Writing a book is a magical thing, and often seems that some people just know how to do it. The rest of us just don’t. My best book writing advice to you? Writing is more than the end product. It’s a process with many twists and turns. It’s frustrating, exhilarating, and there are endless misconceptions about the process of writing, marketing and publishing their books.
I’ve experienced my own pitfalls and joys in the course of writing and publishing my books and articles, and here’s some book writing advice I’ve learned along the way.
It’s never as easy to write a book as the finished product makes it seem.
To quote Nathaniel Hawthorne, “easy reading is damn hard writing.”
Your favorite books? The author struggled to get them on paper. That means it’s okay when you struggle, too.
Writing a good book harder than most people think it is. Even when you’re lucky and the first draft flows out of you like Niagara Falls, you will hit blocks at some point. You will get frustrated. You might wonder if you should even be writing a book at all.
But then you keep going until you finish and when others read your book, they’ll have no idea how much you went through to write such a book.
You will probably not have a best seller.
Seth Godin wrote a wonderful list of advice for authors. Number one on his list? Lower your expectations. Anne Lamott also talks about this in her book Bird by Bird. She talks about how she and a friend wait on their publication day for the fame to descend on them, but it never does.
Writing is a process.
Being a writer means you won’t just write one thing and then done. You’ll create books, articles, poetry and plenty of other things. It’s the aggregate of all your work that makes you a writer and leads you to make a living writing.
Your book is part of a larger plan. It does not exist on its own.
You will want to give up. At least once.
At some point in your writing career, you will be sure you are an absolute mess. A failure. That your writing is not worth anything. For many, this happens early on, and people quit because of it. Don’t quit.
Keep going. It’s the best advice any writer can take. Keep going, because as long as you keep pushing forward a bit at a time, you will find a measure of success.
Any doubt you have about your writing, every other writer has too. Click To TweetYou will feel like you have no idea what you’re doing.
It’s true — when you’ve never written a book or article or short story before, you feel like you have no idea what you’re doing. That’s because you don’t. You’re doing it for the first time.
You’re not alone, either. Everyone feels like this. Whether your first book or your tenth, every time you open a blank page to begin, you have no idea what will happen next.
To quote Anne Lamott:
“One of the gifts of being a writer is that it gives you an excuse to do things, to go places and explore. Another is that writing motivates you to look closely at life, at life as it lurches by and tramps around.”
Writing is an exploration. It’s digging into the dirt to see what you find. If you always knew exactly what you were doing, exactly what would come next, what would be the point?
You must do your own marketing.
Whether you traditionally publish or self-publish, you are your best marketing professional. You have to let people know you’re writing a book. You must tell people it’s available to buy. You must share your reasons for writing it, the core beliefs of the book and let people know why they absolutely have to read it.
Even if you hire a PR company, you are still your own best advocate, and if you don’t do it, you do yourself and your writing a huge disservice.
I know it’s uncomfortable. No one wants to annoy our friends with our whining and self-aggrandizement. No one wants to be Jay Sherman from The Critic.
It’s not pleasant to go around tooting your own horn or sharing your own links all the time, so share other people’s writing as well. Buy their books. Link to their stories. Then continue sharing your own.
People actually want to know about your book.
One thing writers don’t often think about is that people actually want to know what you’re working on. They want to know what services you offer. They want to read your book. And they love hearing about your writing process. They love it when you share your triumphs and your challenges. Even better when you share how you overcame a challenge and turned it into a triumph.
Every time you share your writing over Facebook, you may imagine people on the other end smirking and rolling their eyes. “Oh, her again!” And yeah, those people exist, but you’re not writing for them. You’re writing for the people who are happy for your success and who cannot wait to read the words you write.
Things take longer than you think they will.
From getting started to finishing to editing to finding a publisher to approving a cover to building a platform to just about every detail you can imagine — it all takes longer than you expect it will.
Sometimes, things will go faster. Sometimes things will flow and you’ll feel like this is exactly what you’re supposed to be doing and all is right with the world. Enjoy it while it happens, because you might experience a roadblock later in the process.
Other writers will be your biggest support.
Writing is too often a solitary task. We write alone. We edit alone. We wait to hear from publishers and we wait for feedback alone. Sometimes we even worry about sharing our experiences with others because we don’t want to brag, nor do we want to find out our own accomplishments aren’t as big a deal as we thought.
Other writers have been where you are now or they’re about to arrive where you have been. We are the ones who know this journey best and can make the road a bit less lonely for each other.
So meet up, have a coffee, read each others’ books, ask for feedback, share links, praise each other, be kindly honest and recommend each other.
If you don’t believe in your writing, no one else will.
It can be hard to fully believe in your writing, especially when a piece of writing is in progress. We all have doubts. No one is born knowing how to write a book. Even writers with natural instinct and drive wither under the glare of negative criticism IF THEY DON’T BELIEVE IN THEMSELVES.
You can rely on your instinct. Trust that it will guide you to do what’s right. It will let you know what the next step should be. It will help you continue writing no matter what as long as you pay attention.
Believe it.
The stakes are not as high as they feel like they are.
If your pitch is rejected, send another. If an agent says no, reach out to someone else. You may see the years rolling by and wonder if you’ll ever reach your goals. Your book languishes, and it feels like you’ll never reach that writing dream. Each rejected pitch is a torment. Each agent feels like your last hope.
To quote my grad school writing mentor Lindsay Abrams: “There are so many publications, so may workshops, residencies and other opportunities for writers. There’s no reason you can’t be published.”
When you’re looking ahead at a book you want to write and publish but haven’t yet started, the road seems interminable. It’s also highly likely you feel alone on that road. The truth is, you’re not.
Any doubt you have about your writing, every other writer has too. Any question you feel too stupid to ask? I’d be willing to bet money there are countless people out there wondering the same thing.
Yes, the stakes feel high. Yes, it’s hard work. Sure, you’ll want to give up, doubt yourself, question whether what you’re saying is worth it.
Want to know the best book writing advice I can give you?
Write anyway because you are not the best judge of your work in progress. The words in your head are in a state of creation. They’re swirling, changing and it’s an incredibly uncomfortable process. You may trick yourself into believing that you’re no good anyway, so the only rational choice is to give up. Deep down, you know that’s not the truth.
Underneath, you know you want to write. You don’t want to chuck it all and go back to accounting. More than anything in the world, you want to write something of value and watch others devour your words. Beneath it all, you fear you can’t make that dream a reality.
Fear exists whether or not you write. By not writing, you’ll avoid rejection, failure and any other thing you worry might be. But instead, you’ll have regret.
Do yourself a favor. Take my well-earned book writing advice. Write a bit at a time. Move past the fear until you finish.
