What Makes a Book Look Self-Published

Last week, we saw an author ask on Twitter: “Does my book look self-published?” He linked to the book’s Amazon page, where a reviewer mentioned that the book was “full of typos,” hence his question.

We looked at the page and noticed a few red flags. The book had a cover with a clipart-like illustration, bright neon text, and the author’s name in a tiny font. The title was also a common phrase. The book description was not compelling. The author’s bio had a typo in it. The look inside feature let us know that there were many other issues with the content of the book.

Four people responded to the author on Twitter, reassuring him that the book looked “professional.” We hesitated for a while, but then reached out via DM to say that the book needed improvement, and listed the points above. The author did not respond. So far, he has not fixed the issues.

Getting honest feedback on your creative work can be tough, but it beats the alternative: putting out a product that doesn’t present you in a good light. So today, we would like to talk about some self-published book faux pas because we believe that these can make or break your book’s success. When you’re self-publishing your book, you have the ultimate control over every aspect of the process.

However, none of us are blessed with infallible judgment. It is crucial to get feedback on some aspects of your book before you put it out there. This is to make sure that your product is competitive against others. If you don’t, you risk low (or no) sales and bad reviews because readers rightfully have the expectation that your book will be up to certain quality standards.

Let’s take a look at a few common problem areas.

Book titles can make or break a book’s success. Titles like “As I Lay Dying” or “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” or “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” or “Me Talk Pretty One Day” are unforgettable.

Titles like “Freedom,” “My Life,” or “Forbidden Lust” are too common to stand out.

To avoid falling into this trap, Google your intended title and see how many other books are out there using it. Are you prepared to compete with them? If not, you may want to reconsider. (Even if you are, we suggest using a unique title, or at least adding a subtitle to it, especially if your title itself is only one-word long.) Of course, standing out isn’t always a good idea. Don’t pick an awful title just to be unique or you may end up on a list like this one: The 20 Worst Book Titles Ever.

Let’s be honest. Awful covers abound. There are traditionally published books that seem to have been designed by non-designers, but more often than not, the books with less than attractive covers are indie books. This is often due to a combination of overconfidence in one’s own design skills and not getting feedback on the final design.

This could be its own post, but suffice it to say that any book that hasn’t gone through the four stages of editing traditionally used will not make its author proud.

A book with a professional layout design looks like this:

A book with a DIY layout, on the other hand, may look like this:

It doesn’t look great.

ISBN, bar code, copyright page, title page… Your book should have those and more. We’ve seen plenty of self-published books that didn’t, and that made it obvious that they were published by someone who hasn’t done his or her homework.

A book with a flat price of $20 is going to look self-published, whereas a book priced at $19.99 will look more like a traditionally published book. It is up to your preference, but there’s plenty of evidence that we humans prefer prices that end in 9 or 5. $19.99 seems like a better value to us.