I’ve been spoiled. Most of my clients love me. They listen intently to what I say. They are eager to learn and to succeed. They may get a bit irritated occasionally when I insist that they stop leaving two spaces between sentences or when I remind them AGAIN that single quotation marks are to be used only inside double quotation marks.
But, lately, I’ve had some challenging interchanges with authors and hopeful authors. One woman with a book on caregiving for the elderly wanted to call and ask me some questions. Like I always do, I suggested that we start with an email conversation. I asked her to send me some of the questions she had in mind. I responded to a few of them briefly and went ahead and invited her to call. She spent most of the hour telling me what she knows about the publishing industry. It would have been an easy 50 bucks if I’d just relaxed and listened, but I had to interject my thoughts and try to share what I thought were more reasonable conclusions than what this author was coming up with. She had pretty much already convinced herself that there is no hope in publishing, so why even try. Yet, she was expending enormous time and energy continuing her research, I guess, so she could further defend her position.
I suggested that there are reasons other than the desire for riches to publish a book. For some, it is to give back—to help others—to offer something new, different and wonderful. For some, it is to simply express themselves or to add to their credibility in a certain field or area of interest. There are many reasons to write and publish and book. And there are only a few reasons for not doing it. A major one is fear.
How long have you been working on your book project? Are you procrastinating about publishing it? Are you going through all sorts of motions and emotions as a way to stall the project? What is keeping you from your dream? Are you intimidated by so much perceived failure in the industry? Are you expectations so high that you have come to realize you cannot achieve this level of success? Is monetary success all that matters to you with regard to your publishing project?
Sure, there’s a multitude of failure within the publishing industry, but the research you’ve been doing is teaching you why the failure is occurring, thus you can arm yourself with the antidote.
Those of you who have had books in the works for more than a year or two or who have all but given up on your book projects, what are you thinking? No seriously, what are you thinking? What are your publishing/writing goals? Why did you start writing this book in the first place? What is its purpose? Is it still a valid project? Or have you given up the dream?
You know I believe in educating yourself about the publishing industry before getting involved. You know how much I nag about understanding something about the publishing industry before diving in. But I also believe there comes a time when you really have to fish or cut bait. So what will it be? Are you going to go fishing or forever sit on the dock cutting bait?
Let my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book help you safely navigate the publishing industry.
http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html