Why You Should Think About Writing A Book

 

Please note I didn’t say ‘why you should write a book’

Not everyone wants to for all sorts of reasons and that’s fine. It might be as simple as you don’t like writing- there are lots of other ways to share your messages.

But for those of you who do, I’m going to explain why you should go for it- and why you should start making plans now to do so.

I must say first that I’m very early in the process of enjoying having a book published! Mine was launched this week, you can learn more in this article and in the video below:

It being early for me there are all sorts of things I don’t know yet- what effect will it have on how I see myself and how others see me- and what difference will it make to helping me growing my own level of influence? I’m excited to find out though and seeing what it has done for other people who have published books means I hope I’ll get some of those benefits too.

 

What I have experienced so far though is that I’m loving being an author, so I wanted to share this with you and encourage you.

There are three main reasons why I think that you should go ahead and start an actual plan for writing a book.

They are- Because you owe it to others, because you owe it to yourself, because it is easier than you might think.

 

1.Because you owe it to others

I wrote this book right now because I wanted to share my ideas with the world. Specifically I wanted people to know two things- that they need influence if they are going to make an impact on the world- and that there are methods they can use to grow their influence that I have seen work in my own life and in the lives of others.

A really good reason to write a book is because you have things that you want to share with people. Of course it might be a fiction book rather than non-fiction like mine- you are still sharing the vision that is in your head and sharing a story.

I don’t know whether you feel this too, but I felt I owed it others in a different way. I owed it to all the people who have ever taught me good things- from my parents, to my university lecturers, to influencers I follow online- who freely gave me knowledge and understanding of the world. I felt like after all I had seen and done that I wanted a medium to share it that felt more permanent and profound than a blog post or a short video.

 

2. Because you owe it to yourself

I’ve wanted to write something for a very long time. While launch week has been pretty tiring, it has also been life-affirming.

 

On the day of launch it was great to hear people mentioning the book on social media- I put together my first Twitter moment to capture it.

I’ve been able to share the book with all sorts of people who have helped me and encouraged me on my journey and it has felt really good.

Also, just having other people sound excited about reading it and being excited that someone they know has written a book has been amazing. I hope, in some small way it encourages them. I have been lucky enough to meet a few authors myself and it made a real difference. In the past writing a book felt like something ‘other people did’.

You don’t just owe it to yourself to write a book, you owe it to yourself to get on with writing it, which brings me to my next point…

 

3. Because it is easier than you might think

I was always confident that I would write a book one day, just because it was something that I knew was such an important part of my career journey and of my life in general.

There were a number of things that held me back. Some were legitimate, some less so. When you examine why you haven’t started writing your book you need to think about what is holding you back because it is a genuine issue and what is just an excuse.

The amazing thing is that there are so many resources out there right now which can help you.

Looking at my own work:

My logo for The Influence Expert was designed by someone on Fiverr.

The cover of the book was designed by my very kind wife on Canva.

I wrote the main body of the book in Microsoft Word (this is actually one of the things I’ll change when I write another book because it was a bit fiddly to move sections around- but I include it here to show you that we are talking about pretty basic stuff that most people have access to).

I published the book using create space, which allowed me to publish to Amazon on both Kindle and as a physical book. In my own case, my priority is not to sell copies but to allow people to access my work for free if possible, but Amazon has given me an extra profile online and the possibility to print physical copies of the book (family Christmas presents sorted!).

Once the book was published I had all the key social media platforms, my own website and an email list at my disposal to get it in front of people.

 

There are so many great resources for authors out there, it’s not hard to find them. In the modern world a lot of the ‘excuses’ about writing a book have disappeared.

 

 

Remember, if you want a free copy of the book you can get it right here. This article explains the three main ways you can get it.

Also, there is a handy Twitter list of the influencers I’ve included in my book, if you’d like to take a look.

 

I hope this article has made you think more about writing your own book and would love to hear about your ideas!