Why do so many people say they want to write a book but so few have?

A great many people do want to write a book for a variety of reasons.

However, what most of them don’t realize, even those of us who are already professional writers, is what an utter pain in the ass it is.

I’ve published 27 books of nonfiction so far. It’s a little different in nonfiction because you generally sell the idea first and THEN you write the book… but other than the order of things, it’s no less of a pain in the ass than writing fiction. With that one slight difference, the following steps are about the same.

You build an outline and a proposal.

You shop it around to publishers.

You get accepted, negotiate terms, and sign a contract.

You start writing.

You write.

You write.

You write.

You revise.

You write some more.

You send the ms. in. (Nonfiction’s done in chapters as a rule, but WTH?)

The publisher tells you to rewrite things if it doesn’t measure up.

You do.

You write more.

You rewrite.

You submit again.

The book gets edited.

You resolve edits.

You possible write more.

The book goes into layout.

You proof the layouts.

The book goes into the publishing schedule.

You wait.

You wait.

The book is in print. (Yay!)

You don’t make a lot of money.

I’ve published 27 books to date. Books #28 and #29 are percolating slowly. They’ll be fun. I don’t expect to make money off of them but I’m doing them because I have something to say.

A quote oft ascribed to Dorothy Parker (but was apparently from a newspaper columnist some years before) is “Writing is terrible. Having written is wonderful.” I can attest that this is absolutely true. My observation to students and lecture halls along these lines is “Writing books is like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer: it feels so good when you stop.”