Writing a book is an unnatural act

Why is writing a nonfiction book so hard? Because it’s unlike anything else you do — or write — in the rest of your work.

• You must conceive of and work towards fitting together a very large collection of coherent content, rather than working one idea at a time.
• You must assemble all of that on a deadline, often working more than a year, and then wait six months or more for that information to be published in and see the light of day.
• You must not only research information that supports your thesis, but select and include information that will remain relevant for years to come.
• You must deal with the arcane practices of the inscrutable publishing industry.
• Once material is published and printed, you generally can’t change it. (You can change the ebook, but publishers resist even that.)
• Even though writing a book seems highly personal, you have to manage the expectations and work of a team, possibly including possibly coauthors, editors, agents, publishers, illustrators, and publicists.
• Everyone wants a share of the benefits you are creating, but they mostly expect you to do all the work, not just of researching and writing, but of marketing and promotion.
• You are ultimately creating an extended dialogue with a very real but invisible audience that you won’t meet until after the book is published.

There are ways to mitigate all of these weirdnesses. And if you write more than one book, you can begin to get used to them.

This is why there are so many people — ghostwriters, editors, coaches, hybrid publishers, image consultants, publicity firms, and more — who are ready to use their expertise to help you: they can help you perform this unnatural act effectively.

And still . . .

The desire to create something of lasting value that will help people is completely natural. It’s what humans do.

So you will succeed.

Just don’t expect it to feel like anything else you’ve ever done.