The thought of seeing a book you authored on the front shelf of a book store can bring a thrilling factor, or running into a stranger who’ll remark, “Isn’t this you at the back cover of this book? It’s one of my favorites…” It will be cool, right?
But is that what really happens to first-time published authors? Most authors give up right after their first books yet they were excited to publish, why is it so?
Most writers make grave mistakes as first-time authors that sets them back in limbo or even end up ruining their writing journey entirely.
But what if these mistakes could be avoided all together and make you a successful writer?
Maybe you are planning to publish your first book or you have already published and got stuck not knowing what you did wrong or what step you should take next, not to worry, this article is for you. It will guide you on how you can achieve success on your first book like the rest of successful authors.
- Writing without a purpose?
An author’s purpose is his reason for writing. An author must have a specific intention for writing.
Purposes/ intentions varies, it may range from informing, analyzing, persuading, entertaining, arguing or a combination of some of this. One should be clear in his/ her writing in that the message should speak to the readers in an authentic and genuine way.
For any author to truly connect through a book, it is important to develop a mind-set to either educate, mentor, inspire, teach, ridicule, help, entertain or serve the targeted audience. The intention must be indistinct.
- Writing for the wrong reasons.
The authors need to understandthe readers’ wants or interests comes first before theirs.
Most failed authors care about making money off of writing more than involving themselves in producing quality content work for their readers, whereas some are just too excited about being published and cannot wait to finish to be on covers of books and as a result end up writing poor quality work.
Authors need to understand most people prefer doing other things to reading and so for someone to buy your book and decide to set everything aside to read it, they have to be really into it , hence the author’s need to take his/her time to brainstorm ideas that would make a reader hooked in the book.
- Specific or general subject?
For your work to be catchy you need to narrow your ideas to a topic from being a subject. A subject is a broad concept, so choose a specific problem from it to make a topic.
An author might really love an idea and would like to pass it on to others but gets too excited to gather more information and analysis on a specific topic that will interest the reader more and so end up wasting time by exploring irrelevant angles.
Your credibility as an author centers on creating trust with your readers, this is achieved by being specific.
- Wrong steps before writing.
The steps of most successful writers before writing involves;
- Choosing a specific topic to write about, what follows after choosing a topic is making that topic a question then try to answer it, the answer an author will come up with should be the entire discussion of his or her book.
- Thorough Research on the topic first before writing, from all the possible answers a writer arrived at from the topic question, all the information, opinions, or even further questions he or she has about the topic should be noted down, this way an author sees what he already knows and what else he needs to find out about his/her topic. An author should continue doing research throughout the entire writing process.
- Writing Style.
Authors should type with fonts easy to the eyes, they need to find out what size of font is standard for the genre they are working on, also, the page layout and all the standards and conventions of book writing and publishing should be adhered to as well.
- Making an outline of his/ her first draft by listing the main points of each sub topic or topic, this will show the author whether his or her ideas are clearly organized and focuses on answering the topic question.
- Wrong organization of a book
Most writers have no logical flow of ideas, their work is random, an author should know the readers don’t have to find the connection between ideas, it is the author’s duty to make it flow.
A book should have;
The introduction, thiscatches the readers’ attention by providing background information to the whole topic, and lets the reader know what to expect thereafter. It answers the question posed by the topic.
The body, this contains paragraphsthat support the answers to the question raised from the topic. It’s the discussion of the entire topic, each paragraph in a body supports one point at a time with logical reasoning and evidence, so obviously the sentences in paragraphs connects to the one before and after it.
The conclusion, thissummarizes the book’s topic and main points worked on in the chapters and shows the reader the significance of the book’s findings at the end of it.
- Poor quality books, may comprise;
(a) A bad book cover. A book cover design really matters. It is a tool that helps an author sell books, so if it’s not of high-quality i.e. it lacks intrigue, has bad font choice, flavorless design and dull colors, too many visual elements, too much text on the cover, bad quality images or inappropriate designs to the genre, readers will not settle on it despite the excellent story that’s inside
(b) Spelling, punctuation, grammar mistakes. Authors who write well are better understood. Sentences formation and usage should be grammatically correct with the right punctuation marks. A good book undergoes several changes before it stands out. An author could be required to erase or add some words, sentences or even paragraphs if it turns out incorrectly arranged, unnecessary or irrelevant or new information came up.
An author will be required to revise the bookseverally and keep editing and proof reading. A poorly edited work can kill a good story and good editing turns it from a good to a great read.
(c) Book length, some authors writebooks that are too lengthy and most of the information is repeated. Get to decide whether you are writing a short story or a novel, then let your ideas flow differently in each paragraph, avoid repetition.
- Plagiarism, a writer should never forget to quote the relevant sources of information his book is based on, and should always use his/ her words in the writing, an author should be original.
- Inadequate Marketing.
Once an author decides to write a book, he or she should have a market target in mind, the idea of marketing books to a wider audience should be thought of well, for an author to brand himself and his work to the public, he or she should think of wider platforms like social media channels to engage readers for maximum impact, they can even sell on the internet and not in bookstores alone. A book launch is also a great marketing idea.
- No specific audience.
An author must have the intended audience in mind, to catch the reader’s interest, the right audience comes first for books to be widely read, an author must be aware of things like age range of his readers, level of education, occupation, positions in life and sometimes the gender of the ideal reader.
- Ineffective Book Publishing methods.
In this time and era, an author must know what his audience prefers, is the audience targeted into eBooks more or printed books more and vice versa, so authors should not limit themselves to one kind of publication.
- Shunned in public
All authors must know even the best authors get shunned. Before an author’s book becomes a success, it will get criticized a number of times, so be ready to be rejected severally, it’s nothing personal. Some great writers made a debut after their 5th or so books. An author should always remember to succeed, writing is a process not an event.
A successful author has a sense of direction and a purpose in his/ her writing, takes his/ her time by having a schedule and doing thorough research, a good author is aware that the first draft is always messy and imperfect but they keep working on improving their mistakes by revising, editing and proofreading the work severally. You become a good writer by practicing, writing and reading being a major part.