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Avoid These 13 Mistakes Beginners Make!

Are you a first-time romance author feeling overwhelmed with everything required to publish your book?

If that story had been published, readers would have skinned me alive!

“One of the biggest mistakes I see new romance authors make is not reading enough books in

It's really the best way to get a feel for what a potential reader expects to find

That's another great and easy way to know what readers are actually looking for and how you

Start with a list of the best romance books of all time to make sure you've covered

Adequate research is a key element of a good story—which might look like looking into best

ProWritingAid has a really cool author comparisons feature that allows you to select your favorite author and

Jennifer Rebecca says she made the mistake of winging the first book

I didn’t have a professional editor, I didn’t plot, I didn’t plan, I just

Fast forward two years and they’ve both been re-edited and are now full-length novels that I’

Luckily, a grammar checker like ProWritingAid can help with this

From the over 20+ reports to its Writer's Resources Library, it has everything you need to get you

It's tough to accept criticism of your work, but it’s how you grow as an author

We all know that your first draft isn't the one that will end up in the hands

It has to go through several rounds of editing and revision first, and the first of those

Our editing tool has over 25 reports all based around suggestions that a real copy-editor would make

Award-winning author Mary Adkins "learned the hard way what a toll not knowing how to revise properly

You can find out how she refined her revision process using self-editing in the video below:

Leaona Luxx learned a tough lesson about editors in the beginning

There are a ton of editors out there and you truly get what you pay for

Evie Graham says she started out “trying to do too much in one story

If you intend to write romance novels as a career, you need to market yourself and find

It’s easy to make marketing mistakes if you’ve never had to promote yourself

If all the other books in your genre have pictures of hot guys on the cover and

Two key places where you can grow your readership are your website and newsletter

Not having either of these was a mistake Angela Nicole made in the beginning

You’ll also want to consider when you plan to release your novel so marketing channels like

“I should have seriously tackled the website, having a newsletter sign-up, and done some work before ever

Most businesses fail in the first three to five years because of cash-flow problems, so it’s

“I just did my taxes yesterday, and I obviously did not budget my spending with this writing

Not setting a budget and sticking to it was a mistake USA Today bestselling author Grahame Claire

International bestselling author Anne Mercier says, “It's always best to be a book ahead

Brittney Olson agrees on the importance of being a book ahead

” She graciously provided a list of all the things she wished she had done differently with her

It provides a great summary of the mistakes above, and I’ve re-framed it as things to

If you do this, then you should make money off your book to fund the next one

As a first-time romance author, I hope you can take these examples and apply them to your