So You Wanna Write a Book?

Some notes on the process.

I went for a walk with a new friend the other week. She’s a therapist, and she published a book earlier this year that has done quite well—it had just fallen short of making the New York Times bestsellers list, a heartbreaking near-miss that’s a common story for authors with books that are classified for the “Advice, How-To and Miscellaneous” category—there are only 10 spots, and books like Atomic Habits, The Creative Act, and now, The Let Them Theory, can sit on there for years. (On Our Best Behavior made the Hardcover Nonfiction list, which has 15 spots and not as many permanent fixtures.)

Johannes Vemeer, “Mistress and Maid,” 1666-67, The Frick

Your best shot at “listing” on the New York Times is publication week, because all the advanced orders count toward your first week on sale. (This is why authors beg you for the pre-orders—it also indicates interest to the algorithms and booksellers, who are then more likely to carry the book and put it out on tables and shelves in response.)

As I walked with this friend, I could sense her disappointment.

“So, how are you feeling about your book?”

“Honestly? I love my book, but it’s not the accelerator for my brand and business that I expected it to be.”

Sigh. I totally get it. My friend is one of the lucky ones, too, as her book is “working” and she’s selling copies. Some books hit big and then fall away; others hit and stick; some don’t hit for a minute, or never hit but stick in their own way; and some don’t work at all. It’s a really hard business, even if you experience some success. (If you want to read some sobering statistics, in 2006, Nielsen reported that only 25,000 books—out of the 1.2 million tracked—sold more than 5,000 copies. Fewer than 500 books sold 100,000+ copies. It looks like Mel Robbins’ book has now sold 4 million copies; Atomic Habits, more than 20 million. These are total oddities!)

It’s just hard. I had a really successful launch, and still, it felt like one more brick in a wall you have to build by hand. (I wrote about my publishing day adventures here, including how I went to my favorite NYC bookstore to see my book in the wild…and I hadn’t made the New Releases table. In fact, they only had two copies, buried somewhere in the storeroom in the back. After standing there for 15 minutes while they went to see if they could find them, I eventually tiptoed out the door. Definitely right-sizing for the ego and funny in retrospect—and as I’ve learned, not unusual! Anne Lamott is really funny about this in Bird by Bird, a must-read for would-be writers.)

I offer this here because I think books are very glamorizing to people—they seem like a very big deal and very legitimizing (and they can be!), but it’s a hard road and you should be wide-eyed about it. Not only in the work required, but in what might be on the other side: Your world might not change in response. It’s not a process I’d recommend undertaking unless it feels like you’ll die if you don’t do it.

I think many people are convinced that a book will automatically grant them a platform, and a million invitations to speak—on podcasts, on stages, and so on. This might happen, but before you embark on this journey, get comfortable with the idea that it might not. You need to feel like it’s worth doing for the process itself. (I love writing books as it allows me to synthesize all of my thoughts—everything I’m hearing and reading and observing—and the process brings me legitimate joy. When I am drafting, I am in flow and I am happy; less so during the editing and marketing process.)

I say all this as someone who loves books, obviously. I’m a compulsive reader, I mostly interview authors on PTT, and I’m pushy with people who have a book in them to go write it. Books are my business: I’ve written something like 16 books at this point (I’ve lost count), though only a few under my own name: On Our Best Behavior, Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness (the workbook for OOBB, which comes out in August), and True & False Magic (I co-wrote this with Phil Stutz). Most of the books I’ve written have been as a ghostwriter, which is a totally unique experience (their material, my structure), and something I now undertake only in the most special circumstances—while it’s much easier to do this than my own projects (there’s no ego involved and I have the outsider perspective to see the arc very clearly), it still takes a lot of my energy and time.

During a recent office hours for paid Substackers about the creative process, there were a lot of questions about book writing…and I realized that when it comes to nonfiction book-writing, I do have quite a bit to share, as I’ve written in a lot of nonfiction genres (straight nonfiction, coffee table books, guide books, heavy how-to, memoir, workbooks, advice-driven nonfiction, etc.). Fiction writers, I’m sorry, I’ve never done it.

Herewith, some of my best advice.