Six Things New Authors Do That Make Me Want to Flip a Table
And why the internet is largely to blame
This question came up again and again when I went digging into what self-published authors are actually searching for online. What marketing mistakes do new authors make? It landed near the top of the list, and honestly, that didn’t surprise me.
The internet has given authors access to more marketing information than ever before. It has also filled that space with misinformation, cookie-cutter tactics, and people who are very confident about things they only half understand. That combination is genuinely dangerous when you’re trying to do the right thing and have no way to know which advice to trust.
So here’s what I actually see, over and over, when authors come to me stuck.
1. Believing the book will sell itself.
Publish and wait. It’s a plan. It’s just not a good one. Until a book begins to generate sales and reviews, it won’t even surface in an Amazon search. The algorithm rewards momentum, not existence. Sitting back and hoping discovery happens organically isn’t patience. It’s invisibility.
2. Ignoring keywords, categories, and metadata.
KDP gives you eight keyword fields with 52 characters each. IngramSpark gives you eleven. These are not formalities. They are the mechanism by which readers who are actively searching for books like yours find you. If you haven’t used them strategically, you’ve left that door locked. And if you’ve run out of keyword space, your book summary and author bio can carry additional terms, woven in carefully. This is not glamorous work. It is, however, essential. Don’t skip this.
3. Skipping broad distribution.
Publishing exclusively through KDP means your book is essentially invisible outside of Amazon. Publishing through both KDP and IngramSpark makes it available anywhere books are sold, with a few exceptions. What stops authors from doing this? Usually one of three things: they didn’t know why it mattered, they didn’t understand how to do it, or they grabbed the free ISBN from KDP without realizing KDP now owns that ISBN and it cannot be used on IngramSpark. Distribution isn’t optional if you want your book to have a real chance. This matters for AI discoverability too.
4. Letting your platform look like an afterthought.
A polished, consistent online presence signals that you take your work seriously. That doesn’t require an expensive website. It requires attention. Mismatched profile photos, incomplete bios, dead links, and inconsistent branding all send the same quiet message to potential readers: this author isn’t quite ready. You don’t have to spend a lot to fix this. You do have to care.
5. Skipping professional editing, formatting, and cover design.
With AI-generated books flooding the market right now, the bar for looking legitimate has never been higher. A professional cover and pristine interior don’t guarantee sales. A bad one, however, can end the conversation before a reader ever reaches your blurb. This is not where to cut corners. The book is the product. The product has to be excellent.
6. Rushing.
This is the one that genuinely pains me to talk about, because I’ve watched authors lose something they can never get back.
On an Unstuck call, one of the first questions I ask is, “Where is your book right now?” When the answer is “It launched last week,” my stomach drops. Not out of judgment, but out of empathy. I know how much opportunity lives in those weeks before publication and that they’ve come to me to try and figure out what went wrong.
You only get one launch. Especially with a first book. A launch should be an experience. Reach out to your network. Build a launch team. Create something people can participate in. Let the moment feel intentional. You will never be here again, in this exact place, with this book, for the first time. This is true for every book.
Authors rush because they’re exhausted by the manuscript, operating from a self-imposed deadline, or excited to see their book out in the real world. They forget this decision is entirely theirs and the cost of slowing down by a few weeks is far smaller than the cost of a launch that could have been so much more.
Keep It Simple Sweetie
Did you notice how simple the solutions were for each issue? The problem is that the advice around self-publishing is noisy, inconsistent, and usually written as a one-size-fits-all solution. A frustrated author often absorbs whatever they find first and run with it. But no two author journeys are the same.
What cuts through all of it is curiosity. Not certainty. Curiosity. The willingness to ask: What should I try? Where should I go? Who is my reader, really?
That last question is where everything starts. Not your genre. Not your comps. Your actual reader. Even if you think you know who they are, you might be surprised by what a closer look reveals.
That’s exactly what the Know Your Reader GPT was built to help you figure out and why I made this coaching tool available to the public. Start there. Be willing to learn something new. It’s free! Try it here.
Lynn brings her more than 30-years experience in small business marketing, publishing, and multiple best-selling author campaigns to her Substack newsletter. She helps authors build and grow their platforms to reach their unique marketing goals through private coaching, non-fiction consulting, and done-for-you marketing programs. And all this, through her computer, in her little lake house in rural Pennsylvania which she shares with her husband, son, and two fluffy companions, Kaiju and Bella. Learn how to work with Lynn here.