Storytelling is an extremely valuable tool in any industry. A powerful story sways juries, sells a lifestyle, shifts public opinion, makes people feel things. In short, it ignites social and personal change in a way that no data set or factual tidbit can. Some use stories for marketing campaigns, others leverage them by becoming charismatic community leaders. All solid storytellers influence.
Writing and publishing a book is valuable for a myriad of reasons: to establish yourself as an expert thought leader, to build a legacy, to entertain, to educate, to communicate your opinions and values, to name a few. In an era of clickbait, TedX, and YouTube, books remain a booming industry, not to mention one of the most admirable ways to share perspectives unique to you.
Yet so many stories remain untold—an overwhelming 80% of Americans want to write a book and a staggering 0.01% will ever do so*—when publishing is more accessible than ever.
As a boutique publisher, writing coach, and author myself, I hear explanations from all sorts of aspiring authors. “I definitely have a book in me, but who’s got the time?”, “I have lots of ideas, but I wouldn’t even know how to begin”, “Maybe in another life,” or the one that makes me indignant, “Who would want to read what I have to say?”
Someone wants to read what you have to say. I promise. As society becomes more divided, the world needs morepeople sharing their perspectives, not less. Unfortunately, dissuasion is everywhere. There is no dearth of teachers and professors willing to tell students their writing is poor, no shortage of authors telling anyone who will listen how hard it is to write a book (I have a lot of feelings on this one, a topic for a later article because I could fill volumes), and no lack of people in the cheap seats willing to offer criticism that is not constructive.
You can indeed write a book, you can find a publishing path that works for you, and you can build an authentic author platform that reflects your voice and vision. It’s not hard; it’s simply an exercise in battling resistance in your mind, finding the time to devote to your craft, and having the right support system in place. Like training for a marathon or renovating a room or finishing a degree program or becoming a deejay. You must have the courage to begin, the resilience to keep going even when you don’t want to, and a desire to finish that outweighs your mental barriers and feelings of boredom.
My education—Bachelor’s and Master’s in philosophy coupled with a law degree—was light on practicality but rigorous training to overcome boredom. While it isn’t intuitive, my legal training was the best preparation for creative writing I could have asked for. I’ve grown accustomed with being bored—you don’t study for and pass a bar exam without being able to put in long, sometimes torturous, hours with ass in seat (AIS) as I like to say—and that skill more than any course I took gave me the perseverance to finish not one but three novels while working full-time, self-financing the published novels, and teaching myself how to be a publisher all at the same time.
I’m not a hero or a savant. I figured out how to hack the system by using seemingly unrelated training, mostly because I didn’t have the temperament for yet another graduate program and had to find another route to fiction writing. I took a nontraditional approach, and I haven’t looked back. Please do something similar if you have the ache to write. Do whatever it takes.
When I’m speaking publicly and sharing my thoughts on storytelling, I am often choked up when considering how few realize their author dreams. I mean it when I say we need more ideas, more publishing opportunities, and more people living out their dreams because if I’ve learned anything, it’s that the readers are there and waiting for you to finish.
I’ll end for now with some quick tips to get started on your author journey.
Create the Shell
A blank page is intimidating as hell, especially when you’re battling time constraints or imposter syndrome. I spent years dreading that blank page staring back at me, judging me for not communicating what seemed so brilliant in my mind.
Why couldn’t I translate my thoughts into words?
Then I discovered the shell, and it works every time to unleash creativity and squash imposter syndrome.
Every time I begin a new book, I create a shell document. It has the following pages: title, copyright**, dedication, epigraph, prologue***, chapter one, epilogue****.
Stay Off the Internet
Do I think there’s value in educating yourself on what it takes to write a book and the publishing realities? Yes, it’s important to have some idea what resources are available to write a book. Yes, you can learn a lot from fan fiction sites and from other authors at your stage of writing. But unless you’re hiring a ghostwriter, none of these people’s feedback is a substitute for AIS time. You actually have to do the work.*****
Spending time lamenting about your writer’s block or how hard it is to write a book or how you don’t have time to write the book doesn’t write the book. Just like talking about going to the gym and lifting weights does not make your muscles stronger. There’s no shortcut. You have to do the work. That’s how you become a published author.
Be Judicious About Feedback
You’ll be nervous about sharing your work. Even if you love the final product, sharing your work, especially in the early days, makes you feel vulnerable. Find your tribe: the reader you’re writing the story for, a writing coach, a development editor, a beta reader who doesn’t know you.
Your purpose is so important. You must protect yourself while you’re writing. Drown out the voices in the cheap seats.
That is not to say that you shouldn’t receive constructive criticism but trust me when I say you should find the right people that match your energy. I once took a course from an editor who had edited dozens of New York Times bestselling authors. Her feedback was fair and I appreciated that aspect; however, as someone in a communication role, I was shocked at how poorly she communicated. Find someone who motivates you, demands the best of you, and nurtures your learning style. The person exists.
Get To Work
Begin now. You can do it.
I’ll share something a texted me every day while I was writing my first novel: write faster!!
The world needs your words.
*This statistic is so widely accepted that it’s regurgitated all over the world wide web. But no one ever seems to include a citation. Take it as: a lot of people want to write a book but an overwhelming majority never do.
**If you plan to traditionally publish, your publisher will take care of this. But in the meantime, copy/paste a generic one. It does wonders in the mind to see it in print: ©️ Your Name.
***Apparently agents, editors, and traditional publishers hate prologues. I love them in every book I read that has them, and my Wall Street series includes them. Because I am author and publisher, I write what my readers want, and they tell me they love the preview.
****Same goes for epilogues.
*****Please don’t outsource your writing to AI. It’s working yourself out of a job. AI will never be able to invoke human emotion and the transformational value of storytelling the way a human can.