From The New York Times:
“I’d like to write a book someday.”
Like many writers, I said this for years before finally deciding to commit to the long and grueling process of publishing my first book, which is about personal finance.Most authors would probably agree that writing a book is one of the most difficult challenges of their careers. You spend your summer inside writing while your friends post photos of their beach vacations on Instagram. Once your book is published, the work is far from over: You must now sell it like your career depends on it, because it kind of does. Failure is a constant fear, and impostor syndrome can feel overwhelming. But more often than not, it’s also completely worth it.
. . . .
Before you write your first word, ask yourself: Do I have an audience? And, most important: Does my idea actually appeal to readers?
“My most common recommendation for people who want to write a book is, ‘Don’t — not yet,’” said Ramit Sethi, the author of “I Will Teach You to Be Rich.” “Build a large audience first.” Mr. Sethi, whose nonfiction personal finance book started as a blog with the same title, was able to amass hundreds of thousands of readers before he landed a book deal.
Even though you might not need to write the entire book before pitching it, it’s likely that if an agent or potential publisher likes the idea, they’ll still want to see at least two sample chapters. In any case, you’re going to want to fully flesh out your idea and write up those sample chapters before reaching out to agents, or, if you’re still building an audience, a few blog posts on your topic. Doing so will give you a deeper sense of what your book is about and what the rest of the writing process will be like — and this will also help you firm up your ideas of what the rest of the book will be like.
. . . .Self-publishing means publishing your book on your own, or with the help of a self-publishing platform like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing or CreateSpace, which is also owned by Amazon. Barnes & Noble also has a self-publishing platform.
“As a self-published author, you have more control of your work because you have more control of your deadlines and budget,” said Nailah Harvey, author of “Look Better in Writing.” “Some people do not work well with the pressure of third-party deadlines, so self-publishing may be a better fit for their personality.” You also have full creative control over your work, Ms. Harvey said, whereas with a publisher, you may have to bend to their ideas for your book title, cover and content.
Mr. Sethi, both a traditionally published and self-published author, said your choice will partly depend on what’s more important to you: profit or credibility. Traditional publishing lends you the latter, while self-publishing can be more profitable because you won’t have to give a percentage of sales to an agent and publisher. On the other hand, an agent and publisher might be able to help increase your reach to make those sales.
When I started to get serious about my idea, I bought “How to Write a Book Proposal.” From there, it was two and a half years until I convinced an agent to represent my idea, and another year and a half before my book was on a shelf.
“I think you should plan for at least one year to write the first draft of a book, and a second year to rewrite it,” Ms. Perhach said.
. . . .
“Writing is like putting together Ikea furniture,” she added. “There’s a right way to do it, but nobody knows what it is.”
Link to the rest at The New York Times
When your goal is to be an author, you only need to produce one book to achieve that goal. You dabble at it until done and then add the new title of “author” to your bio. Well worth the time investment for that added prestige.
Frankly, the fact that it takes two years adds to the “story”, as shown in the above article. The slowness is a feature not a defect.
Now if your goal is to be a writer earning a living from your craft…
“I think you should plan for at least one year to write the first draft of a book, and a second year to rewrite it,” Ms. Perhach said. Of course, it can take much longer than this, but most writers can expect at least a couple of years to pen a book.
. . . .
Perlach refers to an 80,000 word manuscript. To write one in two years means to average 110 words per day or 770 words at a one-a-week writing session. That’s not much of a burden.
The late Ralph McInerny taught philosophy full time at Notre Dame. Each night, before going to bed, he wrote 750 words, about 5,000 words weekly. That was his years-long habit. Eventually he produced 80 books, most of them detective fiction. (His Father Dowling books became a TV series in the 1980s.)
If a scholar as busy as McInerny was could produce so many titles, it seems that Perlach seriously underestimates what an average writer is capable of.
All those blog posts eat into your daily output.
I had a similar reaction to the time frame outlined, but then I thought, “what type of nonfiction book?”
Is there a great deal of research involved, such as military history or medieval fashion or Chinese architecture, or …
So, I’m willing to grant that — depending on the topic involved — the time frame given (1 year to write, 1 year to revise) *might* be accurate.
Very much this. “Nonfiction” isn’t a single category. It is a collection of categories literally defined by their not being fiction. Any generalization about how to write or market a nonfiction book is pretty much guaranteed to be inane.
I grant that for some non-fiction books. I’m taking a long time to write one about the atomic bombings, but then I’m writing other, less-intensive books in parallel.
Ms. Perhach seemed to be writing about non-fiction books in general and particularly the self-help sort, which normally don’t require as much research or preparatory work as, say, “The Compleat History of the Mongol Empire.”
+1
I can write a book that involves substantial research and thought in about a year and a half. I’ve done it three times now, the first two while working full time on a day job related to the subjects of the books, but that is my experience with my books. I think I could write an air-head memoir in a month, if I could pump enough air into my head.
“I think you should plan for at least one year to write the first draft of a book, and a second year to rewrite it,” Ms. Perhach said. Of course, it can take much longer than this, but most writers can expect at least a couple of years to pen a book.
. . . . .
If true, then “most writers” either are remarkably slow in their hourly output or they put in hardly any hours weekly.
To produce the 80,000-word manuscript that Perhach writes about, you need to write just 110 words daily for those two years or 770 words at once-a-week writing sessions.
Ralph McInerny, who taught philosophy full-time at Notre Dame, had a habit of writing 750 words every night before going to bed. He ended up writing about 80 books, some academic but most of them murder mysteries. (His Father Dowling books became a TV series in the 1980s.)
This scholar had a full work schedule yet still managed to produce lots of books, none of them taking two years to generate. I think Perlach is underestimating most people’s capabilities.
My 85K word book took eight months to research (plus the years of my dissertation and MA research), and three months to write after I outlined it and short-handed in the footnotes. The footnotes took as much time as the main text.
Granted, I did not have a day job (paid research post-doc) so I focused on writing.
Ah, writing advice from the NYT. Pushing Trad Pub and lip-service mention about self publishing.
““My most common recommendation for people who want to write a book is, ‘Don’t — not yet,’” said Ramit Sethi, the author of “I Will Teach You to Be Rich.” “Build a large audience first.” Mr. Sethi, whose nonfiction personal finance book started as a blog with the same title, was able to amass hundreds of thousands of readers before he landed a book deal.”
Or, in the alternative, write a book that hasn’t already been written a gazillion times. “Nonfiction” is a mishmash of innumerable types of books. Some need to be marketed similarly to fiction, with the author establishing a body of potential buyers. Memoirs are the most fiction-like of nonfiction, but personal finance, and self-help in general, aren’t far behind. Anyone considering buying a book on how to be rich has endless possible purchases. At the other end are many books where it is the subject matter that attracts buyers. Publish a book on fashion in the court of Versailles and the determination whether someone buys it hangs far more on interest in the subject matter than the identity of the author.