me to get my head back into a series after working on a book in a different series.

Not having a newsletter.  Readers had signed up for years for a newsletter that I didn’t ever send out.  That wasn’t smart.  I finally corrected this last year.  If they are going to our website and taking the time to fill out the registration form for our newsletter…we should send the thing out to them.

Not doing Goodreads giveaways for the self-pubbed books.   This promo thing worked out well for my traditionally published books.  Why didn’t I do it for my CreateSpace Myrtle Clover books?  Still haven’t done this, but need to fix that soon.  It simply means ordering however many CreateSpace books I need for the giveaway and then getting it listed on Goodreads.

No website extras for readers.  I’ve heard reader chatter about other writers’ websites and some of the extras they’ve seen on them.  Hmm.  I just haven’t gotten around to that yet. I did do a preview chapter for one of my books on the website.  It would probably be helpful if I did it for the upcoming book.  This is a static form of promo—you stick it up on your website once and then you’re done. Much easier than some of the social media networking we’re encouraged to do. And the one chapter I put up had readers interested, judging from feedback I received from them.

Not ramping up my self-pubbed content earlier.  I seemed to view my first self-pubbed book in 2011 as a one-off.

Not venturing into self-pub until late in 2011.  Yeah.  Should have been early 2010.  I had a book ready to go.

Not asking for my rights back (or confirming that I did hold those rights) earlier.  The reason I didn’t venture into self-pub earlier (as I mention above) is because I wasn’t sure how to get my rights back to the series or the characters.  The first book was traditionally published, but I wanted to self-publish others for the series.  I got my rights back in a short email exchange with the publisher…took about 10 minutes for me to pen the email and took the publisher about 10 minutes back.  Definitely should have explored that earlier.

There’s always room for improvement…I think last year was also the first time when I realized that this really is a small business I’m running.  I have contract labor.  I have legal and professional help.  I’ve got research and development for books.  There are areas that I’m not good at and I’m either working to learn more/do better with those or subcontract out for the things I really can’t do.

So these are the things I’d advise to keep an eye on for any writers interested in self-publishing.  What tips have you got?

 

  1. Good thoughts.

    Audio books for free, how’d you pull that off?

    I’m just now trying to get one book into Createspace, and currently I’m hung up on the cover. I forgot you need a back and spine, so I’ll try to find someone to make my existing eBook cover into a print cover, cheaply of course.

    1. Hi Greg,

      ACX is the self-publisher’s retailer for audio. If you commit to profit-sharing with your narrator (and if you have the technical ability to make your book cover into a square shape like a CD cover for the site), then the process is 100% free. I wrote a post on ACX last April.

      As far as the cover for the print book…don’t let that hang you up for long. That’s what stalled me out, too. You could go back to your original designer and ask them to make a spine and back cover for you, or I’ve seen them advertised online as low as $25- $50 before for already-made ebook covers. You just need to write your back cover copy (which you’ve really already got–it’s your book description for Amazon), a picture (I see you have one with your comment and that will work well), and a bar code thingy…I didn’t know anything about the bar code, but the designers I used put one on there for me.

  4. Elizabeth – Thanks for sharing what you’ve learned. I think these are all useful things to keep in mind. Organization really seems to be key to this. As you say, you can’t always know what might happen. But keeping track of things, monitoring, and just seeing that aspect of writing as the business it is can, so it would seem to me, really help.

    1. Margot–It really does help. And I don’t like doing most of this stuff, so that’s usually why it gets pushed off or ignored. I think I’m going to set my calendar to remind me every month or every quarter to look at some of these things…and then do them.

  5. The Goodreads and LinkedIn promos have been good for me. I only do one a year because I don’t want to spam people. But they proved to be very effective spikes in downloads that last a solid week.

  7. Coming to the realization that what you are doing is a small business is huge, Elizabeth. I think because writers are creative people, they don’t want to be bothered with these kinds of details. Even though I owned my own business for many years, I am guilty of not thinking of writing as a business. Heck, I just want to write. Thanks for these fabulous tips. I have created an Elizabeth folder in my documents file and I put your tips in there for future reference.

    1. Karen–I think you’re absolutely right. I definitely would rather not be bothered with things like figuring out my profits or worrying about opening a separate checking account. Also, I think knowing a lot of these areas aren’t strengths for me is a bit intimidating. Having the accountant to prod me last year helped. The sad thing was that I *did* open the separate checking account–then I procrastinated changing my direct deposits over to the new account! Finally did that last month when accountant got exasperated with me. :)

  8. You’re running Content, inc. Only you can do that.

    Now, I hire business managers for various enterprises and provide incentives to them with a profit-sharing plan as well as a decent base promise.

    It helps. I have an ace accountant but for your stage in writing, does a part-time business manager make sense? Does someone to help with the project details of pushing along “content” to the various formats and outlets have a reward greater than the outlay to employ them?

