I’m really excited to be sharing with you the 6 top self-publishing mistakes that people make when publishing their book on Kindle… so that you won’t make them!
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Transcript follows.
00:00
I am super duper excited to be sharing with you six top mistakes when self-publishing on Kindle. I’m Vickie Gould with easy writer tips to help you write your book and grow your business. Do you know why I am so geeked about sharing these six mistakes with you? Because I know that when you self-published a Kindle you’re not gonna make them.
Self-publishing Mistake # 1: You Lack a Good Description
Table of Contents
00:30
Alright, so number one: you lack a good description. Listen your book is sold on Amazon by its description (and something else we’re gonna talk about in a second) but your description matters. Please please please don’t just write two little blurbs about who you are, because nobody cares about who you are until you can tell them how you’re gonna help them.
00:55
So think benefits benefits benefits benefits. What are they gonna get out of reading this book and put it in the description?
Self-publishing Mistake # 2: No Enticing “Look Inside”
01:02
Number two: there is no good look inside. Hmm, I think I said that a little bit wrong let’s say there is not enticing content inside the look inside. Alright, number two: the look inside feature is not enticing. Now, you may not have noticed this if you don’t buy a lot of books on Amazon, but when you look at the cover of a book on Amazon, there’s a little thing at the top and it says “Look inside”. And it has the look inside feature.
01:37
With that, people get to get a sample of about ten pages of your book. And if it’s not enticing, they’re not gonna buy. So, again, benefits benefits benefits.
01:51
Make it enticing so that they’re like “Oh my gosh, I need to read this book. It’s gonna help me with XYZ.” The look inside feature should tell them that.
Self-publishing Mistake # 3: You Don’t Have an Interactive Table of Contents
02:01
Number three: you do not have an interactive table of contents. Now, people may not realize that you don’t have an interactive table of contents until they purchase your ebook. This is something that is going to get you bad reviews. I promise you, somebody out there is gonna be annoyed that you don’t have an interactive table of contents.
02:22
And what this does is it allows somebody to open their Kindle, go to your chapter, click on it in the table of contents, and jump to chapter 3. Or jump to chapter 8 – wherever they want. Because here’s the thing, people read their books on different devices. It might be on their computer, might be on their phone, it might be on their iPad, anywhere and if you’re like me and you wear progressives, or you need readers, then we increase the font as well. So, you never know how many pages people are gonna get in one screen view, right?
03:00
So Kindles actually have what they call “locations” rather than pages. So, you want to have this interactive table of contents, so they can jump to exactly where they want to go.
Self-publishing Mistake # 4: an Unprofessional Cover
03:10
Number four: an unprofessional cover. Now, I’m not saying that you can’t have you on the cover. I have me on some mine, but some people do think that it’s better if you have yourself on the cover only if you’re super famous. You can decide for yourself. Either way, the cover needs to look good. This is a thing that people are gonna see as they’re scrolling through the pages of should I buy this book? should I not buy this book? It’s kind of like social media, right? Scroll scroll scroll.
03:40
Ooh, enticing picture. Let me stop and look. That is the purpose of your cover: to get them to stop and look. Same with the print version. They’re gonna pull it off their shelf and look at it. This is the first impression. Do not skimp, do not be cheap, do not try and do it yourself – if you’re not good at graphics.
Get a professional cover because it is going to help you sell your book.
Self-publishing Mistake #5: Being Listed in the Wrong Category
04:03
Number five: being listed in the wrong category. Yeah, the other day I saw somebody launch their relationship and communications self-help book in the wills and estate planning category.
If you are in the wrong category and you get to bestseller it’s kind of hard to say “Yeah, I have a best-selling book in the wills and estate planning category. Like, it’s just weird, right? So pick the right categories to put your book in.
Self-publishing Mistake #6: No Author Central Page
04:42
Number six: no author central page. Now here’s the thing about the author central page: it is optional. However please please please PLEASE do it, because on your author central page see you get your listing on Amazon, and underneath your title and subtitle it will say author in the little blue letters. When people click on that they’ll see more about you.
Now if you don’t have an author central page people click it and they just kind of get those blank ish page. But, if you have your author central please guess what you get to put there: your bio, your website, interesting things about you, and your programs, videos that you want to upload, events that you’re doing, book signings. You get to put in your blog links and your podcast links and all sorts of things.
05:32
AND this page is also going to show them all the books that you have. So if you have more than one book, they’ll all be listed in one place. So, do not do not skip the author central page. It kind of makes you look like an amateur, too – like a newbie – when you don’t have the author central page.
It just gives that extra level of professionalism and a great place for you to promote yourself you can actually list your website or other freebies and stuff like that that can take them off the Amazon platform. Here’s a big it: and you can go and collect their emails and grow your list, right?
What’s Next?
06:07
Okay, so now you know what to do and make sure that you self-publish and do the right things and don’t end up making these mistakes, right, when you publish the Kindle. But you might be wondering now, “you know how do I profit for my book,” “how do I get past some of my writers block?” if you’re not quite done yet. And maybe you’re like, “I just need to finish this book and then I can apply this stuff!”
Here’s what I got for you: I have a free coaching and training section in my membership site for exactly all of this. You can go to bit.ly/vickiesfreestuff to make your free login.
06:45
I’d love to hear which mistake was new or if there was an “aha!” moment, or something that you learned today with this video. I’d love to hear that. Leave your comment below and make sure you get access to my free coaching and trainings.
Join Our Community
07:00 One last thing I’ll make sure that you know and you are invited to join me and thousands of other entrepreneurs from all over the world who are growing their businesses in the Write Your Biz Book Facebook group. The link is below in the description as well.
We constantly share with each other, I do live coaching and free trainings and things like that on how to write your book market, how to create content that your audience is going to love love love about you and then fall all over you and want everything from you. So, the link for that is below, as well.
07:35 Please join us in that Write Your Biz Book Facebook group and if this video was helpful, be sure to subscribe, share with your friends, and hit the “like” button, so I know to make more videos.
You can also hit the bell – ding – so you get notifications over the new videos that I put out. And remember the most transformational book you read is the one that you write. Alright I’ll talk to you later and until next time, see you.
08:04 The easy writer guaranteed Amazon bestseller program is open and ready for you. Want in? Get more details and sign up at bit.ly/easywriterprogram.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on these mistakes — Comment below!
About
Vickie Gould is a book coach, content marketing strategist, best selling author, and speaker. She believes that everyone has a story to share and a journey orchestrated for their positive growth – and that those experiences should be written in a best selling book.
Vickie helps entrepreneurs to share their stories, self-publish and leverage their own business books, grow their following, create more impact and turn readers into clients through her Easy Writer Program, one-on-one coaching and her free Facebook Group, Write Your Biz Book.
She has written 10 best sellers such as Easy Writer (named after her signature program) and Standing in the Gap, and helped nearly 100 others to become best selling authors as well.
