Ten Myths Writers Believe That Derail Their Careers

Jim: Today’s episode comes from a listener suggestion by Roland Denzel, who asked us to address the clichés and lies authors tend to believe about writing and book marketing. Thomas built a list and we’re going to work through it.

Thomas: One quick note before we start: “Writing your next book is your best marketing move” is sometimes cited as a cliché, but it’s actually true. The best marketing tool is a 400-page brochure called your book. So, we’re leaving that one off the list.

Myth 1: Word of mouth is enough to make your book a success.

Jim: It’s not. People live in bubbles, and word of mouth is powerful within a bubble but nearly useless for crossing into new ones. You need actual marketing strategy to reach readers who don’t already know you. We did a full series on this recently, so we won’t go deep here, but the short version is that word of mouth is a complement to marketing, not a replacement for it.

Myth 2: If you sign with a traditional publisher, you don’t have to worry about marketing.

Thomas: False, with one narrow exception. If your advance was six or seven figures, the publisher is probably going to invest heavily in your book. For everyone else, a first advance of $5,000 to $10,000 means the publisher is mostly watching to see what happens, and you are doing your own marketing.

Myth 3: Indie authors don’t make money.

Thomas: Some indie authors make millions a year. Others make hundreds of thousands. Others make a middle-class income of $60,000 to $70,000. It’s also true that a lot of indie authors make $500 a year or less, which is why the myth has staying power. The difference almost always comes down to treating writing as a business. Authors who fail at indie publishing are usually focused only on the book, not on the business around it.

Jim: You are a small business. Learning to operate like one is the key.

Myth 4: Traditionally published authors don’t make money.

Thomas: Both camps look at the other and assume the other side isn’t profitable. In reality, the highest-earning authors in the world are traditionally published. If you want to make tens of millions of dollars a year, traditional publishing is almost certainly your path.

What is disappearing in traditional publishing is the midlist, the authors making $10,000 to $20,000 a year. A lot of those authors are finding they can do better by moving indie, if they have the skills and the willingness to keep learning. Indie publishing requires constant learning of things like metadata, platform algorithms, and direct marketing. Authors who resist that learning curve will struggle.

Myth 5: You can make a living writing from your heart.

Thomas: You make a living writing for your readers. Writing from the heart is important advice for process, not for positioning. Very few writers are so perfectly in tune with the market that what burns in their soul is also what readers are desperate to buy.

Jim: I’ll push back on that slightly. To write effectively, you have to write from an authentic place. You can’t manufacture passion for a story you don’t care about. But that passion has to be connected to something with universal resonance like a need or a hope that a real audience shares. The goal is to find the overlap between what you’re compelled to write and what readers are hungry to read.

Thomas: Think of it like a restaurant. You want the chef to put heart into the cooking. But you want the chef to make what you ordered, not whatever he felt like making that day.

Myth 6: Don’t read other writers’ work or you’ll end up imitating them.

Jim: Even if you try to write exactly like Hemingway, you won’t. Your own life experience, your sense of rhythm, your instincts will filter the influence. Reading widely and even attempting to imitate writers you admire is one of the best ways to discover your own voice. Many writers have found their voice by trying on several others first.

Thomas: And if you’re writing genre fiction, you have to read in your genre. If you don’t like the books in the genre you’re writing for, your readers who love that genre probably won’t like your book. You need to know what tropes people are enjoying, what they’re looking for, and ultimately how to thrill them. I always get nervous when a consulting client says they don’t like the books in their own genre. It almost always predicts a disconnect with their audience.

Myth 7: Don’t share your story ideas or they’ll be stolen.

Jim: Ideas are plentiful. Execution is rare. Nobody is going to steal your idea and execute it better than you can, because they don’t have your passion for it. More importantly, sharing ideas makes them better. I brainstormed my first novel with a friend who kept reminding me that the idea doesn’t matter nearly as much as how well it’s executed. He was right. And the feedback you get from sharing will almost always improve what you’re working on.

Thomas: A book with a great idea that’s poorly written will not succeed. A book with an ordinary idea that’s exceptionally well-written will. Genre fiction proves this constantly. Space Marines, romance tropes, detective formulas: the idea is the same across hundreds of books. What separates them is craft. This applies to business too. Your business idea is not your competitive advantage. Your ability to execute is.

Myth 8: Posting your book on social media is effective marketing.

Thomas: It’s not, at least not in the way most authors think. Facebook has throttled organic reach so severely that a page with 1,000 followers will see a typical post reach maybe three people. The click rate on Facebook posts is under 10%, so three people seeing a post means roughly zero clicks. Zero clicks means zero sales. No amount of organic posting on Facebook will drive meaningful book sales, no matter how much effort you put in.

There are legitimate uses of social media: paid advertising can work, Facebook Live events have more reach than standard posts, and building a group around shared interests can create community. But posting your Amazon link and hoping it spreads is not a strategy.

Myth 9: You should never write for free.

Jim: Be willing to write for free, strategically and generously. Years ago, I offered to write a marketing series for agent Rachelle Gardner’s blog at no charge. Shortly after, an editor at Writer’s Digest contacted me and asked to profile me in the magazine’s Breaking In section. That came directly from giving my expertise away for free.

Thomas: Your enemy as a writer is not piracy. It’s obscurity. The only authors who have reason to worry about people reading their work for free are the authors everyone has already heard of. If you’re still building an audience, giving your writing away is how you build it.

This applies to speaking too. Zig Ziglar spoke a thousand times for free before anyone paid him. By the end of his career, he was commanding $100,000 for an hour. The free work is the practice that makes the paid work possible. Let demand for your free work grow until it starts to set its own price.

Myth 10: If you blog your book first, no one will buy it.

Thomas: False. Blog readers are usually the first in line to buy the book. They’re already invested in the content and in you. Blogging a book first builds an audience before publication, gets reader feedback that makes the book better, and creates free promotional content that stays online as long as the blog exists. Each chapter that’s still publicly available is a free advertisement for the book.

If you plan to go traditional, you’ll need a clause in your contract acknowledging prior publication, since most contracts require the work to be unpublished. But that clause is worth negotiating for. The advantages of blogging your book first are real. Julie and Julia started as a blog, became a book, became a film. A blog and a book are fundamentally different experiences. They don’t compete any more than a movie and its source novel compete.

Jim: And a well-known blog recently published the opposite advice, claiming you can’t blog your book first and that agents and publishers won’t touch it. That’s simply not true as a blanket statement. Know your contract and negotiate accordingly.

Featured Patron

David Winters, author of Driver Confessional

A Christian ride-share driver lands in hot water with the Russian mob. Antonio and his cop brother must solve a murder before it’s too late.  

Monthly Resource

Sponsor

• Patreon … https://www.patreon.com/novelmarketing
• All patrons who back in the next month get Thomas’ $25 course on how to have an Amazing Author Website.