There are seven typical reasons why most people won’t write a book:

 Reason 1: A lack of conviction—the failure to believe that they can write a book. When an author is looking at a blank page, a book seems a massive project. The person realizes that writing a book requires filling several hundred of those blank pages with text. If they have trouble with one page, completing an entire book mushrooms into impossibility.

Reason 2: A lack of planning. Too many authors think that they can organize effectively as they write. When this proves difficult, their enthusiasm dwindles to zero. 

Reason 3: Metaphorical muteness. We live in a culture where everyone in media and politics seem to have a ready answer or an ability to speak endlessly without preparation. We assume that if they had to write something they would demonstrate the same skill effortlessly. The rest of us peons have trouble speaking in formal situations and even more trouble if we have to write on command. It’s not that we don’t have something to say, but rather that we want to say it so that it sounds sensible. That desire leaves us silent once in a while. It’s reminiscent of when a teacher called on us unexpectedly back in school. Sometimes we clammed up, even though we had something to contribute.

 Reason 4: Lack of time. Everyone is busy. So are most authors. If an author can’t find the time to write, that author won’t write. 

Reason 5: Premature and excessive editing.  We want what we write to make sense, to be admired. After all, it sounded pretty good in our heads. Some writers squeeze out each word and stew over every sentence. In trying to make their writing perfect the first time, they end up with little or nothing actually written. 

Reason 6: Too much talking. Some discussion with others is helpful in writing a book, but too much can strangle our desire to communicate in writing. 

Reason 7: Lack of a publishing avenue. Most authors write books to publish them. Many authors know that the odds of getting published the traditional way are slim. Too many give up because of those odds. 

These deadly seven are typical, but not the only reasons. What’s your reason for not writing a book? If we can identify a problem, we may be able to solve it. After all, there’s a solution to every typical reason for not writing a book.

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In some views there is an endless amount of time. After all, you have your entire life ahead of you. In other perspectives there is no time.

Among staying alive, paying the bills, and attending to loved ones, you’re probably not twiddling idle fingers. You may even be short changing sleep or something else or someone else. So called modern life with all its “labor saving” features seems immensely more complicated than life was just twenty years ago.

Cheap, easy communication has meant we tend to communicate more. More entertainment options seduce us into consuming more entertainment. None of this is a knock on contemporary life. As we have more choices, we tend to make more selections.

So if you could move to a deserted, tropical island, with only a laptop undoubtedly you’d have time to write. There would also be time to catch a few rays, savor fresh seafood, drift asleep to surf’s soothing rhythms. But it’s time to wake up: The bay’s howling, the spouse is grumpy, the kids boisterous, the mortgage due, and your mother’s sink overflowing.

If you’re beginning to think that there is no time to write, you’re right. There isn’t and there will never be. Not if you live in our world with the obligations that all of us have. If you want to write, if you must write, you must create the time to write.

Somehow, somewhere inside the endless chaos of your existence, you have to invent the time to write.

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 Once you’ve decided to write a book, it’s reasonable to
wonder how you’re going to do it.  There
are many writing books that work hard to give you inspiration.  It’s possible that one or more of these books
will get you writing and more importantly keep you writing.

If the cheerleading approach works for you, that’s
wonderful. I’m turning green with envy. 
No kidding.  Perhaps you’re the
kind of person who could always write anything about anything whenever you
wanted to.  I knew a few of those people
in school and I probably would give a body part to have their ability.  I don’t have their ability and I never will. 

If you’re like me, writing cheerleaders are a bit like a
shot of adrenaline.  They can perk you up
for a short time, but their support cannot replace endurance or techniques. 

Much more effective than the short term boost are things
that get you going and make it easy for you to keep going.  An adrenaline boost can get you to run a
sprint, but it will never get you through a marathon.  Writing a book is a marathon.  To complete this marathon of writing you need
to know how to write a book in a way that helps you for all of the 26+ miles
(42+ clicks). 

One of the primary reasons for this site is to explore the
other ways to get a writer to the finish line. 
I mean no disrespect to the cheerleaders and other inspirational writing
advisors.  My own experience is that they
have never helped write a book. 

In this blog, I’ll tell you how I’ve done it four times and
am doing it for a fifth time.  I’ll look
at ways I haven’t tried and think them through publicly in posts.  Also, I’m counting on you to let me know what
you think you need to get you to write your book.

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Your reason for wanting to write a book should control how you chose the topic of your book and whether you should write one at all.

