Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the absence of self.
The speaker about courage is Pastor Des Wadsworth who has not written any books (yet). However, he is from England, a culture that knows a thing or two about a stiff upper lip. If you have written a book that you believe people outside your family and friend circle will want to read, you must think of your potential readers and how much they will miss out on if you a) do not finish or b) fail to get the word out about your book.
Even John H. Olcott, a vet with three purple hearts and a relative with access to television, says he fears promoting his book. He has a message for vets, and hopefully he will think of them and be successful. In war, there is an organization driving you to do what must be done and an enemy threatening your friends. In writing you must find elsewhere the discipline to advance, in addition to the creativity to write.
My advice to all new writers is to think of your readers and step out there with your art. You may succeed or not, and you may not know which you have done in your lifetime (keep your day job meanwhile). Anne Frank’s diary was not even published until after death. No matter, carry on. Success requires first and foremost the discipline to carry on both in writing and in marketing. In failure you may learn more than in immediate success.
About 85% of the people in the world want to write a book. People love stories, and stories are a powerful way to convey our experience to those who come after. Based on the number of titles out there, perhaps 10% will see the project through to publication in some form. About 2% of the 10% will have a marketing plan that attempts to reach readers. Of those a few will broadly succeed. It is a little like the kid playing basketball at the park hoping to be in the NBA. Plan to work hard to be the best. The average book sells about 2000 copies. However, that is millions of copies for the best of the bestsellers averaged with a couple hundred copies for millions of books.
That is a long tail and you must plan a life that is affordable should you spend time in this tail. Even John Grisham spent time here before his second book took off. Strive for the best, prepare for the worst. Unless you have enough money to invest in your own high-risk start-up business you should find a publisher to make the investment. Book-selling is a business and publishers are the venture capitalists. That said, if you do have some money to invest, you are the one that believes in your book the most. You can cut a lot of time out the process of reaching your readers by putting your money where your heart is. However, getting the book “available” is not the same amount of resources as getting it “known”.
To create the business plan think this way: you are about seven links away from the most distant readers in the world. Someone that you know, knows someone who knows someone etc. and by seven links you have covered the population of the globe. If you have written a good book it will spread as people talk about it. If you start with more readers that talk to many other readers, it will go faster. Bookstores, online or off, may know some of your sought after readers.
Your first job is to write a book worth talking about. Your next job is to get enough people talking about the book, through as many links as needed, to get to your readers. If the book is good enough, a percentage of readers will talk about it. Do not underestimate the time it takes — people buy books and then put them in a pile to be read, or on a shelf hoping they’ll have time to read. People take time to read, and then time to reflect on what they read. This is a business cycle with a long turn around time to the next cycle of readers, unless your book is short, or documents an already successful work of art — e.g Hamilton, the musical. That is one reason traditional wisdom is to write a shorter book as your first title.
If the book is not good enough, no amount of pushing can ignite the book beyond what direct marketing will do — you are better off planning the next release of that book or writing another better book.
The beauty of books is that they last, they do not expire. There is no rush. You can alternate back and forth between writing and marketing as opportunities present themselves. With a self-published book you can improve it and re-release, much like new software is released with additional features. There are few hard set rules.
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