Here's the dirty little secret of publishing:
Many publishers don’t know how to sell books to readers. They only know how to sell to bookstores, wholesalers, and other middlemen. Which leads to the next sabotage:

#3 SABOTAGE: EXPECT YOUR PUBLISHER TO MARKET YOUR WORK

Successful authors (particularly nonfiction authors) often have a marketing platform long before they decide to publish a book. They know how to market perhaps even better than their publisher, because they know how to reach a readership.

What is a marketing platform?

• It’s NOT your credentials.
• It’s your visibility and what you do to continue your visibility.
• You cannot act on a one-time basis and have a platform. It is a process or a journey.

If you don’t market and promote your work, who will? General-interest publishers can struggle to reach readers directly, meaning often YOU are the best person to reach readers. Your publisher will not take care of everything. Assume they will do nothing and you will not be disappointed. That aside, your publisher often uses your network, contacts, and knowledge about the market to form their own marketing campaigns. If you have nothing to contribute, they have to start from the ground up. Or they might not start at all.

Envision your book—spine out—on bookstore shelves, surrounded by thousands of other titles. Who knows it's there? Who is going to tell people it's there? Don't wait for your publisher to tell the world. You tell the world.

The greater lesson: If you build it, they will not come.

Related posts
How to Avoid Sabotaging Your Writing Career (#2)
How to Avoid Sabotaging Your Writing Career (#1)