If you want to write a book to become famous, you’ll need to write about something that will attract that fame.  Most books about knitting, how to fix clogged drains, or how to spot collectible thimbles are unlikely to draw large audiences.  Without a large audience, it’s unlikely you’ll become famous.  On the other hand if your idea of famous is being well-known to a special group, then a small audience topic could make you famous.  If you wrote a book on thimble collecting for people who collect thimbles, then you may well become a celebrity within that group.

If you want to become famous as in “people gush your name when you pass them on the street” or the lines to meet you at a book-signing snake around the block, then you will need a mass audience.

If you want to write a book to become rich, then you need either a mass audience willing to pay a small amount for each copy of your book or a smaller audience that is willing to pay big bucks for each copy.

You may want to write a book for a reason that is indirectly related to fame and money, but where the fame and money don’t actually come from the sales of the book.  That is to say you want your book to promote your business or to enhance your visibility in a profession. Perhaps you have a solar panel installation business.  If you write a book on solar energy, you could promote your business.  Your book could be part of your sales pitch to prospective customers.  Or maybe you’d give free seminars where you hand out your book.  There are myriad possibilities.

Writing a book for professional visibility works in a similar way. If you run a daycare center, a book on how to pick child care could bolster your reputation and business at the same time.  Every school teacher is an expert in children and related topics. Parents crave books on how to deal with common and not so common issues confronting school children.  I’d rather have my child with a teacher that I know was solving these problems.  Wouldn’t you?  Writing a book will help you stand out from the crowd.

To most of us, professionals and other skilled people such as attorneys, accountants, financial advisers, physician, contractors, florists, and interior decorators all appear the same until something makes one of them stand out from the crowd.  A book is an easy way to obtain that visibility.

Writing a book to promote your business or enhance your professional stature does not require a large audience or a high-spending one.  Yet it does require the right audience and the right topic.

If you want to share your expertise, but the fame, money, or visibility do not matter very much, then the size or spending habits of you potential readers and your topic selection are relatively unimportant.  By the way this is heresy in the writing business.  There are many writing experts who believe that there is no point in writing a book, if it’s not to make you rich or famous, to promote your business, or to enhance your professional stature or visibility. They think that writing a book for any other reason is a waste of time.  I, respectfully, disagree.

A few years ago those experts may have been correct, but no longer.  Their reasoning is grounded in the old model of book publishing.  It used to cost real money to publish a book and unless you wanted to fork over a few thousand of your own greenbacks, you needed a publisher.  That’s no longer true.

Now for less than the cost of a fast food meal for three, you can publish a book; if you’re willing to do most of the grunt work yourself.

So if you have some information to share, you can share it without worrying about the topic or the audience, if your goal is to share the information.  You may find an audience of thousands; you find an audience of one.  It won’t matter, though, because of why you wrote the book.

This reasoning also applies to a book that you write just because you want to write a book. There are many people who do things to prove to themselves (or their loved ones) that they can do it.  Writing a book could be like that for you.

Writing a book for money, fame, or promotion mandates careful selection and analysis of audience or topic.  Writing a book to share information or as a personal accomplishment means that your consideration of audience or topic will be for reasons other than whether you should write the book in the first place.

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Do you want to be famous?  Anyone who hasn’t heard of Steven King or Agatha Christie probably lives under a rock and ventures out only during full moons.  Some authors become very famous.  They get book tours, radio appearances, and Oprah invitations.  Yet these are the exceptions.  Most authors are known only to their readers and loved ones.

I’m not saying that if you write a book, you won’t get rich.  I’m not saying that authors can’t become celebrities.  I am saying that if fame or big bucks are the only reason for writing your book, you’re likely to be disappointed.

There are other reasons to write a book.

Reason one: you have something to say.  Most people do.  Perhaps it’s about politics; perhaps it’s about raising children.  Maybe you know a lot about cooking gluten-free meals or about how to cope with sore feet.  It doesn’t matter what it is, if you have something to say, writing a book is an excellent way to say it. Moreover, a book says it over and over again to each reader.

Reason two: you have valuable expertise.  You probably have more expertise that you realize.  You should share it.  Other people need it. Do you know how to cook steel-cut oats in a microwave?  How about setting up an online bookselling business?  Any advice about reducing property tax assessments?  Whatever it is that you know, there are people who need your knowledge.  If you put that knowledge in a book, then those who need it can have access to it.

Reason three:  you must write.  You have this compulsion to get something off your chest, to place your ideas before the public, to honor someone who meant more than the world to you.  If you don’t write, you’ll burst.

There are many reasons to write a book.  What’s yours?. 

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