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    Publishing Pitfalls for Authors: Stark Publishing Solutions, #5
    Publishing Pitfalls for Authors: Stark Publishing Solutions, #5
    Publishing Pitfalls for Authors: Stark Publishing Solutions, #5
    Ebook138 pages1 hourStark Publishing Solutions

    Publishing Pitfalls for Authors: Stark Publishing Solutions, #5

    By Mark Leslie Lefebvre

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    About this ebook

    AVOID THE MOST COMMON PITFALLS FACING AUTHORS TODAY!

     

    There have never been more opportunities, more options, more pathways for writers.

     

    But with choice come potential pitfalls, traps, and career-limiting plays.

     

    Some of the perils writers might encounter on their writing and publishing journey come from nefarious operators seeking to prey on the hopes and dreams of writers. Other dangers lurk within tendencies and traits that authors sometimes overlook; misunderstood information, or potentially even well-intended, but misguided and misinformed advice picked up along the way.

     

    This book, which draws upon more than three decades of experience in writing, publishing, and bookselling, explores those pitfalls and hazards that writers should be aware of so they can navigate their own unique pathway to writing and publishing success.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStark Publishing Solutions
    Release dateAug 24, 2021
    ISBN9781989351550
    Publishing Pitfalls for Authors: Stark Publishing Solutions, #5
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    Author

    Mark Leslie Lefebvre

    Mark's highly successful experience in the publishing and bookselling industry spans more than three decades where he has worked in almost every type of brick and mortar, online, and digital bookstore. The former Director of self-publishing and author relations for Rakuten Kobo, and the current Director of business development for Draft2Digital, Mark thrives on innovation, particularly as it relates to digital publishing.

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      Book preview

      Publishing Pitfalls for Authors - Mark Leslie Lefebvre

      INTRODUCTION: I HAD TO P AGAIN

      In September 2018, I published a short book called The 7 Ps of Publishing Success .

      It had originally been intended as a single chapter in a much larger book I was working on. But as I kept writing it, the chapter continued to expand, and I realized I needed to explore the idea of the elements of author success in a slightly longer format.

      But not too long.

      It ran about 16,000 words.

      Writing that runs more than 10,000 words yet less than the 40,000-to-80,000-word range of a more standard book length sits in an odd place.

      It’s my opinion that too many non-fiction books produced by major publishers are padded with ballast material, not to bring extra value, but so that the book measures properly within the market at a specifically formulated shape and size. I have found that this tendency often leads to dry repetition in many of those texts.

      A book where the content could be effectively relayed in 25,000 or 30,000 words might be stretched and bloated to 50,000 or even 75,000 words.

      Fortunately, early in the eBook revolution, I learned that a book doesn’t need to be defined by such stringent viewpoints as 300 pages bound between two pieces of cloth.

      A book could be whatever length serves the purpose of delivering the expected and anticipated content that satisfies the reader with what drove them to that text in the first place.

      With that in mind, I decided to split that chapter on the Ps of publishing success into a book of its own. At the same time, in consultation with an editor and a business mastermind group I participate in, I decided to go with that well-rounded number of 7 Ps.

      Those 7 Ps of Publishing Success are:

      Practice

      Professionalism

      Patience

      Progression

      Persistence

      Partnership

      Patronage

      I even threw in an extra P for good measure, a bonus P, if you will: Promotion.

      As I’m sure you have already intuited, the number of Ps was completely arbitrary, and a manufactured self-imposed limit was created merely for marketing purposes.

      There were Ps left on the cutting room floor that I had written about and then either cut from the book or sneakily incorporated into the existing chapters and Ps.

      Perspective was one of those Ps. Purpose was another one. So was Pricing. And Packaging.

      One of the benefits of forcing oneself into a fixed structure like a total of seven points to cover is that it helps you create a beginning, middle, and end. An outline, if you prefer, that you can map out, plan, and then flesh out.

      So, the 7 Ps, as I constructed them, seem to have done what they intended. I released the book in print, eBook, and even two different audiobook versions. One audiobook version is a self-narrated one; the other is narrated by a synthetic voice named Brian, a British male. I did that so that there could be a less expensive version available for $0.99 for those who just wanted the content in audio but didn’t want the full expense. The version that I narrated sells for 5.99 USD.

      Having pulled out that one chapter into its own book, I forged on, thinking I was still working on this larger book, which I was calling Indie Publishing Insider Secrets.

      But destiny had other plans.

