Most of the mistakes on this list are ones I see over and over, from clients, from aspiring authors and occasionally in the mirror.
Some are craft problems. Some are business problems. A few are personality problems disguised as writing problems. What frustrates me is that every one of them is fixable, and they still kill books that deserved to exist.
What Mistakes Kill Books Before They Start?
If you aren’t putting words down, you aren’t writing.Share on X
Not writing. This is the most common writing mistake in existence, and it isn’t a joke. I talk to prospective clients who have been “working on a book” for five years and have written nothing. They have outlines. They have notes. They have a folder on their desktop labeled “Book Project.” They don’t have pages. If you aren’t putting words down, you’re planning to write, and that’s a different activity.
Talking about the book instead of writing it. Closely related to not writing, but sneakier. Some people discuss their book idea so thoroughly with friends, family, and colleagues that the creative energy drains out of it before a single chapter exists. Every conversation where someone says “that sounds amazing” gives you a tiny hit of the satisfaction you should be getting from finishing the actual book. By the time you sit down to write, the idea feels stale because you’ve already performed it dozens of times out loud.
Worrying about the topic instead of starting. I’ve had clients spend months agonizing over whether their book should focus on leadership, innovation, or company culture. The answer is usually: start writing and the book will tell you what it’s about. The topic crystallizes through the writing process. Waiting for the perfect concept is another form of not writing.
Watch: 9 Mistakes You're Probably Making in the First 10 Pages, Alyssa Matesic
What Mistakes Wreck Manuscripts?
Not editing enough. First drafts are supposed to be rough. That’s what a first draft is for. The problem is when someone treats a first draft as a final draft, sends it out, and wonders why readers are confused. Every manuscript needs at least one full revision pass by the author and then a professional editor. Skipping this step is how typos end up on the back cover.
Editing too much. The opposite problem is equally destructive. I’ve seen writers revise their opening chapter forty times without ever writing chapter two. At some point, revision becomes avoidance. If you have rewritten the same paragraph more than five times, move on. Come back to it after the rest of the manuscript exists. The context of the full book will tell you whether that paragraph works better than staring at it in isolation ever will.
Every mistake costs readers. The dream ending costs the rest. Figures invented.
Not fact-checking. This one is personal for me because I clean up the results. I’ve reviewed hundreds of articles produced by AI tools, and the most common problem is fabricated facts presented with absolute confidence. Invented statistics, fake quotes attributed to real people, made-up case studies with specific dollar amounts that never existed. If you can’t verify it, don’t publish it. This applies to AI-generated content and to human memory. That’s also unreliable.
In May 2025, the Chicago Sun-Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a syndicated summer insert called “Heat Index” with a reading list of 15 books.
According to CBS News, 10 of them didn’t exist. The list credited Isabel Allende with a novel called “Tidewater Dreams,” Andy Weir with “The Last Algorithm” and Min Jin Lee with “Nightshade Market.” Lee posted that she had not written and would not be writing a novel by that name.
The freelancer behind the list, Marco Buscaglia, told 404 Media he wrote the piece using AI and failed to fact-check it. King Features, the syndicate that distributed the section, ended his contract. The Sun-Times apologized and pulled the section from its digital edition.
This one is inexcusable, because every one of those fake titles would have taken under a minute to check. The software made things up the way it always does, and the human skipped the one job that was his.
Writing in someone else’s voice. New writers often imitate the style of whoever they admire. The result reads like a tribute act: recognizable but hollow. Your voice is your voice. It doesn’t sound like Malcolm Gladwell or Brené Brown or whoever you read last week. Finding it requires writing enough of your own material that your natural patterns emerge. Trying to sound like someone else is a shortcut that leads nowhere.
What mistakes sabotage a writing career?
The software made things up the way it always does, and the human skipped the one job that was his.
Plagiarizing. I shouldn’t have to say this, but I do. Don’t copy other people’s work. Don’t paste paragraphs from articles into your manuscript and change a few words. Don’t assume that something you found online is free to use because it appeared on a blog. Plagiarism is unethical, and it’s career-ending if someone catches it, and in the age of search engines, someone will catch it.
Not handling copyright infringement. On the other side, when someone steals your work, you need to address it. I’ve had books stolen and resold under someone else’s name. It happens, and chasing every instance is like playing whack-a-mole. But ignoring it entirely sends the message that your work is free for the taking. At minimum, document it and send a professional takedown request.
Not treating writing as a business. If you’re writing for publication, you’re running a business. Track your expenses. Keep records of submissions, contracts, and correspondence. Understand your tax obligations. Know what your rights are before you sign a contract. The romantic image of the starving artist who can’t be bothered with business details is a great way to get exploited by people who understand contracts better than you do.