    You’re a skilled business-person. You know the whole bit of project management and day-to-day management of the far-flung enterprise takes some measure of regular effort.

    The end question is : does the effort at managing the enterprise eat into Content, Inc. ?

    You are the only one who can do “content.” Ultimately, you make value decisions. Would a business manager help align the ducks so that you could only need to produce content and make design/brand decisions based on recommendations? Would the increased productivity in releasing product compensate for the cost load of a manager/assistant?

    I have enterprises where a professional manager frees me to to invest time/energy in other enterprises or – in some cases – where I wouldn’t pursue business at all because the overhead of managing affairs would dissuade me (lazy) from doing the work.

    Perhaps your writing nears that point where content (plow mule, plow) is the thing you need to grow that readership and sales. Does having a manager/tour manager/booking agent allow you to record better/more music?

    You can’t be alone in this need. Some of your (our) friends with years in the business may already be doing this. I’d be surprised if some were not. Might be worth a line to Penny or W. K. K. and see how they are managing.

    Scott Turow is a decent fellow who I’m told answers his own mail, as well. I ‘ve never met him but I know someone he helped who sings his praises: writing business -wise.

    Of course, you could give up sleep and housekeeping. It’s been done before.

    1. Jack–Ah, well, I’m an insomniac with an untidy house….what can I say? :)

      Seriously, you’ve brought up an idea that does make a lot of sense and is worth thinking about. I don’t know if I’m there *quite* yet. Maybe I could be there if I *did* hire someone, though. I’d like my income to maybe hit the next level where I’d be more comfortable with the costs involved…but with any luck, maybe that would happen this year. (I’m notoriously cheap. My mother calls it “thrifty,” which sounds nicer.)

      I can handle all the branding stuff, the social media, the content. What trips me up are the profits, any lagging sales, coordinating my team for cover design, formatting, etc. And I tend to miss the big picture (i.e. for a small investment of time, I could get my rights back and make significant income. Did I think the 15 minutes that would take was too insurmountable? Bleh.) I don’t plan out business moves in advance, don’t do forecasting, don’t really have that mindset. An outsider with those skills could see things that I don’t.

      Thanks for this and I’ll definitely check into it.

  9. Thanks for sharing. Appreciate that as I’m about to jump in. Already wish I’d done it earlier too. Blessings, Leanna

  11. This is a bookmark post!

    This past year for me has been mostly a fallow year, so I don’t really have mistakes to learn from. (The lesson is, mostly “Do something.”) This post is a good place for me to start thinking about for this year’s “restart.”

    1. Thanks!

      I wouldn’t say that you did nothing in 2013…it sounded to me that you adjusted to changing circumstances, you designed a lot of book covers, you came up with a very cool plot game, and you wrote and blogged quite a bit. But good luck with your ’14 restart. :)

  12. This is great stuff to think about, though I admit it is all a bit overwhelming. Every single thing seems to have a learning curve and with my day job, it just seems like I don’t get to it for a while. I know I need to, but I need more TIME!

    1. Hart–You’ve just hit a big bump in the road with your job, etc.–totally understandable and it won’t last forever. It’ll happen…and think how productive you’ve been with the little amount of time that you have.

  13. Hi Elizabeth
    Thanks for being so honest with the mistakes. I love the fact that so many authors are open about where they’ve gone wrong and are helping others avoid the same mistakes.
    I’m guilty of being tardy with my cover designer, which then led to us not getting a book out by the official date. Not good :(
    The newsletter and other formats are our focus for the first few months, starting with podcasts for the short stories on the site, and then moving into audiobooks in a bit. Alas, ACX isn’t yet working for the UK as far as I know, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.
    The first print book should be out in the next few weeks (cover-artist dependent!:)
    thanks again. Funny how tax returns get one thinking… :)
    Mike

    1. Mike–My understanding is that ACX was working on this (opening to UK). I hope so! It’s a great opportunity.

      Congratulations on the new print book! Yes…all depends on the cover…ha!

      Sounds like you’ve got everything in place for a fantastic year.

  14. You’ve sure helped me learn a lot about self-pubbing. When I’m ready to make that leap I feel as if I won’t be a total newbie because of all you’ve shared! Thanks :)

  16. I’m so sorry I missed this yesterday! With a part time day job and all the platform-buildling, I’m already calculating where I need to be to hire an assistant or someone to help. This is infinitely helpful, thank you so much!

  17. “No website extras for readers”? Elizabeth, please. Your site is nothing but extras. And that’s not “playing nice,” it’s just plain telling the truth.

  18. Good insights.
    “Not asking for my rights back (or confirming that I did hold those rights) earlier.” Before I read your comments I started to serialize a story on my blog for friends. Now your comments have made me think I need to stop and seek some legal counsel to clarify what I can do without risking full copyright abandonment!

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