To save herself the hassle of mixing a pen name with her real name, publishing strategist Wiebke Tasch opened two Amazon accounts — a move that quietly violated Amazon's rules. One morning she woke up to an email saying both accounts were gone, her bestselling book deleted, and her income wiped out just after she had quit her job. She shares how that brutal lesson became the foundation of her company, and what every author should know about not building a business on a platform you don't control.
Listen:
Check out all episodes on the My Favorite Mistake main page.
My guest for Episode #356 of the My Favorite Mistake podcast is Wiebke Tasch, a publishing strategist and founder of Digital Authors. She has helped nonfiction authors across the US and Europe turn their expertise into professionally published, market-ready books. Her approach treats publishing as a system, where positioning, structure, and design matter as much as the writing itself.
Wiebke's favorite mistake was opening two separate Amazon accounts — one for a pen name she used for a self-help book she was initially embarrassed about, and one under her real name. The book became a bestseller, earning enough that she quit her PR job to write and publish full time. Then an automated email arrived: she had violated Amazon's terms, and both accounts and all her books were deleted with no warning, no explanation, and no human to appeal to. The rule she had broken, having more than one account, struck her as an innocent mistake that any person reviewing it would have forgiven. Amazon did not.
The lost income forced a scramble, but a YouTube interview that aired the same week brought a wave of people asking how she had published on her own. Teaching them became a side gig, and the side gig became Digital Authors. The hard lesson stuck: do not build your livelihood on a platform you do not control. Today she helps authors publish through a wide network of bookstores rather than Amazon alone, and she designs every book to bring readers back into the author's own community.
From there the conversation gets practical. Wiebke breaks down why book structure is a strategic decision that should start with market analysis rather than a personal wish list, why the first five days after launch shape an Amazon book's entire future, and how to spot the predatory “buy reviews” emails that prey on anxious authors. She is also candid about AI: useful for proofreading and getting unstuck, but a fast track to forgettable, same-sounding books when it replaces an author's own voice and stories.
It is a useful listen for any expert thinking about a book, and a reminder that the systems around your work deserve as much attention as the work itself.
Themes and Questions:
- How opening two Amazon accounts, one for a pen name and one for her real name, got a bestselling book and an entire income deleted overnight
- Why building your livelihood on a single platform you do not control is a serious risk, illustrated by both her story and a jewelry designer who lost everything when a TV shopping channel dropped her
- How to bring readers back into your own community (email list, Facebook group, landing page) instead of leaving them inside someone else's algorithm
- Why book structure is a strategic decision that should start with market demand and reader pain points, not the author's personal wish list
- How the first five days after launch act as a blueprint that shapes an Amazon book's visibility for its entire life
- Why starting marketing before you publish, and sticking with one strategy, beats constantly changing your approach
- The predatory “buy reviews” emails authors receive, why they prey on fear, and why you should ignore them
- Where AI genuinely helps an author (proofreading, getting unstuck) versus where over-reliance produces forgettable, same-sounding books
- Why readers want real human stories and experience, and how to keep your own voice while using AI as support
- How do you create a culture or a system where an honest mistake gets a second chance instead of an automated ban?
Scroll down to find:
- Video version of the episode
- How to subscribe
- Quotes
- Full transcript
Find Wiebke on social media:
Watch the Episode:
Memorable Moments from the Conversation:
Click on an image for a larger view
Subscribe, Follow, Support, Rate, and Review!
Please follow, rate, and review via Apple Podcasts, Podchaser, or your favorite app—that helps others find this content, and you'll be sure to get future episodes as they are released.
Don't miss an episode! You can sign up to receive new episodes via email.
This podcast is part of the Lean Communicators network.
Other Ways to Subscribe or Follow — Apps & Email
Automated Transcript (May Contain Mistakes)
Introducing Wiebke Tasch and Digital Authors
Mark Graban: Hi, welcome to My Favorite Mistake. I'm your host, Mark Graban. Our guest today is Wiebke Tasch. She is a publishing strategist and founder of Digital Authors. She's helped nonfiction authors across the US and Europe turn their expertise into professionally published, market-ready books. Her approach treats publishing as a system, where positioning, structure, and design matter as much as the writing itself.
As an author, I'm excited to have a chance to talk about that here in the episode. But first off, Wiebke, welcome to the show. How are you?
Wiebke Tasch: Thank you so much for having me. I'm very good. I'm very excited to be here.
