Guest Post by Lee Pound
Lee will be our guest on Profitable Social Media radio on April 9th. Details on the Profitable Social Media show page

Over 500,000 books are published every year. Yet most of them will never be read by anybody. Instead they sit in the author’s garage or sit for a few weeks in a bookstore and then get destroyed.

Yes, as an author your job is to write your book. However, your job is also to get your book into the hands of your readers. Your job is also to give them a product they will want to read.

Most books fail because the author did a poor job of writing, designing and marketing. I’ve distilled these down into the seven biggest mistakes that cause this to happen.

Writing:

1. Copying someone else’s material. This is called research. However, when you don’t talk about your own experiences with this material, you will bore your reader.
2. No stories. Stories give a book its emotional content. They help the author sell his or her ideas by putting those ideas into a believable context.
3. No call to action. The author must tell the reader what to do with the material he or she has presented.
4. Poor spelling and grammar. This happens with the author does not make the investment to have the book edited by a professional.

Design:

1. Bad cover design. If the cover is poorly designed, if it is full of clip art and weird type styles, it will look unprofessional and turn potential readers away.
2. Bad interior design. If your interior book design is inconsistent, you will again look unprofessional.

Marketing:

1. Waiting for someone else to market your book. First of all, your book is a marketing tool for your business. It represents you to your potential customers. This is true whether you are writing non-fiction or fiction. Your job is to get your book into the hands of your readers. You must speak, write, sign books, write blogs, send emails, and send out press releases since nobody else will do it for you.

Writing a book is a powerful way to establish yourself as an expert in your market. You are taking months to create your book. Take the time to make it professional before you publish it.

Lee Pound is a writer, book publisher, and writing coach. You can get more information about his programs at http://www.leepound.com. To get a free downloadable copy of his book 57 Steps to Better Writing, go to http://www.freewritingbook.com.