No matter what your goals for your next book, these essential truths will help guide you:
1. A book needs a beginning, middle, and end. Your audience wants to sense where your book is going.
2. Controversial is good (but you have to have a lot to back it up).
3. The more you are writing and developing your ideas from your current truth with a project, the more vitality is going to be in the work itself. Older ideas, uncompleted projects from the past, may need to be dropped or re-conceived from the perspective of your current experience and point of view.
4. A book needs to belong somewhere. It needs to fit on a particular bookshelf in a bookstore (real or virtual), or in an identifiable online or retail genre or niche so people will find it and realize
Very well written blog.
Thanks, Caroline. Glad to have you here!
great list. it’s sobering, becuz yeah, i guess it’s got to be placed on a bookshelf with other ‘like’ books. and there’s motivation to do what you do well. nice. thanks.
Thx, and all food for thought… I like your comment about motivation. I like to think of “good envy” — crystallizing our own commitment, passion, purpose.
Good ones! I particularly loved number eight!
“Do things excellently. No matter what pathway you choose, don
Equally appropos for those just striking out on the publishing path as for those already published. Every new book idea needs to meet this criteria. Great insight, Janet!