Mark Graban: Before we talk about the changing landscape of writing and publishing books, including the impact of AI and other technologies — we'll get into that later on — first things first, the question we always ask and talk about first on the show. Wiebke, what's your favorite mistake?
The Favorite Mistake: Two Amazon Accounts
Wiebke Tasch: My favorite mistake is actually the biggest mistake I made in publishing, and it ended up being a good thing, because without this mistake, I never would have my company today. I would have gone a totally different life path.
So, eight years ago — I'm from Germany, I'm from Berlin — I finished my master's degree at the Bauhaus University, which was fantastic, and after this I went traveling, which you do as a German, usually. You have a gap year. I went traveling, stayed a few months in the US, then had a work and holiday visa in Canada, so overall it was almost two years in North America. I came back to Germany, to Berlin, and I just knew, okay, I don't want to do this nine-to-five thing in Germany.
I had just turned 30, and I thought, okay, let me research how I can make money online, and I saw writing. I thought, “Oh yeah, I love writing.” So I started writing a book in German, and I had zero expectation because I just loved writing. I wrote a book within three months and uploaded it to Amazon. I wrote it under a pen name because it was kind of a self-help book for women, and I was super embarrassed about it, so I didn't want anyone to know. I published it under a pen name and put some money into it after a few months — into editing and the cover design.
Somehow the sales increased and it really became a thing. After 18 months I was actually a bestseller. It was amazing. I started also writing under my own name. So my thinking back then was, okay, I'm publishing under a pen name, which means I open one account on Amazon for my pen name. And then I publish under my civil name, Wiebke Tasch, so I need to open another account on Amazon to publish my books under my normal name — which I did. I played around a little bit with self-publishing, and I had two accounts, and this was okay for about 18 months.
I made, I think, between 800 and 1,200 euros per month, which I could live really comfortably on. So I decided, okay, I'm going to quit my job. Back then I worked in a PR agency, and I didn't like that, so I just thought, “Yeah, I'm going to go all in on writing and publishing, and maybe move to Thailand.”
The Email From Amazon
Wiebke Tasch: One morning I woke up, got an email from Amazon, and this email was very hard to read, I can tell you. It said something like, “This is against our guidelines.” They didn't say the reason. They just said, “We're going to delete your books,” and everything was gone.
I think I was in shock. I didn't really understand what was happening. Before this, I checked every day on my Amazon to see the book inquiries and more sales coming in. I was kind of addicted to checking it.
Mark Graban: Right. Guilty. I have it too.
Wiebke Tasch: Yeah. So I started researching what I did wrong, and I tried to contact Amazon in Seattle, Amazon in Germany, in Munich. Nobody answered me. It was just, “Yeah, you made a mistake. Done.”
Mark Graban: And all they said was you violated a policy?
Wiebke Tasch: Yeah. “You violated our terms and conditions.” And I'm thinking, what did I do? I don't understand. So I figured out at the end that it's not allowed for one person to have two accounts. Even if you write under your own name and under your pen name, you need to have one account. It's not allowed to have two accounts. And I had two accounts and was always looking in and out daily on two accounts. They thought I was spam, I don't know.
This was really hard. To this day, I can't understand why Amazon doesn't have a person behind this who understands this is obviously a very innocent mistake. I'm not spam. I didn't do it on purpose, and I wouldn't violate the terms and conditions.
Mark Graban: It makes me wonder what you could do wrong with two accounts, other than, I don't know, user A writes a review for user B and vice versa. I don't know what advantage Amazon would think you had with two accounts.
Wiebke Tasch: It doesn't make sense, right? And when a person in a customer service department at Amazon sees it, I would think they'd say, “Oh yeah, it's an innocent mistake. Let's open her account again,” or ask, “Can you please just put everything in one account?” Give a second chance. But this was just nope, you're out. And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, because I made good money. I just quit my job.
The funny thing is, just a week before, I'd had my first YouTube interview about marketing. Then the next week it came out and everybody was asking, “Oh, that's so great.” And I had only told one friend. It was so hard. I had three months to figure something out, because Amazon always pays out three months later.
Mark Graban: So they didn't say, “We're going to stop paying you.” They just removed the books from being on sale.
Wiebke Tasch: Yeah. But my income was gone. Then I tried to publish the book under a different distributor. I was working day and night to find a way to get my income back and get the momentum back. But to be honest, I never did. I tried so many different ways without using Amazon, but I could not get those books up and selling.
And because this book was really good and I made a lot of money, and it increased constantly, another person copied me and almost stole the exact title. Amazon deleted my book, and now — just talking about it — maybe this was someone… I don't know, it's all a conspiracy. But my book was gone, and there was a similar book now with almost my title, same subject.
