First, forget everything you or your friends, your mother-in-law, popular movies or late night TV commercials may have depicted or encouraged you to assume or expect concerning the process, timing or revenues available through publishing a book.
You will not get rich overnight.
You will not find benevolent publishing houses anxiously seeking the next great author, with teams of editors patiently nurturing new writers into greatness.
Unless you are already independently wealthy, you won’t likely be able to afford a palatial private hideaway in which to write the Great American novel while you also meet and fall in love with your soulmate. See Hallmark movies for that.
And yet. There’s an allure, a siren’s call to some of us to write, no matter the time available, advisability, or prospects of success.
You’ve heard the reason often given for climbing a mountain: because it’s there. Or if you’re more rebellious perhaps the reason for robbing banks — because that’s where the money is — appeals more to you. But I submit that although those reasons may both be true enough to give an idea a start, they alone are not enough to carry one through the intricate process, expense and effort of planning, execution and, in the case of robbing banks, making a clean getaway. With books, it’s more a matter of getting all the way to “The End.” And then packaging, publishing and selling it.
To do just about anything in life worthwhile, including producing a book, requires a vision. A motivating vision that will sustain you through the hard parts. From inspired beginning through the messy middle, and on to a crescendoed finish. Have you got what it takes? The motivating vision together with grit, resources and determination to start and stay through to the end?
If so, we should talk. Because we’re looking for a few good authors who are each ready to go the distance to make their book a success.
As many as one in seven or as few as one in ten of us are said to have a dream of writing a book. Are you one of them? I’m told only about a third of those with that dream will take action. It is one thing to muse of writing a book, and a whole other thing to actually write one. If you want to know what that book-to-publishing-to-selling path looks like, click here for my free download, Start Smart, Your Book Writing and Publishing Checklist.