      Another chapter I’d been working on, focusing on helping authors better understand Rakuten Kobo, took off in a similar direction. This chapter, which had so many sub-chapters and sections within it, was nearing 20,000 words when I realized that it, too, had to be split off into its own book.

      The first edition of Killing it on Kobo was released in October 2018. That one weighed in at 38,000 words.

      Back then, I had still fooled myself into believing that, now that I’d re-planted these two chapters that had grown beyond their original pots, I could go back to writing and finishing Indie Publishing Insider Secrets.

      I naively went back to work on that book, taking a number of detours along the way, but continuing to chip at it.

      A third chapter from the book, one that focused on libraries and bookstores, went the way of the previous two. However, as I continued to explore and flesh out details for that chapter, I realized that my Indie Publishing Insider Secrets was about to give birth to its largest baby yet.

      An Author’s Guide to Working with Libraries and Bookstores, released in December 2019, came in at a little over 52,000 words.

      With that book out of the way, I still, rather naïvely, went back to my original book, thinking that I would have to create extremely abridged versions of the three previous texts inside that book so as not to ignore or overlook those important things I wanted writers to be aware of.

      Somewhere along the way, Erin Wright, the founder of the Wide for the Win group on Facebook (a group dedicated to helping authors with publishing beyond Amazon), decided to abandon her plans to write a book of the same name.

      I took up the reins of that title (with Erin’s permission and support – she wrote the foreword) and released Wide for the Win in March 2021.

      Wide for the Win ended up incorporating much of the content I’d been drafting up for Indie Publishing Insider Secrets. Of course, not all of it, but enough of it that I came to think that perhaps Wide for the Win was replacing the originally conceived Indie Publishing Insider Secrets.

      I still haven’t decided. But one thing I have learned is the importance of adapting and evolving in my plans. (That’s actually a bit of a sneak-peek into the importance of being flexible in re-adapting your PLANNING, which I address in this book)

      But all of this is a precursor to this book.

      Early in the writing of Wide for the Win in mid-2020, a few random concepts came to me that I wasn’t able to incorporate into the book. So, I jotted them down on the whiteboard on the wall above the main writing space in my home office.

      As I studied that list, I realized that several of those bullet-point items started with the letter P. I then brainstormed a whole bunch of other Ps to the mix.

      Beside that list, I wrote, in a different colored dry erase marker, 7 Ps of Publishing Pitfalls. I based that title on a one-hour talk I had originally created to give at the annual When Words Collide writer conference in Calgary several years ago. That talk was titled Knowing the Basics and Steering Clear of the Pitfalls of Digital Publishing.

      In that talk, which I have replicated numerous times, I walk through a high-level overview of digital publishing options. But I always pause to teach the audience some pitfalls and traps they can easily fall into. The pitfalls were usually in the way of the scam artists and vultures that prey on innocent authors or even clauses in digital publishing platforms to be aware of.

      I wondered if I could adapt that talk into a book format.

      I liked the parallel to my first book about the Ps of Publishing, and I let it sit for a while. One of the problems was that I had almost twenty items listed; so, the parallel to the sevens didn’t work.

      I considered doing something funky like 7 + 7 or 7 X 2 in the title. Or maybe just 14 or 21 More Ps of Publishing Success.

      Those didn’t work.

      I went with 7 Publishing Pitfalls for Authors to Avoid.

      When designing the cover, those words didn’t flow nicely in a visual sense. It was too cluttered. So, I shortened it.

      I also decided not to throw away all of the additional Ps I had collected for this book and removed the limiting 7.

      The pitfalls are presented in alphabetical order and with no set or fixed length for each. Some might be a simple paragraph or two, while others take one or more pages to explore.

      The idea was to outline the pitfall, explain the background or origin, where applicable, and detail elements about it, or, perhaps, symptoms for the author to recognize and, ideally, avoid. Then, I would include specific tips and strategies to help authors avoid the pitfalls.

      My perspective comes from about thirty years of working within the book industry and as an author who has embraced both traditional and self-publishing (or, to use the preferred term, indie-publishing). As a result, some of the pitfalls are specifically within one side, while others apply to both indie and traditionally published authors.

      In addition, just so you understand my bias and default position, I try to apply long-term thinking to each of these elements. For me, writing is a lifelong pursuit and not something that I’m involved in to try to make a quick buck. Thus, the approach that I will often recommend will, by default, take the long view.

      Some of these Ps are related to the craft of writing, others to the processes, procedures, and practices, and still others to the business of writing.

      Wherever possible, I have included

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