Today, looking back, it was actually a good thing. In those three months, the interview came out, and people came to me and asked, “This is amazing. You published your own book. You didn't need a publisher. How did you do it?” So I started teaching those people how I did it — the format, what's important, editing, how to hire an editor, keywords, cover design, the upload. It became my side gig to get some income in.
Why You Can't Build a Business on a Platform You Don't Control
Mark Graban: I imagine a large part of what you coach people on is to avoid an Amazon problem, because there are so many rules. I'm certainly not an expert on the rules, but technically there are rules like, if you're a published author, you're not supposed to write reviews or rate other people's books. If you know the person who wrote the book, you're not supposed to write a rating or a review. And honestly, those rules get violated all the time, because within professional circles people don't know about the rules, and they're either writing a review to help a friend or they legitimately liked the book. If Amazon's approach is one strike and you're out, we all need to be really careful not to violate any of the rules.
Wiebke Tasch: Yeah, Amazon is so harsh. And I get it — there are a lot of black sheep out there using the system, uploading low-quality content, all those diaries and journals and stuff. And now with AI, it's even more. However, regarding the rule about reviews, actually, if you buy the book, you can leave a review even if you've also published.
Mark Graban: Okay. Well, that's why everyone should go back and look at the rules themselves. My advice to other authors would be to go look at those rules. There's a long list, and the expression in the US is, “Ignorance of the law is not a defense.”
Wiebke Tasch: It's the same in Germany.
Mark Graban: We may all break a law every day not knowing about it. As authors, Amazon is so dominant, we have to be super careful. Or is part of your advice to make sure you're trying to sell books through your own website, through printer and distributor options that aren't only Amazon?
Wiebke Tasch: Yeah. Just one more important thing about reviews, because yesterday a client of mine visited me and we had a cup of tea and talked about her book, and she showed me an email. A lot of published authors get these emails saying, “Hey, I saw your book on Amazon,” and playing a little bit with fear: “Your position is wrong. The keyword's not ranking. Amazon really needs reviews. If you don't have enough reviews, or you have under 10, Amazon is ignoring you” — which is not true. Amazon doesn't care about reviews. It just cares about traffic.
Mark Graban: Sales.
Wiebke Tasch: Yes. And then they say, “We offer a service — you can buy some reviews from us.” Never do this.
Mark Graban: Right. On the surface that sounds unethical, and secondly, it violates Amazon's rules.
Wiebke Tasch: Yeah. But those emails look so good — long emails saying, “Oh, we love your book, it's so great, we believe in it,” and playing a little bit with fear. If you don't really understand the SEO research behind it, you believe it, because you don't have the data. So yesterday I went with her, suggested some keywords, and said, “Okay, let's open my software.” We went over it, and all the keywords were terrible. Very bad. No traffic behind it, no demand, competition very high. It's just spam. So I would encourage every published author who gets these emails to just ignore them, honestly.
Mark Graban: It's frustrating to hear your story, or others who feel they were wronged by Amazon, when you talk about low-content books. There's this category of books that have a lot of blank pages — okay, you buy this and you're supposed to write things. But what I'd call low-quality content, in my professional circles, is a lot of copycat books that have a title very similar to a bestselling book, a name borrowing the last name of somebody very well known but with a different first name. You do some Googling or look on LinkedIn, and clearly this is not a real person.
Now, that's different than a pen name over a sensitive topic or for privacy reasons. This seems like people just trying to take advantage of somebody else's name or confusion. I've looked at some of these books, and they read like — and this was even before AI was common, five or six years ago — you'd taken an English book, translated it to German automatically, then to Turkish, then back to English. The words were all English, but it's a very low-quality book, and they have a suspicious number of five-star reviews all within the same two- or three-day window. It seems obviously like a poor-quality book, but I guess if it sells, Amazon is okay with it. That frustrates me.
Wiebke Tasch: This is so true. I don't really get it. When this happened to me, I started researching who makes the decision — who decides, okay, this book is spam and this is not. This was around 2019. What I found out is that Amazon outsources their customer service to countries like Pakistan or India. The people who approve something like this — when someone says, “Hey, my books are deleted, my account is blocked, why? Can you please look behind this?” — it ends up on the desk of someone there, and they actually get a fine when they approve it. They get less money when they approve it.
