The numbers are out. There were over 200,000 new books published in the United States in 2010. This is by traditional, old world media publishers. The real blow-your-mind statistic is that an additional 700,000 books were self-published by authors. What does this tell you? One, it’s a lot easier to get a book published and a lot less expensive than it has ever been. The only reason you’d need a publisher anyway, is for their ability to get dead-tree books into big-box stores. And now that both of those are going away, publishing is open to everyone.
You know you have a book in you, and you know you should probably write a book. So let me give you five reasons, hopefully to push you into action:
- You should write a book to contribute your insights to an area of expertise or interest that you have a particular, singular, interesting passion for.
- You should write a book to force yourself to grow intellectually by reading, researching, putting your thoughts on paper and making them make sense.
- You should write a book to find your own voice. One of the hardest things to do as a first-time writer is to trust that you have something to say and that your voice is as legitimate as anyone else’s out there.
- You should write a book to be taken seriously. Let’s be honest. We take people who write books – serious books, interesting books, well-researched and well-written books – more seriously than we do people who write two or three-paragraph blogs. Yes, I know there are exceptions. But trust, me. They are the exception.
- You should write a book to leave a legacy of thought and insight that will continue to live on long after you pass off the scene. You talk about passive income or passive influence; I’ve been in ball games, concerts, even sleeping, to wake up and get a voice mail, email, or tweet from someone halfway around the world who has read one of my books.
I hope these are enough to get you into the game and get you started.