The worst advice I’ve ever heard about writing books
November 26, 2014 by Dr. Letitia Wright
Filed under Books, Crowd Funding, Front Page
The worst advice I’ve ever heard about writing books!
The worst advice I’ve ever heard about writing books begins with the assumption that writing the book is the only reason for the writer to complete the book. Most writers have an idea of what they want to accomplish with their book. Some reasoning is transparent, like entertainment or information. In most cases the author wants their book read by as many people as possible. This brings into play a whole galaxy of “must-do things” that goes beyond finishing the manuscript.
Few people write books just to see their name in print. For those few people, the Internet offers a broad array of publishers and prices, more precisely printers, eager to fulfill the need. However, entertainment and information requires mass penetration of the probable market for whatever the topic covers. In these cases, beginning at the end can be more appropriate. Developing and refining an audience for the book, starts the journey on a successful path.
So, some of the worst advice begins with the phrase “just do it”regarding actually writing the book. Thinking through why you want to write the book is just as important as the pen or the keyboard. The next most valueless point assumes you have already written the book, so you must get a literary agent. Now a whole new toolbox comes into active use.
To get a literary agent you have to write a query letter and a proposal. A query letter has one purpose, convince the recipient to look at your book, giving you a better chance of selling it. The query letter is a sales tool, a sales letter selling your book. Yes, it gets deeper.
Writing a successful query letter involves analyzing your manuscript and writing a compelling synopsis. A synopsis is not a step-by-step description of what happens, but the emotions that accompany the actions, fear, hope, excitement, and disappointment presented at each turn of the events. Here the use of your writing talent may have to be tweaked to illustrate your marketing and salesmanship. A problem, if this is not one of your strong points.
Next, your proposal letter should be the result of research that identifies an audience for your manuscript. Again, not a step-by-step description of demographic labels, but a compelling argument matching the essence of your book to the needs of a targeted segment of your probable audience. Unless your book is about “marketing psychology” this may severely tax your patience.
Once you have secured an agent who then snares a publisher and more money, you need to determine what you need the publisher to do that will propel your book to the best-sellers lists. The more expensive publishers often have a marketing package on hand for the client. Instead, you may have to suggest a social marketing plan to support your work. What makes this part of the “bad advice collection” is that a writer is seldom necessarily a social marketing campaign designer.
The core point of this journey down “the rabbit hole” of becoming a published author, resides in the fact that the gift of the author is on the written page. In this high-tech low-touch society, delivering your artistic gift to the public, requires a completely different skill set than that of a talented author. In fact, best sellers are grown, they don’t just happen under the rainbow of “write it and they will buy.”
Reject the worst advice you’ve ever heard about writing books, open your thinking to an exciting new approach to publishing – one that starts with the end that in mind. Why not sell your first thousand books before you have written a single word?
The time is now and the choice is yours, take action – turn the page, today.