There's a whole profession around this in the United States. It happens a lot with Amazon sellers, not just authors on KDP. There are lawyers who specialize only in helping Amazon sellers whose accounts Amazon refuses to reopen, even though they did nothing wrong. This whole system is kind of toxic. And I also don't understand why some books that are clearly low-content, low-quality spam — where someone just takes advantage of someone else's work, name, and content — stay open, and someone like me who made an innocent mistake gets no second chance. I don't get it.
Mark Graban: Amazon is so big and dominant in markets, not just books and publishing. Even as a customer of Amazon's retail operations in the US, if there's a problem, it's very difficult to find live human support. You can find a phone number, but they certainly don't make it easy to call. They want to push you toward a live chat, and a lot of that is probably AI chat here in 2026, like a lot of companies.
I think the key lesson learned is to not be so tied to a platform that you don't control. I had a guest on this show maybe four years ago who was a jewelry designer with very popular products, but 100 percent of her sales were through one of the TV shopping channels. When they stopped their partnership with her, she had zero access to any customer information or data. She had to start from the beginning just to figure out how to reach her loyal customers — how to even let them know she was still in business and still had jewelry to sell. A similar cautionary tale, I think.
Wiebke Tasch: Yeah. This is the reason that today, when I help people publish books — we specialize in nonfiction — at the end of the book and in the beginning, we invite readers to join the author's community, to make sure you really connect. And we don't only publish on Amazon, because, lesson learned. We have a network of 50,000 online bookstores and independent bookstores in the US, Europe, Australia, New Zealand. We always try to bring the reader back to the author, to build a community, which is super important. I always encourage authors, when you publish a book, put your email in, maybe even create something like a Facebook group, and gather those people together.
Has Amazon's Customer Service Improved?
Mark Graban: Is there data, or even anecdotally, do you know how many authors end up in a similar situation to yours each year? Is that increasing? Do you get an increasing number of authors reaching out for help? Because the first thing I'd do if this happened to me is Google what to do, and I'm sure your website would come up, especially for German web searches.
Wiebke Tasch: It's a good question. When this happened to me, I started researching and Googling, and I found some blog articles from authors this had happened to. But it's never happened to the authors I've worked with. I've never heard it personally in the eight years I've been doing this. I love this question, because I'm wondering too — has it increased or decreased? I feel like Amazon's customer service got better since the pandemic. I feel there are better people behind it now, because more people started publishing through Amazon, especially in 2020. When something happened with the authors I work with and we worked with the customer service department, it was actually good — nothing out of the ordinary. So I think it's improved.
Mark Graban: Especially around the pen name situation, it seems like there are different ways they could communicate that you can publish in the same account under different names. Or if they detect somebody has violated that rule, reach out and let them correct it — even initially, while the book is being set up, if they're checking IP addresses or other ways to identify it.
I did a quick Google search. Google's AI here says the most common reasons for getting banned include intellectual property infringement, and Kindle Unlimited violations — if you're supposed to have an exclusive ebook because they give you special benefits for that, and they catch you selling it elsewhere. That's a rule I could see people violating out of ignorance, or thinking they could get away with it. It does list, unfortunately, your situation, Wiebke: multiple KDP accounts. And then things like paying for reviews, misleading content. I see a lot of people putting out these garbage summaries of a very popular book, which takes advantage of somebody's intellectual property, name, and reputation. There are rules about abusing keywords, keyword stuffing, not using another author's name as a keyword. Some of those things sound obviously unethical, or like somebody trying too hard to game the system. But I fail to see what the harm was in a situation like yours.
Wiebke Tasch: Yeah. Like I said, I just wish there were a human behind it who sent an email like, “Hey, we noticed this. Can you explain?” Then I bet half or more than half of people who accidentally violated the rules would say, “Oh my gosh, I didn't know. I'm going to do better.” Because it also benefits Amazon when a book is selling well and increasing sales — they're getting money from it too.
Mark Graban: Think of an example: Netflix gives people a warning if they think you're sharing your password and someone in another location is watching at the same time as you. Netflix doesn't want to ban the customer — they want to turn one customer into two. So they give some warnings and an opportunity, and I think they have the technical ability to block some streams. But it doesn't seem like banning you was a smart decision for Amazon's revenue.
Wiebke Tasch: When they blocked my account so I couldn't publish books anymore, I was still allowed to shop on Amazon. Which I found… I'm not shopping on Amazon anymore. Come on.
Where AI Helps Authors and Where It Hurts
Mark Graban: Let's talk about some of these other issues related to new technologies and things that go well, or mistakes that authors might make. Are there common mistakes you see these days when authors are using AI tools to write, assist, or edit? What are some bad practices that end up hurting an author, even if it doesn't get you banned from Amazon?
