4 Mistakes That Make a Self-Published Book Look Unprofessional

This guest article was submitted by Sean Myers! You can find all his books and more over at his author website.

Good morning!

It’s getting better, but we have to admit that independently published, or “self-published,” books have a bad rap. The publishing industry does all that it can to make sure that bad reputation sticks in order to protect its lucrative place in the process but, unfortunately, there are also plenty of examples of self-published books that play right into the negative publicity campaign.

I’m not talking about gaping plot holes or continuity issues or flat characters. Writing issues like these take time for readers to spot.

I’m talking about practical problems that readers notice – consciously or unconsciously – the instant they pick up the book. Problems that make readers wonder if what they’re holding is, for lack of a better word, a legitimate book.

It is precisely because self-published authors don’t suffer the painstaking process that is traditional publishing that these issues can slip through. Unfortunately, every time this happens, all self-published authors suffer from the perception that they are somehow less legitimate than traditionally published authors.
Here are four mistakes that indie authors can avoid to make their books appear just as professional as traditionally published books.

1. Unclear or Blurry Images

Probably the most unprofessional thing that indie authors can do with their book is to release it with images that are not clear. This includes blurry:

• Cover art
• Maps
• Interior artwork
• Text

The cover artwork is a huge marketing opportunity. It should convey the book’s genre and general attitude to prospective buyers so they know what they’re about to get into. It is also something that all readers are going to see. If the cover is blurry, distorted, or off in some other way, readers will see it as a strong message about the quality of the book. Even if the book itself is brilliant, lots of readers won’t give it a chance because the cover has made them doubt that it will be worth the time.

Granted, this is less of a concern when most of your sales are online, as they are bound to be for indie authors. Cover artwork will only be the first thing that readers will see when they buy it in a bookstore. However, it can still really hurt your reputation as an author if a reader buys your book online and is confronted with unprofessional cover artwork when it ships. It is borderline defective, a big letdown, and it might convince the reader to not buy your other work.

The same holds true for other artwork inside the book, but especially the map, if your book has one. A map that is so blurry it is illegible conveys two things to a reader:

• Location is going to be important in this book, and
• The reader can’t get that information.

Finally, while this rarely happens, if the text is too blurry to read, the book is not just unprofessional – it’s worthless.

For these reasons, indie authors absolutely need to get an advance physical copy of their book in their hands before releasing it. Reviewing it at least a week before the release date is essential in case there are any of these issues that need to be fixed.

2. Typos on the Cover or Early in the Book

The villainy of typos cannot be overstated. In spite of our best efforts, some persevere through several rounds of editing and a proofread.

While you’ll still find typos in traditionally published books, that doesn’t mean that indie authors should relax about them: They’re unprofessional no matter where they are.

But they’re especially glaring when they’re early in the book or, heaven forbid, on the cover. This is where a potential reader turns into an actual reader – before they have put in enough time to become invested in the book. A typo on page 294 isn’t going to make a reader wonder whether this mistake is a sign of the book’s quality – they have already experienced enough of it to know better. But a typo right off the bat could very well convince a reader that their time would be better spent elsewhere.

Ideally, your entire book would be without typos. At the very least, though, the cover and the first ten or so pages should be free of them. If you’re not paying a proofreader, at least get someone else to read your first chapter or two. A set of eyes that are not the author’s are far more likely to spot something that you missed.

3. Margins That Are Not Justified

Pick up a novel that has a publishing house’s logo on the spine. Open it to somewhere in the middle. It doesn’t matter where. Look at the pages. Don’t read the words; just look at them.

Do they, for the most part, form a rectangle on the page? Do most of the lines stretch all the way from the left margin to the right margin? Or is the right side all jagged?

The industry norm is to justify the text. This makes it look cleaner, more formal, and more professional. While there are studies that indicate that this makes the text more difficult to read, that’s just how it’s done with novels and the ubiquity of justified text makes anything else appear unprofessional.

Unfortunately, justifying the text leads to other issues that have to be resolved. Inevitably, there will be lines where the words look squashed together or too far apart.

These word spacing problems can be fixed by splitting the last word on a line and wrapping it onto the next one, as you’ve certainly seen numerous times as you’ve read, before.

All of these – and other, related problems – are typesetting issues that flow from justifying the text. There are professional typesetters out there, but you can expect to pay around a dollar for every two pages or so. You can do it yourself, but you’ll need to bring an eye for detail and have software like InDesign, though this program does have monthly plans that are perfect for indie authors who aren’t often at this stage in the publication process.

Justifying the text in your novel creates other issues that have to be dealt with. However, not justifying the text leaves a finished product that is visually less appealing than the books that readers are used to reading. Even if readers do not consciously notice the difference, they will certainly feel it.

4. Nonstandard Formatting

You may not have noticed, but nearly all novels follow the same set of rules for grammar and style – things like how numbers are written, how punctuation is used, and how things are spelled.

The rules that novels use for these issues come from the Chicago Manual of Style. While discreet, variations from Chicago Style can strike the reader as unusual because they’re so used to things being the way they are. Religiously sticking to Chicago Style can be tricky, but it also ensures that your final product is what your readers are expecting.

Two examples of Chicago Style formatting that indie authors should know about have to do with dashes and ellipses (Ellipsees? Elipsi?). These are small details, but not fretting over them can make a book look just a little less than professionally published. Worse, many word processing programs autocorrect ellipses and dashes in ways that violate Chicago Style rules.

An ellipsis is the three periods that trail a meandering thought on the page…

When you’re writing in Microsoft Word and you type an ellipsis, it autocorrects to add space between the periods. However, it does not add as much space as Chicago Style requires. To type out a Chicago Style ellipsis, you have to type your final word and then:

• 1. Hit space.
• 2. Hit period.
• 3. Hit space.
• 4. Hit period.
• 5. Hit space.
• 6. Hit period.
• 7. Hit space.
• 8. Type your next word. This creates a looser spread that looks like this . . . instead of this …

As for dashes, there are three different types:

• Hyphens.
• N dashes.
• M dashes.

Hyphens connect words like brother-in-law. N dashes have the same width as the letter n, while m dashes have the same width as an m. While n and m dashes have largely the same function, they look different: Not only are they different lengths, but the spacing on either side is also different. N dashes have spaces between the dash and the words – like this. M dashes do not—like this.

Chicago Style calls for m dashes. Most people use n dashes, including myself, if you’ve noticed from my usage of n dashes throughout this post. Getting an m dash in Microsoft Word is easy. You:

• 1. Type the first word.
• 2. Hit the “-” key twice.
• 3. Type the next word.
• 4. Hit the space bar.

On default settings, the double hyphen between the words will autocorrect to an m dash. Note that you do not hit the space bar on either side of the dash. Knowing what you now know about ellipses and m dashes, you’ll never not notice them when you read.

Conclusion

Writing a book is tough. Making it look right is also tough. It requires a lot of close attention to detail, and it can seem like you’re just jumping through hoops to reach a set of industry standards that feel arbitrary.

But not going through these steps will leave you with a final product that, at best, looks just a bit off. At worst, it can make readers chuckle at the idea that even books can be defective. This has real repercussions for not just your brand as an author, but the reputation of independently published books, as a whole.

Submitted by guest author, Sean Myers.