What Do You Do When the Dream Dies?
I visit Reddit every day and read through post after post of people ready to give up their dream of being a successful, published author.
Some of the posts are heartbreaking. One gentleman said he’d poured his whole life into a series of books he wrote, and they were getting crickets on Amazon.
Another woman said she didn’t know where to go next now that her book was finished. Should she get an editor or a proofreader, neither of whom she could afford. Or maybe she should just accept that she wasn’t meant to be a published author.
I could go on. There are often dozens of new writers who ache to be “the author of” and who go through such trials and tribulations that they wear themselves down to a nub.
The answer to the question, what do you do when the dream dies, is you keep going.
You never allow the dream to die.
In my work, the people I work with have a purpose for their books. They are not merely novels, memoirs, or nonfiction business books; they are messages.
Novelists don’t often think of their books as having a message, but they do. The story, the plot, the characters, and the genre all mean something more than the words on a page reveal.
We write to connect with other human beings. In this vast, technological world where too often our only human experience is on social media, books bring us back to reality. Novels, sci-fi, mystery, humor, history, romance, whatever genre the book is in, the experience of reading it sparks creativity.
We feel connected to the characters (yes, even in the Redwall series of books, where the characters are sentient mice, squirrels, and other animals) as if we know them. They become friends. We want to talk about them to other people.
This is something new authors struggle with – the reality that while their characters start out as people they made up, as the reader gets absorbed into the story, they become flesh and blood, real people who jump off the page.
I was talking to a client about this recently, and she agreed that somehow, over the course of writing the book, characters change and morph and become their own people, and the author cannot manipulate them into doing something they wouldn’t. That’s good writing.
I understand the feeling one has when a dream dies.
I understand how devastating it can be when you are writing a book, but it seems to be going nowhere.
I understand how hard it is when you’ve written the book, but you have no clue what to do next.
I know the heartbreak of you having your book on Amazon and seeing no sales, as if it’s invisible.
It’s my purpose in life to try and help authors along that path, over the boulders, up the mountain, all the way to the end, where their book is a stellar product they can be proud of. It’s my desire to take away the mystery and worry of “how do I write my book” and “how do I publish my book” as well as “how to I market my book.”
Let’s discuss all three. First, how do you write your book?
NUMBER ONE: HOW DO I WRITE MY BOOK?
How do I write my book? Good question. The only way to write your book put fingers to keyboard or pen to paper. Surprisingly, I’ve talked to a good number of people still prefer pen to paper, and studies show that the act of writing stimulates the brain differently than the act of clicking keys on a keyboard.
In Psychological Science, they reported in 2014 that:
“…we found that students who took notes on laptops performed worse on conceptual questions than students who took notes longhand. We show that whereas taking more notes can be beneficial, laptop note takers’ tendency to transcribe lectures verbatim rather than processing information and reframing it in their own words is detrimental to learning.
Whichever way you choose to write your book – and at some point it will need to be digital for editing and publishing purposes – the act of writing it will stimulate your brain to recover lost stories and memories, and you will begin to learn something about yourself as well as your audience. Remember: write what’s important to you, but make it relevant to your audience. p.s. sometimes, starting in the middle or at the end is the best way to begin!
NUMBER TWO: HOW DO I PUBLISH MY BOOK?
This by far one of the most asked questions we get. Tom wrote a detailed blog post on publishing, focusing on Indie Publishing, of course. I consider it a required read: The Indie Advantage. The post is not just about using Indie Publishing. It’s about understanding all of your publishing options.
Many new authors hunger for that big advance from one of the Big 5 – Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, and Macmillan Publishers. However, it comes at a high price. These brands will own your copyright (I know authors whose books did not sell well and when they wanted the copyright back to revise the book, the brand refused, and lawyers had to get involved – can you say $$$ out the door?). Brands also have control over cover design, interior layout, and even content. If they don’t like chapter three, they will ask you to remove it. Additionally, if you don’t sell out your advance (often less than $5000 but still…how many books do you need to sell to cover that cost?), the book gets taken off the shelf.
Other options are hybrid publishing companies, where you pay a fee for editing, design, and sometimes, but rarely, marketing. Hybrid publishers, like the Big 5, generally take a portion of the royalties. I caution all authors to read their contracts carefully and insist on having control of their content and design elements. And don’t expect marketing help unless it is in the contract!
The last option is working with a company like us, Master Book Builders. We work to help authors leverage their books as excellent business tools. We literally ‘build’ the book with you, from developmental editing to line editing to design (inside and out) to adding the book to Amazon and/or anywhere else you wish to have it displayed.
Companies like ours do not take a cut of royalties because we do not sell your book. We are not a bookstore. We do not market your book; we are not book marketers. We guide you, inform you, and teach you what you need to know about marketing your book and make sure it’s on your website as well as other places online you want to sell it from.
This is your choice. You decide how to publish your book. If you’re choosing a traditional publisher, I refer you to my recent LinkedIn post about writing a proposal.
NUMBER THREE: HOW DO I MARKET MY BOOK?
How do I market my book? And here we have the crux of the matter. My authors tell me that writing the book, which they thought would be hard and sometimes was, is easy compared to marketing the book.
This is only because many authors are afraid to toot their own horn. They believe it’s being pushy, loud, or annoying. And sometimes it is—because sometimes all they do is say, “Here’s my book!” and display the cover in 20 different ways on all their social media accounts. Don’t do that!
That is not marketing. Yes, you need to mention your book. Talk about your book. You should be doing that from day one, while you’re writing the book.
But you don’t need to shove it in everyone’s face every other day. Instead, talk about writing the book. Talk about your why. Support your beta readers and share their comments. Work with professionals who can do Amazon ads, Facebook ads, and Google ads. Do a blogging book tour. Make sure to support every blogger on the tour.
Marketing a book is a task like no other. Professional marketers may do a good job if you work with one. But a book marketer, someone who knows the industry, will do a better job. And you, can you do it on your own? Yes, if you know how and give it the attention it deserves. It’s a 24/7 focus, sometimes. That means you’ll be dreaming about how well your efforts are working in the background as you sleep.
What’s next? What comes after all of that?
The last thing I’ll say today about writing, publishing, and marketing a book, your book, is that this task, this activity, is akin to starting a new small business. Within that business, you need a brand. Your book is part of your brand. You are your brand. Together, you need to create a compelling reason for me to notice you. In this blog post from January of 2024, I wrote about the “The Author Brand and How To Make It Stand Out.” My friend, Nick McGraw said it best, I think, “Author branding is more personal and introspective. It’s about the person, the author – their beliefs, experiences, and unique voice.”
Be that author.
Any other questions? Since I only brushed the surface of each of these tasks. I expect there are questions you might want to ask. Ask away. Leave your questions in the comments.
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