Benefits Of Writing That Book You Have Been Thinking About Writing

The Good Word: And whatsoever ye do , do  it heartily , as to the Lord, and not unto men (Col 3:23, KJV)

Are you thinking about writing a book? Margaret Agard, author of the In His Footsteps memoirs interviews award-winning authors and publishers Alton Gansky, Echo Garrett and Dana Smith say go for it. Here’s why!

Listen to the podcast Benefits of Writing That Book You Have Been Thinking About Writing

How to get started

The truth about the writers life

What if you want to write just one book?

Going to writers conferences: A good idea or a waste of time?

Can fiction books change lives?  Bring people to Christ?

listen to the podcast Why You Should Write That Book You Have Been Thinking About Writing

Scroll for a transcript if you’d rather read than listen, more information and useful links.

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Q:  Have you ever thought you would like to write a book?  According to research, 81 percent of Americans think they would like to write a book.  Today we’re going to be talking about why you should write that book you’re thinking about writing. 

Q2:  Now here’s this week’s Bible question and answer, brought to you by the Amazing Bible Timeline.  Quickly see 6,000 years of Bible and world history together on one color-coded wall poster.  Find out more about the Amazing Bible Timeline or ask you own Bible Question at AmazingBibleTimeline.com

Q:  This week’s Bible question is, “Who wrote the Bible?”  The word bible comes from the Greek word “biblia,” which means little books.  The Protestant Bible consists of 66 books written by 40 men over a period of 1,600 years.  The Old Testament ending with Malachi, its last book was written about 443 BC and the New Testament’s first book, Matthew, was written about 40 AD, leaving about a 500-year gap between the Old Testament and the New Testament.  You can find a table listing each of the books of the Bible, who wrote it, the timeframe it covered, and the time period it was written in at https://AmazingBibleTimeline.com, go to the Bible Questions link and you’ll find the answer there. 

Now, why should you write that book you’ve been thinking about writing, and how can you do it?  First, the bad news; 560,000 new titles were introduced in 2008, that’s just four years ago, that was more than double the number of titles from 2003, and book sales were going down.  Now book sales are going back up, thanks to eBooks.  So based on that bad news, the fact that about each book only sells an average of 99 copies, why should you write that book you’re thinking about writing?  Because books change lives, people need to have your unique ideas and you will reach people that can’t be reached by any other person.  Your book will change a life, even if it’s only your life.  Recently, my son-in-law lost a job at the age of 55 in a dying industry.  It was actually the old version print industry.  How likely was he to get another job?  Within two weeks, offers from two strong, still profitable companies in the same industry contacted him and offered him positions.  Why?  Because for years he’s written articles for industry magazines about how he had solved problems in his industry, technical problems, and that was complete generosity on his part.  Why?  He already knew how to solve the problem; he was just sharing with others how they could, too.  It was written out of simple, unselfish willingness to serve, and as a result, he was given a better job offer than the job he lost, at an age when most people would be looking for work for months.  Now, let’s hear from the experts on why you should write that book you’ve been thinking about writing.  My first guest is Alton Gansky.  He is actually the director of the Blue Ridge Christian Writer’s Conference, and he’s published 40 books, both fiction and non-fiction and he consults with and encourages people with their writing, knows the industry inside and out.  Let’s see what he has to say.  Well, Alton, what would you say to someone who just has been hit in the face with the news that it isn’t all that easy to get out there and sell your books?  You’re not going to be on Oprah, she closed her show.

Alton Gansky:  Well, the first thing is to realize that it’s never been easy to get published.  This is nothing new.  We have more books being published per year than perhaps ever before and then when we add the electronic publication to it that grows even more.  So there’s more opportunity to be published, but it’s still a difficult thing.  And it’s a craft like any other, and this is what I tell my students.  I took up woodworking a while back and it didn’t come naturally to me, but I had to learn a craft if I was going to make anything worth keeping.  It’s the same thing with writing, you learn a craft.

Margaret:  And so what would you recommend a first step be for someone who wants to write and be published?

