Unyielding work ethic
Building a start-up means you have to decide what you will do and also what you won’t. Believe in your dream, work day and night and never compromise. It sounds difficult because it is. I can vouch for this with every night when I wake up searching my notepad under the bed to write an idea.
There isn’t any writer consumed by the drive to write who doesn’t understand what I wrote above.
The Big Five publishing houses produce almost 60% of the English-language books and thousands of small publishing houses and self-published authors produce the rest. The turnover and the rate of failure of the little guys are huge.
One of the first question I receive when I talk with business people about project management tools for writers and about all the money and work hours that go into building Asengana is: “What’s your break-even point?”
I applied the same answer for the process of writing, publishing, and selling a book. It will be a back-of-the-envelope type calculation, but I will provide you with the document to download and add as many variables as you need.
To get your reader there is the hard part. There’s nothing easy in addressing numerous potential buyers. Readers aren’t just readers.
Do you really care if your friend, or an expert, or anybody that reads a few pages of your book thinks you should quit? Does really helps you if they say you should keep writing? When you’re alone with your keyboard, paper page, or recorder, does it really matter if the others support you or not?
How open are you to the suggestions made by the beta readers of your book? How much of their input are you willing to accommodate in your rewriting process? How do you thank them and make them feel special when their ideas become part of your idea?
If you are one that doesn’t understand that a writers’ group is about writing, and your opinions are full of hate and disrespect for others your book launch might be closer to failure than you think…
How much do you think an acquaintance or even a friend will risk paying for a book that might be good or not, just because they know you?
Is it possible that a reader might risk a small amount of money for an unknown book?
Is it also possible a person will pay more than your price after reading the book if liked?
How about an online shop from where you can download a book for free and you can pay the price or not after you read it?
I lost the opportunity to sell my book because I didn’t try to be remarkable. And if I, the writer, the wizard of words, am not capable of captivating one person, how will I enchant millions?
The second part is about how to reach your goal. It’s about planning. It’s about understanding that online personal marketing is a process.
When I got my first paycheck, I bought books. Reading was still the only form of freedom. As years passed, I moved through careers, jobs, and always felt a prisoner. Reading kept me sane. Reading and living in the worlds created by words was my freedom.
What can you do in a world where those thousands of hours are dedicated to writing by thousands of other people?
Reading a book is reading a book, no matter the support on which is written. If I have to make a choice about what is important for me, I will not ponder about what eReader to use. The only thing that matter is the act of reading.
The monopoly of the publishing houses wasn’t broken by the opportunity to self-publish, but because their power to sell got taken from them. Internet and social media did this.
Do you feel satisfaction for what your book has achieved in teaching readers something good, changing the world?
Is it a gratifying experience to hold a hard copy of your book in your hands? Do you feel proud of your creation and say: “I wrote this book!”?
I always write the end first. Even if I don’t have a clear idea about what my hero’s journey will be, I write the end first. It is my innate need to know where I’m going. The only way I know when I’m getting to my destination.
When the reader feels something reading your book and is burned by the desire to share that feeling with you and others, in that moment you know you wrote a real book.
Sometimes writer = a person engaged in writing books, stories, articles, etc as an occupation or profession living in a splintered state of the creative process.
