By 
Today, publishing a book, creating a website, and producing marketing pieces can all happen in a matter of days or even hours. There are companies online that allow you to upload your manuscript and have an eBook for sale in a matter of minutes. Even printed books can be accomplished in a matter of a few days. However, quick and easy does not equate to success when it comes to producing a marketable product, and especially when it comes to selling books.
Producing a book and building a website can be overwhelming at first. There are many companies that will try to convince you that they can make the process easier for you, and in some cases, those companies will also help you produce a quality product. However, companies that use standard templates and approaches are companies best avoided. Here are some examples of how a cookie-cutter approach can be detrimental to an author and the book’s image from the start.
Book covers
Several grant companies or PODs will offer stock cover images and formats to choose from. Using such a template does not mean that your book cover is unattractive, but it does allow for the possibility of it being confused with other book covers. For example, here at Reader Views we received once in a week three different books with different authors and titles, but they all had the same cover, the same format, the same colors, the same image, obviously all from the same publisher. Also, the image was generic and had little to do with the content of the books.
If, as an author, you choose to go the template route instead of hiring a professional cover designer, you’ll have to settle for a cover that may not best represent your book. Bookstores are likely to realize that your book is self-published and are less likely to sell it. Readers may even think they are buying one book and end up buying another if they don’t look closely at the book cover. Similarly, people who read another author’s book with the same cover as yours will dismiss yours when they see it, thinking it’s another book instead of buying it. In short, not having a distinguishable cover that lets readers know what your book is about isn’t going to help your book sales, and most likely hurt them. Even if people buy your book, if the cover is misleading about the subject of the book, they are unlikely to say anything good about your book to their friends, if at all, which means you lose the most powerful marketing tool. : the word. -from-mouth.
websites
Just as you can have cookie cutter covers, you can get cookie cutter websites. Depending on your type of business, using website templates might not be a bad idea when you’re starting out and just learning about websites. Such websites can start with template options and then as your business grows you can hire a website designer to give it some originality. However, doing so after your book has been on the market for six months or a year may not result in brand continuity for your book.
The template options offered by online businesses that sell websites may seem plentiful at first. You can even have 100 template options according to the advertising of the website company, but once you buy the website, you find that those 100 options are divided into categories like education, entertainment, healthcare, transportation, etc. The result is that only entertainment really works as a category for your book, and you only have three template options in that field that are perhaps more representative of dance or theater than books. Not a single template shows a book or anything relevant to the topic of your book.
Here’s an example: I know of an author who ended up with an image of a train on his website. He was writing historical fiction set in the 19th century, and trains were mentioned in the book, but his book was not about trains. However, of all the stencil options, the image of the train on the stencil was the only one that looked remotely historical. After a year of settling for this bad image for his website, he hired a website designer to make his website reflect his product books.
Marketing
There are many companies that create marketing materials for authors. Again, they use templates. You can request bookmarks that will look like bookmarks for thousands of other books with the only options being to change the book cover and information about the book, but the placement of images and text look the same. The posters are the same way. Many of the POD and subsidy presses will provide marketing materials that have this cookie cutter look to them. While some of these marketing pieces are attractive, most of them look generic and will use neutral colors of black and white because they will match any book cover image. Paying someone to design your business cards, bookmarks, postcards, and other marketing pieces so that they look original but are consistent with your brand and image will not only make them look professional, but will also stand out from the crowd. crowd to be remembered. .
following the crowd
Being a cookie cutter author isn’t just limited to products, it can also relate to your way of thinking. You may know other authors who have attended certain book festivals and craft shows or who have followed certain patterns in marketing their books. You listen to them and decide that you should do the same. However, his books are about rock climbing and home improvement. His book is about cooking. Attending the home builders program to sell your book because your home improvement author friend does it isn’t necessarily going to sell your cookbook. You are better off selling books at a food festival or trying to sell them at restaurants.
In short, while well-intentioned people may tell you, “If you want to sell books, you have to…[do this activity, advertise in this publication, etc.],” remember that no two books are the same, and no two authors are the same. What works for another book won’t necessarily work for yours.
Don’t make cookies. Make a cake.
In the end, as an author, you have to do everything you can to be original, to stand out from the crowd, to create a brand for yourself that gets you noticed. That requires an original book cover, a website that looks and feels not only different, but is aligned with the theme of your book, and finding marketing activities and possibilities for your book that are specific to your business goals. book and that appeal to the potential audience for your book.
Don’t blindly follow what any other author has done. Don’t create a pre-made book and picture. When the other bakers show up with their cookie plates, bring a cake to the party, and if you can add a special frosting to it, all the better. Give them a product they will remember.