Alton Gansky: Well, I think first would be to identify the kind of writing they want to do.  There’s many forms of writing, from non-fiction and fiction.  So if I’m advising you, I’d say what is it you read?  This will probably give you the best indication of what it is you want to write.  And then, of course, in a Christian world view, there may be a leading involved, a spiritual leading that there’s some need that needs to be addressed and a book is a good way to do that.  Find out what it is that you want to say and then start looking at all those other books that are similar, they don’t have to be exact, but if you’re doing devotional book, there’s a lot of devotion books, if you’re doing a theology text, there’s plenty of those.  If you want to do a novel in supernatural suspense say, then you want to read supernatural suspense novels and see how the published authors are handling it, and that way you make them your mentor and by studying what they do you can learn to do the same thing, but you have to [? read what you’re writing 5:45].

Margaret:   And perhaps look at also their websites, sign up for their mailing lists, see how they build and attract a following.

Alton Ganksy:  Well, that’s a different thing.  That’s marketing, yeah.

Margaret:  That’s true to marketing side, so let’s stick to, yeah, books.

Alton Gansky:  Yeah.  First of all, you need to be able to create a product that is going to be useable.  If you’re going to go the traditional route of publishing, that is you’re going to have a publisher who’s going to give you an advance and they’re going to front the money for getting things out there, then you have to make sure that your craft is up to speed, that you know the market, and that you’re putting out something that the publisher can use, because they’re going to spend a lot of money getting that done.  They have to be able to recoup that just to be good stewards.  Even if it’s not a best seller, they at least need to recoup their costs when possible.  So you want to make sure that you having something that people want or people need and will turn to.

Margaret:  And so the first steps that you gave are to study your market, to study what’s already out there and what they’re doing.  This reminds me of my friend, Missy Buchanan.  I talked to her just a few weeks ago and she found a niche that wasn’t covered, it was devotionals for the elderly, because so many of them — and her first devotional starts with, “Why am I still here?  I’m in pain and I can’t do anything.”  So she really spoke to a need and she’s become a best seller in a certain niche because of that.  So sometimes you’ll find you’ll go into a niche someone else is in and you might also have a need that isn’t filled. 

alton Gansky:  That’s right.  The niches that are out there, that it’s just the stuff you see all the time, they continue to exist because there’s a need for them, there’s always a new need, but there are new areas to explore, new angles.  And so what you described is I think a great illustration of what someone can do when they say, “I don’t think this is a need that’s being met.  I think we can do that.”

Margaret Agard:  Perhaps what you should do is talk about why it’s best to settle on one.  What I hear is people say, “I have an idea for a novel and a children’s book and a devotional.”

Alton Gansky:  About focusing on one thing, I think that’s best, especially for new writers.  Now, I write both fiction and non-fiction, I do really a number of things, publishers hire me to write for them or to collaborate with other writers, those sorts of things, so I’m kind of all over the map, but I’ve been doing it for a very long time.  When I started, I focused on one thing; I did that, then moved onto the next thing, but, yeah, focus on one thing at a time, yeah, get that done, move onto the next.

Margaret:  The next question is, like you said about learning woodworking, you know, you can go out and buy something already made.  So the people who are saying, “I feel like I should write a book, I need to write a book,” what is the point?  How have you seen your books have an impact?

alton Gansky:  Well, in a variety of ways, and I do believe there should be a point to it.  Some want to be writers because they have this false image of what I writer does, sit around in a smoking jacket with an Irish Setter at their feet and they’re using a number two pencil on a yellow legal pad and penning these best sellers.  And I know hundreds of writers and most of them spend a lot of hours in isolation trying to do the best work they can on their writing, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, they’re pounding out these things.  It is a profession.  There should be, I think, a point, yeah.

Q:  I was going to say and lucky to make minimum wage for most of them.

M:  That’s true.  Most writers, if you take the money they make from writing, they would live below the poverty line, yeah most of them, not all of them, some are, I think, quite well.

Q:  But some people get to play NFL and some people just do college.

M:  Yeah, and then some just play in the street.  That’s me.

Q:  That’s you.  Okay.  So I think the point I’ve made when I talk to people about it is the whole point is if God especially is calling you to write it, someone is going to read that who will be affected and might not be affected in any other way, it’s you and your writing that’s going to touch that person.

M:  Yeah.  A couple things there, first, I would say we don’t always need a voice from heaven to tell us, “I want you to write this book.”  I think God gives us freedom to work in some of these areas and if that’s where our skillset is, that’s what we enjoy, I think God will bless it, but you’re also spot-on when you’re talking about the impact that even a low selling book would have.  I tell people if they sell a book, even if it sells poorly, it’s not even mid-list where most books are, if you write a book and let’s say it sells just 5,000 copies, and in publishing that would be considered a very bad showing, but 5,000 copies, but we’re told 2 ½ people read every book that’s purchased, it’s passed around.

