043: What do you want to get from writing a book?

Do you know what you want to get from writing a book? Understanding WHAT you want to get from the experience is so important, because it will help you identify the best approach you should take for your unique book project: in other words, you need to know what you want to get out of writing a book in order to figure out HOW to go about writing it.  

There are so many different reasons for why we might want to write a book. Depending on what you want to get from the experience, you may want to approach it from one angle or another, or you might need to adjust where it fits into your priorities, and so on.  

For example, if you are writing a book because you have a cool story idea in your head that you think would be a lot of fun to write, and you want to write for the pure joy of it without sharing it with the world, then you will likely take a very different approach to it than if you are writing a book because you want to become a full-time author.   

Likewise, if your goal with writing a book is to win a prestigious award, that could also have an entirely different approach than if your goal is to make a lot of money from it.   

That’s why it’s really important to sit down and examine what is it that you want from your book writing experience, so you can ensure you’re going about it the right way. This will help you determine things like…   

If you want to write a book on your own or if you want a co-writer.   If you want to self-publish your book or if you want to go the traditional publication route.  What genre, voice, and style you want to use.  Timeframes and deadlines for your book project.  Whether you want to explore mentorship, writer groups, and training.  How a book fits into your lifestyle and professional life, and what level of priority it gets.  Whether you want to tell people that you’re writing a book or not.  ...and so on.  

There’s no doubt about it: having a clear understanding of what you want to get from your book writing experience really does matter!   

TUNE IN to this episode of Indie Author Weekly to get a real-life example of the unexpected benefits you can get from writing a book, why understanding what you want to get from it matters so much, and more...   

Resources & links mentioned in this episode:  

Learn more about all of Sagan's books at SaganMorrow.com/books .Episode 41 of Indie Author Weekly: 5-step process for how to plan your book projects for the next year .Episode 42 of Indie Author Weekly: The value of vulnerability in writing .Learn more about doing weekly check-ins (and how to save time!) with the time-saving tips cheatsheet at SaganMorrow.com/savetime .Tune into Indie Author Weekly on your favourite podcast platform at SaganMorrow.com/podcast .Rate & review this podcast on iTunes .

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