Writing a book is a mighty endeavor, a lot more challenging than finishing reading a book that wants to be better than it appears. Most of us start out as readers of books before we try to write them. Or we should start that way, since a book has a better chance whenever the author has read the state of their art before creating.
Consider your should’s, whenever you tell yourself what to expect about making a book for the world. Meeting your expectations comes with a lot less angst when your sights are set reasonably. “I want a bestseller” is less reasonable than “I want to make a book good enough to become a bestseller.” That latter expectation is about your skill and craft as a storyteller, something that’s essential before the industrial literary complex grabs hold of your new book.
I interviewed an author with a pro contract and distribution of her debut novel. She had reasonable expectations. “I don’t care if I make zero dollars,” she told me. The book is not her work that pays the bills for a lovely wedding day coming up. The book she’s made is her creation. It might be something like “I want to own a champion show dog” versus “I want a dog good enough to be a champion, if I’d show it.”
Authors go down the traditional publishing path with expectations. “This is going to make my career,” some might think. Others publish a book and think, “Let’s see how this goes. I want better than a life without a book. I side with hope.” The joy in the making is easier to find along that path.
You might be making a book to have your say, about raising kids, or roses, or a ruckus down at city hall. As soon as you publish it, you’ll have had your say. Or the start of your say, because in making a book you create a talking point — whether that’s for showing us how love can grow in the shadows of hate, or the ways a church sold out on its promises until it was made to pay up. Authors write legacy books, too, where having their say is the last thing they plan to do for the public.
The reasons you make a book can change along your path, too. At first it’s the thrill of seeing a manuscript finished and then edited. After that, you’ve savored the physical embodiment of a dream, that object you can admire from across the room that started in your head with a dream. I believe as soon as you make a book it becomes legitimate. Turning out something legit is a modern marvel by now, considering how much artificial creation is swelling up all around us.
Before you even write out the sentence that sums up your book’s mission, write a few sentences about why you’d make a book. What kind of itch will your book scratch — and how much to invest in hopes and time — is what makes that book legit to you. In the end, you’re the final word on whether the endeavor brought you what you desired.