Q:  Oh, that’s good.

M:  Yeah.  So if you just kind of then keep the math simple, but let’s say it’s two people read every book that’s published, well, if you sold 5,000 books, then that means 10,000 people have read your words, and that is a mega church.

Q:  True.

M:  And then not only that, books last longer than sermons do.  They sit on shelves, they get re-read, and they get passed around, so you can have a tremendous impact even with a poor selling book, so you can imagine what a great selling book does.

Q:  Yes.  A lot of people the age I am are interested in memoirs.  I’ve learned a lot in my life, I need to share that.  How’s a memoir different, and what’s a memoir market like, Alton?

M:  Memoir market is tough and the reason is we all have things we want to share.  And there’s only so many people who will buy memoirs, so usually it’s somebody who has a very unique angle on something that others don’t have.  One thing I see a lot of is somebody had cancer and they’ve overcome cancer and they want to tell their journey.  There’s certainly nothing wrong with wanting to do that, but the reality is there’s 50,000 other people who are doing the same thing.  So the question is if you have a decent enough angle or something to offer that no one else is going to offer.  Now, occasionally there are those that just break out, they are that interesting and well-written.  One of the winners of the contest that we had last year at our Blue Ridge Writers Christian Writers Conference told the story of the loss of her daughter from a very peculiar kind of disease, and when I was reading it I was thinking I don’t want to read this, this is just another sad story, but her approach was so different, her take on things was so unique that I enjoyed every word of it.  And so she had found a way to use a memoir that is sellable and that teaches and that encourages, so that’s really the key with memoirs, it’s not just saying, “This is what I’ve been through, you need to read this,” you need to find something that’s going to interest the reader.  You have to think about the reader, not just the writer.

Q:  And that’s true.  Your focus needs to be on — everybody’s looking for what’s in it for me, think about when you buy a book it’s, “What’s in it for me?  Is this going to entertain me?  Can I just sit down tonight and not have to think and read this thing?  Is this going to give me information?”  It really has to be written from the point of view of the person who’s reading it.  My next question is about writers conferences.  I did go to the Blue Ridge Christian Writers Conference last year.  It was my second writer’s conference.  My first writer’s conference was at a university where I clearly did not belong, and it was a different animal and people needed to keep that in mind, I think.  You will have different kinds of writers conferences and they attract different kinds of people, so if you wanted the university type people talking about Pulitzer Prize winners and their let’s say obscure poetry is how I think about it and very intellectual, then you should go perhaps to a university-sponsored writers conference.  If you are coming from a Christian background with an idea that you want to even in your novels of your fiction to maintain a level of morality without let’s say hitting people over the head with it, then you might want to head to the Christian writers conference.  So what does a writer’s conference have to offer?  Why should a person who’s thinking of writing go to one?

M:  You have several things there.  You’re right, there’s a big difference between a general market or a secular market writers conference and a Christian writers market conference, and the focus is very, very different, the motivation is very different.  In a good Christian writer’s conference, you’re going to find emphasis on conveying truth, but conveying it well.  In Christian writers’ conferences, you learn the craft.  So the one we do in Blue Ridge each year in May, we cover a wide spectrum, so we have everything from children’s writing, writing for young adults, writing novels, writing particular types of novels, writing non-fiction books, devotion books, writing articles, just really the whole gamut where you can go and sit under the teaching of someone who does it for a living, who has great experience in that, they’re editors, they’re agents, they’re writers.  The other thing is many writers’ conferences will offer pitching sessions, and that is where you can sit down with an agent or an editor and pitch an idea to them and get immediate feedback, as to, “No.  This isn’t for us and here’s why,” or, “Here’s something you might think about,” or, “Yes. I’d like to see the proposal for that,” and then you’re just one step further up.  And so in a bigger conference like that, you have the option of sitting with all these different kinds of people.  And in our conference at Blue Ridge, all our faculty have tables assigned to them at mealtimes and for two of the meals, lunch and dinner, you can chose that person’s table, sit down and just visit with them.

Q:  I found that to be very helpful.  I learned a lot sitting at those tables.  Has anyone written to you and said why they liked your books or how it changed their life?  And you write fiction?

M:  I wrote mostly fiction, but I do some non-fiction.