Predatory publishers and shady contract clauses feed on writers who think business is beneath them, and I have no sympathy for the companies that do it. The writer who signs away their rights without reading the contract ends up paying twice, once up front and again when the book is stuck somewhere they can’t get it back from.
Not keeping records. Related to the business point, but specific enough to deserve its own entry. I keep detailed records of every client project, including emails, contracts, draft versions and revision notes. When a disagreement arises six months into a project, the person with documentation has the upper hand. The person relying on memory has a problem.
Seeking constant validation. Asking everyone you know whether your writing is “okay” before you’ve finished it is a trap. Most people will tell you it’s great because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. The few who give honest feedback will demoralize you at a stage when the work isn’t ready for it anyway. Write the full draft first, then show it to people whose opinions are informed and useful. Your neighbor who reads two books a year isn’t your target audience for manuscript feedback.
My take
Contracts are where a lot of writing careers get hurt, and too many writers sign them unread. Read every one, know your rights, and keep records of every draft and email. Finish the full draft before you ask anyone for feedback. Your neighbor who reads two books a year isn’t the reader to ask. Find readers who know your genre and can tell you what’s wrong, and run your writing as the business it is.
What writing mistakes waste the most time?
From Author Talks
Bonnie Dillabough wanted to write from sixteen and published her first book two weeks before turning sixty-four, after Mercedes Lackey told her to put her butt in the chair. She told the story on Author Talks.
Giving in to writer’s block. Writer’s block is the feeling of not knowing what to write next, and the solution is to write anyway. Write badly. Write about why you’re stuck. Write the scene you’re avoiding out of order. The block breaks when you stop treating it as an obstacle and start treating it as a normal part of the process that you push through with effort instead of waiting for inspiration.
Asking too many writers for advice. Writing advice is infinite, contradictory, and mostly useless without context. Stephen King says one thing. Anne Lamott says another. The writer at your local workshop says something completely different. At some point, you have to stop collecting advice and start writing based on what you’ve already learned. The writers you admire became good by writing.
Not using query letters. If you want to be published traditionally, you need to pitch your work. A query letter is how you do that. Skipping this step because it feels uncomfortable or salesy means your manuscript sits on your hard drive instead of on an editor’s desk. The query letter is the door.
Not proofreading. Different from not editing. Editing is structural: does the argument hold together, does the chapter flow, does the voice stay consistent. Proofreading is mechanical: typos, missing words, repeated sentences, formatting errors. Both are necessary. Skipping proofreading is how “public affairs” becomes something very different due to a missing letter.
Skipping research. I put this last because it connects to everything above. Research isn’t a nonfiction-only discipline. Fiction writers who skip research produce worlds that don’t hold together. Memoir writers who skip research produce timelines that contradict public records. Business book writers who skip research produce advice that’s outdated or wrong. The time you invest in research shows up on every page as credibility. The time you skip shows up as errors your readers will find.
Every writer makes these mistakes, and most of us have made several of them at the same time. I don’t care about perfection. What I have no use for is watching a good book die in a folder on somebody’s desktop because its author was waiting, polishing chapter one for the fortieth time or collecting one more opinion. Recognize the pattern, fix it and get back to the page while the idea still matters to you.
| Mistake | What to do instead |
|---|---|
| Not writing | Put words down; outlines and notes are planning, not writing |
| Talking about the book | Save the energy for the page instead of performing the idea out loud |
| Worrying about the topic | Start writing; the topic crystallizes through the process |
| Not editing enough | Do a full author revision pass, then hire a professional editor |
| Editing too much | After five rewrites of a paragraph, move on and come back later |
| Not fact-checking | If you can’t verify it, don’t publish it, AI output and memory alike |
| Plagiarizing | Never copy or lightly reword other people’s work |
| Ignoring the business side | Track expenses, keep records, know your rights before signing |
| Seeking constant validation | Finish the full draft, then show it to informed readers |
Schedule a free consultation if you’re working on a book and want to avoid the mistakes that derail projects before they reach publication.
Frequently Asked Questions
- “Summer reading list” with AI-generated titles of books that don’t exist runs in Chicago Sun-Times, CBS News Chicago
- Newspaper fires writer who used AI to create a summer reading list riddled with fake books, Fortune
- You won’t find these on the shelf: Newspapers print an AI-generated reading list with fake books, Nieman Lab
From the review library: Writing In A Nutshell.
From the review library: The Writers Digest Writing Clinic.