Wiebke Tasch: The writing, especially with ChatGPT. Oh my God, I can't even begin to explain how much of the same wording I see. A month or so ago, it happened in one week. I got a manuscript from an author, went over it, and I already saw — okay, this is too much ChatGPT, because it's always the same sentence structure. “It's not this, it's that,” et cetera.
Mark Graban: Let's get into that. There are certain phrases that ChatGPT in particular loves to use.
Wiebke Tasch: Yeah. And it's the whole thing — it's not a chapter anymore, it's just one sentence after another. It's kind of like a social media post, which is horrible for the layout, because it doesn't look good anymore. It's the same wording, and it's missing something. You can see it. I really feel that if people rely too much on ChatGPT and Claude and whatnot, people get tired of it very fast, and probably start making fun of it. “Oh, it's again a book like this, the same wording.” So this is very crucial. If you really invest money in publishing a book — if you hire a service like ours with editing and design — then also make sure your book is written by you and not AI.
You can use AI as a wonderful tool, for proofreading and editing and getting some ideas when you're stuck, but use your own voice, your own knowledge. Sometimes your brain goes very fast and your hands can't type everything, so just record yourself, put it into ChatGPT, and say, “Proofread it. Don't change the sentences I just said, just proofread it.” Gather ideas like that. But don't use it as your writing tool. Use it as support for your writing.
Mark Graban: Asking… there have been tools for a while. The simplest one, going back to Microsoft Word, was spell check, which became grammar check, which now becomes the AI grammar tools that can even detect, hey, you've used the wrong version of a word — you spelled it correctly, but it's the wrong word. Things like that probably lead to a better-quality product. We'd all find it easier to read something that doesn't have huge punctuation issues, or something that would be hard even for a professional copy editor to catch. So it sounds like there are ways of using AI as an extension of a reasonably accepted method. I don't think anyone ever attacked authors for using spell check.
Wiebke Tasch: Yeah, that's true. And we are humans. There's an AI hype, and it's exciting because AI can help us with a lot of things, but we are still human, and we want to hear human stories. We want to read real human experience — some pitfalls, some stories about an author who's stuck somewhere and how they got out of there. We just want to hear the pure human experience. AI can't replace that. AI can help bring some structure to it, but it can never replace our human voice.
Everyone who's going to write a book, please remember this: humans want to read human stories. Stories are what stick with readers. So always use your own experience. Trust yourself first. And don't listen too much to AI, because sometimes ChatGPT's advice is just too general. It's the average of the average. So always listen to yourself.
I have one very good writing tip. In the morning when you get up, block one hour of your time. Make yourself a coffee, use the bathroom, and just go to your desk and start writing. Do this every morning for one hour. Do not check your emails. No phone, no television. Just be with yourself and your thoughts. Your thoughts in the morning are still fresh, your brain is clear, so just go for it and write your story. And don't use AI. Just block out this one hour — you and the paper, or your computer — and do nothing else. Believe me, this is so good, and then your book is going to be fantastic.
Mark Graban: And maybe turn off your Wi-Fi if you need to. Just so you're not interrupted or tempted to go search or Google something, or procrastinate — all the things that get an author distracted or slow you down.
Book Structure as a Strategic Decision
Mark Graban: When you talk about the writing process and mistakes we can avoid, you talk about the structure of a book as a strategic decision. I'd be curious to hear how that goes beyond just sitting down and writing an outline.
Wiebke Tasch: With every author I work with, we do a free market analysis for everyone who's interested, because we check what the market demand is. Are people really searching for this topic? Are there enough people buying it, so there's some profit behind it and it's worth it? And is the competition low enough that a first-time author has enough space to occupy this niche?
I just did a market analysis yesterday. Usually I look at it from seven angles; yesterday I did 10. We always look at what people are searching for, what the pain point is, what their concern is, and how the author can solve it. Then, using that market analysis and that data, we write an outline from there.
Mark Graban: What I hear you saying is, instead of thinking, “Here's what I want to write,” it's helpful to think, “What is the reader looking for, and how is this going to benefit the reader?”
Wiebke Tasch: A hundred percent. This is such an important turning point. Not just, “What is important to me,” but, “What can I offer to people? How can I help them?” And check if there's really demand. Are people really searching for this topic? And be honest with yourself: do I have the knowledge, and can I serve this or not? That's also important.
