I want this blog to help people write books. But I think I need to start by discouraging some people. This sounds strange, but try and follow me for a minute.

There’s a fairly famous quote by William Targ that goes “The trouble with the publishing business is that too many people who have half a mind to write a book do so.”

The problem isn’t the desire to publish or the desire to share your creation, the problem is in the half a mind. It’s not that you can’t be out of your mind, as many people are convinced that authors are crazy. If you are not sold on the validity of what you want to share you will not put in the effort required for your book to have a chance of success. I’m an ideas type, not a detail type. To get my book to the state it was in when I published it required me to do a fair bit of what I enjoyed (create the book) and an awful lot of what I didn’t like (keeping notes, cross-checking facts, endless revisions and rewrites, standardisation of the punctuation I used, etc).

If I only had half a mind to write a book I would have given up. Can I suggest to you that if you are not sold on writing a book, don’t bother starting. Once that itch gets to the point that it’s driving you crazy, then you’ve reached the zen-point of authoring. Spend the time with your kids or pets, make a difference by volunteering.

Here’s an interesting little site I came across. I don’t think (or maybe desperately hope) the self-publishing angle will not be this bad, but have a go. if you can’t wade through this article then maybe you’ve not ready for the epic trek in front of you to be a self-published author. But what do i know? I’ve only sold 10 copies of my own book so far.

http://www.conts.com/Introduction.htm

Brett

Author with ‘L’ Plates