Is it Time to Write a Book?
Taking the next step as a writer
I don’t know if you’ve noticed lately, but blogging feels a little crowded. I can write and release a story every day, but other writers release stories 2–5 times a day. I don’t see the same returns that I did a year ago.
But I want to make money. Sure, I could just pick up shifts at my part time job, forever. But to be honest, I’m sick of working hard to make someone else rich. I want to launch my writing career, and really give it some momentum.
Writing a nonfiction book would be a great way to supplement my blogging and gain new readers. Many people don’t want to get a subscription to websites like Medium or Patreon, but they will buy a book.
What would I write about? For a long time I’ve thought about writing a book about minimalism, but I don’t think that would be interesting to everybody.
There’s plenty of science and health projects I could write about, but what exactly would I focus on?
I could write a book about writing, but I feel that’s been done before, too, and I don’t have too much to add. The landscape of writing and publishing has been changing so rapidly, too, that I’m not sure books on writing can always keep up.
While my plan isn’t quite there yet, my urge to write a book is going strong. I’ve done National Novel Writing Month in years past, trying to write a novel in the month of November, but I didn’t do it this year. I’m still on their list, and keep getting emails that say things like, “Great job! You’re halfway there!”
And that makes me feel like I’m missing out. Writing books has always been my dream.
I could push harder to finish some YA novels. I have a lot of fiction projects I’ve been neglecting. And there’s a good reason why they’ve been left to languish. With blogging, I see an instant payoff after writing 500 to 1,000 words. With a novel, it could be a year or more before I see any money from 70,000 or so words. And if I don’t launch it just right, it could lose money.
I’ve written books before under a pen name, and gone through the whole process: editing, proofreading, having a cover designed, advertising, release, promotion. But that was 7+ years ago. The market for books is more crowded than ever. Writers need to advertise perfectly to launch anything.
And I can’t just write one novel and expect to make a lot of money. Just like with blogging, the more you write, the more readers you’ll attract.
August Birch recently wrote a piece, “Turn Your Medium Stories into a Profitable Book or Course,” that got me thinking. There are plenty of ideas that I can test with my blogging. I can write articles or short stories now, post them, and turn them into books later, if readers like them.
In any case, I’m moving my vague dream of “write another book” from the back burner to the front burner. I’m not quite sure what I’ll write about first, but it’s something I want to do in the next year. For now, I’m going to keep writing and see what happens.