Q: You know what, before I say that I want to say that one of the philosophies, one of the sayings I use throughout my entire life came from a fiction book, and it’s this, “Not to decide is to decide.”

M:  That’s right.  Deciding to do nothing is a decision in and itself.

Q:  That’s right.  And so, “Not to decide is to decide,” has absolutely directed my life since my mid-20s and I read that in a fiction book.

M:  Yeah.  The distinguish between fiction and non-fiction is this, non-fiction is explanation, fiction is exploration.  In fiction we take certain facts and situations and build a story around it so we can see what it’s like.  Every novelist begins with a what-if question, “What if this were to happen?” and then the story starts. 

Q:  And that’s how Christ taught, Christ taught it all through stories, all except maybe the Sermon on the Mount, but yeah.

M:  Well, of course, there was no greater communicator, so he would use what we would call sermons today, so the Sermon on the Mount, for example, but he also used parables, which were stories, they were little bits of fiction to illustrate a point, a very Jewish kind of thing to do, especially first century Jews would do this, you illustrated your point with a story, and so He used that, mostly because the human mind is designed to retain story.  We will remember story much longer than we will remember facts and figures put before us.  And when I was a preacher, we always joked about that you could preach the same sermon over and over as long as you changed the illustrations.

Q:  True.

M:  Because everybody would remember the illustrations, but they didn’t always remember the sermon.

Q:  I can remember giving a talk saying, “You know what, I don’t have time for this story, let me make the point,” and everyone just looks, “Ugh, no, tell the story.”

M:  Forget the point, give me the story.

Q:  Give me the story.  That’s right.  The point is that your fiction has an impact and that’s where we were headed.  So go ahead, do you have any illustration of that?

M:  Yeah.  Well, I think the one that comes to mind today is I got an email from someone who was in Israel.  I wrote a book, there’s a long story behind it, how I ended up writing the book, but it was called CSI Jerusalem, and we looked at the Passion Week of Christ through the eyes of a forensic specialist just so we could get a fresh look at what it was that Jesus went through.  And he couldn’t tell me what he was doing in Israel, my guess was he was a government contractor or something like that, but he just said he had been assigned there.  And one of his family members had sent him the book and he was going from place to place in his off time while he read the book to see the spot where these things happened best he could, and in the process he became a believer, so that one has always stuck with me.

Q:  Oh, absolutely.  Yes, cause that really is the point, I think for a Christian writer, to bring people to God.  After I finished talking with Alton, I thought, you know, a lot of people just want to write one book, they don’t want to develop the writer’s craft.  And one of the best ways to do that is to work with a co-writer or a ghost writer.  So I contacted my friend, Echo Garrett, who does that, and she normally works with people who are trying to accomplish some good in the world.  One of the people she co-wrote a book with was Sam Bracken, the book’s My Orange Duffel Bag, and it has been picked up by a major publisher after selling 15,000 copies through self-publishing.  They used the proceeds from that book to fund the foundation to help foster youth transition from foster care into adulthood on their own, without ending up homeless on the streets or in jail.  This is what she has to say about finding a co-author.

Echo Garrett:  There’s a lot of different companies that will match people with a memoirist or a collaborator and if they want a ghost writer, yes, they can find a ghost writer to help them.  And nowadays, especially if you find a good ghost writer, probably what you’re going to want to do is just self-publish after you get your book, because most people just want it for friends and family, that sort of thing, and they’re not necessarily thinking of a wide release, and even if they are, there are several good self-publishing alternatives now.  As you know, traditional publishing is a really difficult venue now for people who aren’t writers and don’t have a platform to pursue.

Q:  And by platform, you mean already have people ready and wanting to buy the book?

Echo Garrett:  Right, right.  So unless they’re a famous CEO or have some sort of fame, it’s very difficult to get a book deal and it’s also unnecessary.  So if they just feel like they have a good book that they want to — there’s an excellent book that we used when I was working through with Sam on our project when we realized how much trouble we were having getting a traditional book deal, and that helped me so much, and it’s Peter Bowerman’s book, The Well-Fed Self-Publisher, and you can get it off of Amazon.  And it’s a guide, it really takes you through step-by-step if you want to self-publish, and there are some companies out there that are rip offs and it helps you avoid the scam people.

