[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Film Courage: What are the five biggest mistakes authors make when writing their books?
Desireé Duffy, Founder of Black Château, Books That Make You Podcast, and The BookFest® Adventure: Five, wow. Okay.
The five biggest mistakes that an author makes when writing their book, I think we touched on this before but I’ll highlight it again is not having enough editors or the right editors to go through it.
I think expectations and sometimes having unrealistic expectations can hinder them if the author is writing that piece of literary fiction with the idea that they’re going to become a New York Times best-selling author first book out of the gate and become a millionaire.
I don’t know. Oftentimes I say if money is the motivation for an author, very similar to a lot of creatives, if you want to make money then maybe you should go into investment banking.
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Maybe being an author isn’t for you because it’s really hard to make it. So having expectations that are real matters a lot.
Thinking about one’s author brand I’m going to say is number three. Branding for a lot of authors and people in general I think feels a little bit ethereal, a little fluffy and intangible. It’s logo design and color palettes and things I tend to look at as being What’s your core message? They’re going to stand on a mountain and scream something that you know the world is going to hear. What is it? It’s drilling it down. It’s loglining it, elevator pitching it, whatever you want to call it. So that you have a clear defined message to get out there and really focusing on what that brand is.
I think another mistake authors make is…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).
About:
Desireé Duffy is the founder of Black Château, a marketing and public relations agency; Books That Make You, a Webby Award-winning multi-media brand that promotes books and authors through its website, podcast, and radio show; and The BookFest® Adventure, a biannual online event uniting book lovers worldwide.
A passionate advocate for spreading stories, Desireé serves as the executive producer for the Beach-Bound Book Bash, Jingle Books, and the Books That Make You Show. Her memberships and board positions include the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS) and the Writers and Publishers Network (WPN). She holds degrees in English, communication, art, and marketing. Desireé splits her time between Southern California, Oklahoma, and wherever bookish events happen and booklovers gather.
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