Should you write a book? It’s a question I’ve asked myself a thousand times. My Notes app is loaded with book ideas that I thumb in at random hours of the day (“Escaping a Cult”; “101 Writing Hacks”; “Good title for cooking book? Bite About Now”)
Then I get busy with other projects, wander down different paths, and my grand literary plans get bumped to number 14 on my bucket list.
But a few months ago, something strange happened. I began writing a proposal for a non-fiction book that’s been bouncing around in my brain for a year. I’m now 40 pages in, and while every day I struggle with the same irritating doubts and worries— Will anyone want to read this? Am I the right guy to write it? Is it really worth my time?—I continue to plug away.
What changed? Part of it is Covid and an existential reckoning with my mortality. But another part has to do with a conversation I had on the Write About Now podcast with Julie Broad, who is the founder of a book consulting company called Book Launchers.
Julie’s company helps non-fiction authors write and market books. After writing her own successful book on real estate, she started the company and realized there was a big market for writers on the fence like me.
I asked Julie to give me six good reasons why I and others should write a book and, just so we have an out, why we shouldn’t write a book. Here are a few that stuck with me.
Credibility
Books may seem slightly old fashion in the digital age when people’s value is measured by how many Tik Tok followers they have, but they still hold a special kind of superpower.
“If you look around in your industry, everybody has the same credentials,” Julie explains. “But a book is the thing that differentiates you. Your book is about a specific subject in your industry. Now you’re the person who wrote the book on that. It gives you credibility.”
This can translate into paid speaking engagements and appearing as a guest expert on news shows and podcasts like, I dunno, Write About Now.
Cash money
While you may not be able to buy a home or even quit your day job with the money you make on a book, you can earn some nice passive income.
Julie is a big believer in self-publishing because you earn more for direct sales. She says traditional publishers pay you about $1/per book sold, while she made $12 a book as a self-published author. Of course, a traditional publisher could offset this discrepancy by giving you an advance, but that ranges significantly from $5000 to $50,000.
If the book has legs, you can expect to earn a nice little check for years. Julie wrote her book in 2012 and still gets a $500 payout from Jeff Bezos each month for doing nothing.
Impact
I think many of us (at least the good ones) want to impact the world. We want to make a difference. Writing a book means you will have done something in your life that matters—not just to you, but to other people. “It gives you the opportunity to help a lot of people,” says Julie. “If you think about almost everybody has a story of a book that changed the direction and the course of their life in some way. And so you’re really just paying it forward by giving somebody else that with your book.”
Sold!
To hear more reasons why you should—and shouldn’t— write a book, listen to my entire podcast conversation with Julie Broad.