About a month ago I finished writing the book, THE BOOK I have been working on for the last 5 years. It’s crazy to work on something so long and when you finally feel like you are done, you want it to be just that… finito. Well it is sort of.
As much as I wanted to close that book, pun intended, and move on to something else, I have realized that writing a book is much more than just putting words on paper, it is the equivalent of launching a business and as a result, you need to know your market. Turns out there’s all sorts of criteria for what makes a book successful including:
- word count — most books are under 100,000 words
- your platform — how many social media accounts you have and how many followers
- your budget — no matter what, it costs money
So when I “finished” my book, it was at 267,000 words, way over the recommended amount. Trying to cut it down by 2/3 seemed daunting. But I’ve been talking with tons of people who have written books, helped others write books, etc. and basically what I’ve discovered is that I wrote effectively 3, perhaps even 4 books in one. After my beta readers have finished reading the odyssey that I have written, I’ll take their feedback and go for it.
Meanwhile, I’m going to focus on building my platform and connecting with my future audience.