Q:  It’s true; we need to be careful about being scammed.  That’s a good piece of advice.  Now, Dana Smith, an 18-year veteran in the publishing industry is going to share with us other things we need to do to avoid making those newbie author mistakes.  And one of the things she shares with us is essentially the essence of the Christian lifestyle.  Where should our focus be as we write these books?  What are some of the biggest mistakes you see authors making in publishing their books?  I’m really interested in this, Dana.  I thought I would sit here and check off everyone that I made.

Dana:  Well, the biggest problem that I see honestly is that authors, so many of them don’t take time to learn about the publishing industry before they dive in.

Q:  How would they do the research?

Dana:  The two most important books to read for a beginner I would say are Dan Poynter’s book, which is called Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual, and from a marketing standpoint, one of the most popular books was written by John Kremer, and it’s called 1001 Ways to Market Your Books.  And the other thing is so many authors don’t treat their book like a business.  Writing for pleasure is wonderful, but if you wanted to make money or you want to sell books to promote a business or a cause that you believe in, then your publishing venture needs to be treated like a business.

Q:  It’s true.  My sister just made the most incredible mistake because she’s not very math-oriented.  Amazon was paying $7 for a book that it was costing her $9 to have printed, so every time someone bought through Amazon she lost $2.  And she sold quite a few and I was like, ooh, ooh, you’d better fix that.

Dana:  Right.  There’s a lot of business decisions in how you publish, how you market, how you price it, how you work with resellers and so forth and so people need to learn those skills.

Q:  You’ve given us two mistakes so far; one you said is not learning the publishing industry, the other is not having a plan for your book.  Do you have some other common mistakes?

Dana:  From a publishing standpoint, I think the other most common mistakes are lack of professional editing, poor cover design, and vague book titles.  And all of those things affect the quality of the product and your ability to sell the book.

Q:  Many of the people I talk to are interested in writing more of a memoir type of book, a memoir that explains what they’ve learned and how they learned it and how people can use it.  So I have two questions for you, Dana.  One is how could you rewrite that more as a help book than just a memoir or how do you market memoirs?

Dana:  I can say that from a marketing standpoint, it is very hard to sell a memoir unless you’re famous or you’ve done something really extraordinary in your life.  People write them because they want to tell their story and just the process of writing a memoir can be a very good experience for a lot of people.  So if that’s something you want to do, I encourage you to go ahead and do it, but be realistic about the sales potential, because outside of your family and friends and so forth, unless it’s something really extraordinary, it’s probably not going to sell a lot of copies.

Q:  And if they have something they want to share, for example the death of a child or dealing with breast cancer or any of these hard things that people do, there are a lot of memoirs already out there.  So how could they perhaps take that memoir and turn it into a saleable book?

Dana:  Yeah.  It would be more saleable if it has more of the self-help type components to it, so rather than a book that’s basically here’s how I survived the death of a child, it could be more geared toward here are techniques you can use to survive the death of a child and focus it more about how to help other people more than on yourself.

Q:  Dana, that just brings us right back to the point we often make on this show, that Christian principles always work and forgetting yourself in the service of others helps you find yourself and that goes, it sounds like, for writing a book.  Forget yourself and focus on how you can help someone else.  Dana actually puts her money where her mouth is as they say by offering a lot of free tips and reports on her blog, https://savvybookmarketer.com.  That’s the https://savvybookmarketer.com.  And a place to get a great free report before you start writing is createyourbookmarketingplan.com.  I just want to share one last story from an author with you, because this really is why you should write that book you’re thinking about writing.  She has this to say, “I think of all the honors her book, Heart of a Shepherd, has received, the one that has moved me the most is this, it was chosen at the Portland Community College adult English Language Education Program as the first novel in English to be read by their students.”  She said, “I spoke to the students one afternoon and had a chance to meet a man who told me a bit about his life.  He had two jobs, one car, many children and grandchildren living in his house, and the result was that he often had to do his homework on the bus on the way to class.  He said to me, ‘I often feel ashamed because I know my schoolwork is easy, not easy for me, but I know how simple it looks to other writers, but this book, I was proud to read this book on the bus and now that I know I can I will read it out loud in English to my grandchildren.’”  The author says, “That friends, is honor enough for a lifetime.”  And that’s it.  That’s why we write our books.  That’s why you’ll write your book because you’ll change someone’s life.  Move over, Debbie Macomber, here come all our authors from West Virginia, or whatever state you’re in.

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Useful Links

Echo Garret and My Orange Duffel Bag

Dana Smith’s free report on creating a book marketing plan