E25 | Why Authors need to think like marketers

So you've worked with a lot of authors at different stages, and you provide a different range of services.

Feel free to tell us the kind of way that you work with authors.

But also, what are the biggest blind spots that you think that you encounter that people tend to have before perhaps they even begin writing the actual book?

Well, in a way, it's kind of lucky that people are blind or we'd never start.

We need some of those blind

spots.

I agree.

Because writing a book, it's not easy.

It wasn't meant to be easy.

And AI has not actually made it easier.

All AI has done is make it easier to write drivel.

I think a big one is that the second or third draft, if the author is still writing for themselves rather than their audience.

So that first draft, yes, and second, get it all out.

Get what you want to say out.

But then the blind spot is not shaping it for your actual reader.

So it's, yeah, working out that.

And you can end up with like a lot of bloat in a book.

That's the author just wanting to talk things through.

And it's like readers now, you know, we're being attuned to much shorter attention spans.

So readers don't want to put up with your waffle that is just, you know, for your own ego.

Like they're reading your book to get, you know, information or to help them solve a problem.

So I suppose a blind spot's not focusing on the reader enough, right? And then the big one is thinking that a good book will market itself because it won't.

Yeah, absolutely.

So you've worked with a lot of authors at different stages, and you provide a different range of services.

Feel free to tell us the kind of way that you work with authors.

But also, what are the biggest blind spots that you think that you encounter that people tend to have before perhaps they even begin writing the actual book?

Well, in a way, it's kind of lucky that people are blind or we'd never start.

We need some of those blind

spots.

I agree.

Because writing a book, it's not easy.

It wasn't meant to be easy.

And AI has not actually made it easier.

All AI has done is make it easier to write drivel.

I think a big one is that the second or third draft, if the author is still writing for themselves rather than their audience.

So that first draft, yes, and second, get it all out.

Get what you want to say out.

But then the blind spot is not shaping it for your actual reader.

So it's, yeah, working out that.

And you can end up with like a lot of bloat in a book.

That's the author just wanting to talk things through.

And it's like readers now, you know, we're being attuned to much shorter attention spans.

So readers don't want to put up with your waffle that is just, you know, for your own ego.

Like they're reading your book to get, you know, information or to help them solve a problem.

So I suppose a blind spot's not focusing on the reader enough, right? And then the big one is thinking that a good book will market itself because it won't.

Yeah, absolutely.