5 Marketing Mistakes Writers Should Avoid (I’ve Made Them All!)

I know what the identity crisis, the fear of publicity, and the lack of expertise feels like when you’re shooting in the dark — because I’ve been there. I left corporate publishing when I was in my twenties, launched my own agency, and got so busy growing my business that I stopped doing the thing that matters most: creating consistent value for the writers I felt called to serve.

This post is written primarily for nonfiction writers, consultants, and coaches — those building expertise-driven businesses alongside a body of ideas that may one day become a book.

And it’s important to say this upfront: platform building is not the same thing as business building. Revenue, clients, and operations are one engine; visibility, trust, and audience development are another. They overlap — but they don’t automatically grow at the same pace.

I made platform mistakes — big ones — and if you’re a writer or an entrepreneur trying to grow your audience without feeling lost in the noise, I want you to learn from mine. Here are five of the biggest, and how you can avoid them.

1. I Let Client Work Eclipse Consistent Thought Leadership

In the early days after founding Lucinda Literary, I held tight to my great love of writing. I belabored my website, built a newsletter, and grew my Twitter following to over 4,000, which at the time was a big number. But as I amassed more and more clients, I stopped prioritizing content creation: a necessity in terms of branding and authorship, and distinguishing yourself in a crowded field.

Worse, I neglected the very goal I’d had in starting Lucinda Literary: not simply to support the careers of an elite group of writers, but to support the careers of writers at large.

Today, I’m back. But the lesson to writers and aspiring authors is this: You need to carve out the time to share value—consistently—even as your day-to-day business grows. Telling an agent or a publisher you’ll do it later but haven’t had the time simply won’t work.

2. I Lost Track of the True Value as the Pace of Building My Business Sped Up

You need to give away value for free before you ask your audience to pay you anything. This isn’t charity. It’s strategy.

For at least 3–6 months, your content should be rich, helpful, and generously offered before you launch any paid services or products—especially a book. That value builds trust, which is the only currency that converts online.

I failed early at this and failed hard. Many of the live courses I spent hours and hours creating pulled in minimal numbers. I lost time and money.

In this process of failing, I had to learn a crucial lesson: Once you try to sell high, it’s hard to go back to a warm-up act. You can’t discount what you know is exclusive and high-value.

If I could go back, I’d focus on free workshops, podcast interviews, case studies, and behind-the-scenes peeks at my process. Think of your free content like your audition. The book—or the course, or coaching—is the headline act.

3. I Spread Myself Thin Across Too Many Channels

I chased every platform, every “expert” social media manager, every trending tool. It left me exhausted and invisible.

I dated all the recommended contractors, expecting them to “build my brand” without giving them the voice or the strategy. Delegation doesn’t work without setting clear objectives and providing understanding. I hadn’t clarified what I would or wouldn’t say publicly, what visual style matched my tone, what causes mattered to me. I was everywhere and nowhere.

Once I stopped to breathe, I asked myself: Where do I actually like showing up?

For me, that meant:

• Podcasts (because I love interviewing and being interviewed)
• LinkedIn (because I thrive on conversations with business thinkers)
• Live speaking events (because teaching and connecting with large audiences lights me up)

Pick 2–3 channels that feel natural to you and go deep. Create the systems, reinvent the content that has already proven to be popular. Don’t look at every channel as a toy in a toy store, distracting you from the places where your core audience and talents live.
And if you do outsource, ensure your voice is unmistakable even when someone else is holding the pen.

4. I Admired Role Models — But Didn’t Study Their Strategy

We all have role models—those authors or thought leaders who seem to do it just right. But I didn’t reverse-engineer their strategies. I admired them without analyzing them. Like many writers, this was probably driven by fear of comparison—that I’d never be as good as they were. “Not having enough time” became my excuse.

If someone has built an audience you’d love to emulate, study the moves behind the magic:

• What content are they posting—how often? At particular times?
• What topics are getting the most engagement—are they posed as statements, questions, visuals?
• What tone and language is hitting? Pay attention even to how many words, or the length of their reels, the room, and the lighting.
• Are they leveraging author communities, media features, or a specific format like carousels or reels?

Your job isn’t to copy them—it’s to pattern-recognize. Then give it your unique twist. Don’t go at content creation like an amateur, as I did.

5. I Built Offers Before I Built Conversation

This one still stings. I assumed I knew what my audience wanted—I was an agent! I’d been a writer just like them, and deep down, I’d always wanted a book of my own. But in making those assumptions, I didn’t ask what strikes me now as the obvious questions:

• What are you struggling with right now?
• What do you wish someone in publishing would finally explain clearly?
• What’s missing from the other experts you follow?

There are so many easy ways to collect this gold:

• Add a quick Google Form to your next newsletter
• Create a one-question Instagram Story poll
• Drop a “what would you love to know more about?” on LinkedIn
• Host a free live Q&A and take notes on the questions that keep coming up

Surveying your audience makes them feel seen. Better yet, it tells you what content to create next—and what product to build later.

Final Takeaway: If You Want to Get Published?
Be Prepared to Do the Research and Spend the Time

Here’s what I want every writer building a “platform” to hear:

If you’re working toward building a large audience that makes it an easier ‘yes’ for the agent of your dreams, you need a value-first approach. Be prepared to build it over time, upon a clear point of view, with a specific audience in mind––and the knowledge of what they are seeking uniquely from you. Usually the value is the reason you started the business, but something you lost sight of, while focused on sales and management. 

You are ripe for a book deal when you are at the peak of your business, once it’s already built––in my experience of shepherding authors toward book deals, that tends to be a decade in.

The publishing game isn’t just about platform. It’s about a distinctive idea, an audience for it, and expert guidance and access. 

There are strong ways to publish that aren’t traditional, and they don’t require a vibrant business or a large social media platform. But having an engaged audience that really cares about you, because you care about them, is vital to any book’s success.

If you would like a quick assessment of your platform gaps, idea strength, and next best steps toward publication, book a complimentary strategy session with me.

Book a strategy session with Lucinda →