I don’t want you to write a book

I am so freakin’ sick of all the services trying to get your to write a book. It’s as if people are coming up to you and saying “You should be an Olympic athlete” or “You should marry a fashion model.”

I don’t want you to write a book.

If you want to write a book, I want to help you make it as effective as possible.

That’s not the same thing.

The challenger sale approach

The authors of the classic and counterintuitive sales book The Challenger Sale say this:

The best salespeople don’t just build relationships with customers. They challenge them.

This is my approach. I am not going to reach out to you at all. If you reach out to me, I’m going to ask you a lot of questions about your idea, our objectives, and what you’ve already done.

If you’re stuck and need the kind of editorial help I provide, we can talk about that.

If you need the kind of help I don’t provide, I’ll refer you to somebody who can help you.

And if after listening to you I think you shouldn’t write a book, I’ll tell you that. That might save you a lot of time and trouble.

I’ll go further.

Be skeptical

If a friend tells you that you should write a book, be skeptical.

If a vendor selling something book-related tells you that you should write a book, do not believe anything they say.

I rarely meet people who were happy they got talked into writing a book.

The happy ones are the ones who had something important to say and figured out a book was the way to say it — and could not be deterred by obstacles along the way.