Monday, April 22, 2013

Aargh! Lessons learned: stupid mistakes I've already made with my first indie book

Sometimes I think I'm not obsessive enough. The past two weeks I've downloaded so many different proofs of my new book, both print and digital;  made so many changes both large and small; and had to resubmit the manuscript so many times for review that I had begun to think that I had some neurotic block against actually publishing this book.

And then within only a few hours of finally submitting it, and announcing it to the world on this blog, my website, and a brand new Facebook Author page, I belatedly did something I should have done weeks ago.

What was that? I did a title search of my book on Amazon.

Guess how many books with the title of Spontaneous Combustion there are? At least six. Six!

And to make it even worse, one of those books, which was just published last month by another indie author, obviously used the same CreateSpace cover template that I did. Yes, we both had tweaked the template, so the background photos are different, the color scheme is different, and I had chosen a slightly different font. But the covers still look like fraternal twins.

Aiyee! Why in the world didn't I take this small step a month ago? Can you say s-t-u-p-i-d?

Now titles can't be copyrighted, so that's not the problem. And thank goodness for subtitles, because they differentiate the two books as well. Finally, our books are in two very different genres. Mine is non-fiction about the craft of writing; the other book with the too-similar cover is an anthology of short stories.

So all is not lost. But I feel incredibly dumb. This must be a classic rookie mistake. I should have done a title search well before I published my book. I doubt I would have changed the title; it fits my book perfectly, and I can't imagine calling it anything else. But I might have chosen a different cover. Or better yet, invested in a cover designed by a professional.

Let this be the first chapter of my next book, tentatively entitled, Don't Do What I Did: Confessions of an Indie Idiot.

2 comments:

Vijaya said...

And I could write a book on how NOT to write a novel. Laugh.

Congratulations!!! I hope this little gem of a book will find its way to all those who need it.

Nancy Butts said...

Thank you, Vijaya! And yes, sometimes I feel as if I could write an entire series of books on how NOT to write a novel. But you can do volume I.