Marketing a Book: Start Before You Publish
Mark Graban: What are some of the marketing mistakes, or the marketing practices, an author should use? There are so many books, so much competition. There are a lot of books with great content that just don't find the market they could. What are some of your recommendations around not just writing a helpful book, but getting it out there and having it found?
Wiebke Tasch: There are a few things. First of all, start marketing before you publish. Put some marketing into it, some traffic, before you publish. I love going on a podcast tour. This is the best marketing approach, to talk about your book.
Mark Graban: Sorry to interrupt. I worked with a PR firm some years ago that specialized in authors, and they said people want to go on television — that seems exciting and might be good for your ego — but people who listen to the radio and to podcasts buy more books.
Wiebke Tasch: Yeah, because you have to sit down and listen for 30 minutes to an hour, concentrate, and those people usually also enjoy books. It's more like long-form content than social media and short-form content.
So prepare your marketing. The biggest mistake ever is you finish your book, tell nobody, publish it, and hope for the best. It's the biggest mistake, because the online algorithm for bookstores like Amazon and Barnes & Noble works like this: the first five days after you publish a book are kind of a blueprint for everything that follows. The Amazon algorithm recognizes how much traffic you bring to your book in those first five days, and then in the future, based on those five days, it either suggests your book in your niche or not. This is why preparation is so important.
We usually do at least three months. When we have everything done — cover, layout, proofreading, the upload — we always say at least three months for the author to concentrate only on marketing and do something for marketing every day. A little bit every day. Even before everything is done, we encourage them: now is a good time to start talking about your book, going on a podcast, having a landing page ready. And then on the day of the book launch, bring a lot of traffic to your book.
Another very big mistake I see is changing your strategy constantly. This week you do this, it's not working; next week you do that, it's not working. Or you think, “Maybe I published it wrong,” and you want to change the foundation. Decide what your strategy is going to be. Don't overdo it — just do one thing, do it every day, stick with it, and have some patience. It's never an overnight success. You do a lot of work over a period of time, and then you grow slowly but surely. So stick with one thing: go on a podcast tour, do a very good launch, prepare the book launch, and then do Amazon ads.
The Book Description and Keywords
Mark Graban: The final question I was going to ask is about the book description that appears on the Amazon page. I see some books where it seems like the author or publisher didn't put a lot of effort into it. How important is the description? The skill to write the book might not be the same skill that writes an effective description. How important is the description, and the keywords you're allowed to use in the KDP platform?
Wiebke Tasch: So important. Just think about how self-publishing a book works. People can't find you if you just put in random words that aren't matching your book content. So you need to understand what your book is about, then optimize using software, and put in high-performing keywords. On Amazon, seven keywords are allowed. Then, using those seven keywords, you create an optimized sales text.
First, it needs to look good — a catchy header to bring people in. Something like, “Are you looking for this?” or “Do you know this?” or “For years, this has happened” — something people can recognize themselves in. Then structure it nicely, maybe with some bullet points: if you buy this book, you'll learn this, this, and this. And at the end, always put a call to action. We come back to this: always bring your readers back to you, to your community, your Facebook group, your Instagram, your website or landing page — wherever you gather those people. Always make it easy for people to follow up with you and understand where you come from.
Mark Graban: Those are great tips. I'll encourage people to look in the show notes so you can find Wiebke's firm's website. It's Digital Authors, digital-authors.com. It's a US-based company, even though she's German. There's a team with different specialties working with her, and a lot of info you can find there. So check out the show notes — there's a lot to learn. I try to continue learning as an author and, as I'd say, an independent publisher. For the last couple of books, I think the term “self-publishing” is a misnomer, because I didn't do it myself. Maybe that's one other mistake to end on — it's a mistake, probably, to do it yourself?
Wiebke Tasch: Yeah, I don't know. Good question. I also don't like the term self-publishing, because there are so many different ways to do it.
Mark Graban: And being able to write a book probably doesn't mean you're skilled at designing a cover. Cliche or not, people do judge a book by its cover, right?
Wiebke Tasch: It's important, for sure.
Mark Graban: So don't make that mistake. Well, thank you, Wiebke. Wiebke Tasch has been our guest today. So much to learn as things change and evolve, and some of it is just good book publishing and marketing practice. So thank you for sharing all of that, and thank you for sharing your favorite mistake. It hurts to think about that possibly happening to me. I'm sorry it happened to you, and hopefully your advice is helping others.
Wiebke Tasch: Thank you so much for having me, Mark. This was a wonderful conversation, and I wish you all the best for your podcast.
Mark Graban: Thanks.