MathiasCavanaugh.com

I see a lot of authors (generally those who are self-publishing) dismiss bad reviews of their books.  Google the topic and there is no end to the number of budding authors explaining why they don’t care if someone gives their book a bad review.  Or, even worse, why they don’t even read what other people say about their book.

Well, I say that’s a bad attitude.  I think it is a dangerous stance to take where you choose to shelter yourself from criticism.  This is especially true, I believe, for indy, self-published authors.  I think you SHOULD care about bad reviews.

Look, unless you are Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, and going to sell books no matter what you write, then not caring about criticism only hurts you.  Face it, only once you are at a point in your career where you actually don’t have to worry about the critics, because you’ve proven yourself as someone who knows how to write and sell books, should you even remotely consider no longer worrying about the critics.  Frankly, most my fellow authors out there whom I have seen state they don’t care about their critics are not at this point in their careers yet.  In fact, most of them are FAR, FAR, FAR from that point. (more…)

Selling books is just like selling any other product.  First you have to have something to sell.  Then, you have to convince people to buy it.

One way to convince people to buy your book, or any product for that matter, is to establish trust with your potential readers.  Trust is valuable.  It is so valuable, that it should be guarded as though it were the most precious thing in the world.  Give your potential readers a reason to distrust you, and you may find it hard to ever sell another book.  Or, at least sell enough books to make writing worth your time.

There are some really quick ways to loose trust.  But, in our zest to sell our product, we might not even realize that we are doing them.  That is dangerous.  So let’s look at some of the ways we lose our reader’s trust, shall we?

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True success endures long after the initial hype and flurry of desire has ended. There are so many tricks to getting on best seller lists for a few weeks that writers and their publishers pull off. But, let’s face facts. Most of the books that make these lists are going to be long forgotten in only a few, short years.

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We all love to turn to inspirational advice when we feel like we just cannot go on down our chosen path.  One of the most common such pieces of advice is that quitters never win, and winners never quit.  It sounds real great!  It pumps you up!  It gives you the motivation to plow ahead!

The truth is that inspirational phrases like this are half truths.  Yes, quitters  never win because they give up before they do so.  And yes, winners never have quit because they have won.  But there is an important caveat to this old saying that is missing.  That caveat is that by not quitting doesn’t mean you will win. (more…)

This post sort of goes along with my previous post about whether or not one is really an “award winning author” or not.  Seems to me that a lot of authors, particularly self-published ones, want to make themselves seem more prominent than they really are.  In a way, I understand that.  It is hard being an author.  I know, being one myself.  We would all like recognition.  But, like I said in my post about “award winning authors” who get some token award and then tout it as some grand credential, “the only person you are cheating is yourself,” when that recognition is overhyped. (more…)