Should You Publish a Book?

A lot of twenty-somethings and early thirty-somethings e-mail me asking for advice on how to publish a book written for their age group.  While I’m not one to discourage people from anything they have their hearts set on, if you like to write and want to offer proactive advice to people your age or a little younger, my honest advice is to start a blog rather than publish a book.  There are a lot of high-profile books out there targeting young people already, written by authors who have years of experience and professional expertise under their belts.  And while you might be considering self-publishing, an outlet like Lulu won’t bring the credibility and distribution of a major New York publisher like Random House or Penguin. 

Blogs, on the other hand, are just getting more popular among the post-high school and college sets, and many twenty and thirty-somethings are using them as jumping off points to writing in other mediums (check out, for example, Ramit Sethi's I Will Teach You To Be Rich blog and his associated products). It’s also much easier to build an audience and a following for a blog than for a book, and blog writing gives you great practice in honing your writing technique and style. 

A few years, ago, when I got started, I didn't have the option of writing a blog because they didn’t exist. Because I had no credibility as an expert, I had to sell my first book for no money to a tiny publisher.  It was a difficult process and a tremendous amount of work for very little payoff.  Now, though, I'm seeing blog writers break into big-time publishing with relatively little effort because they have already proven that people want to read what they have to say.  It’s a smart and systematic approach, and it works.

Comments

[Rebecca]

I think this is good advice, but once you've built your credibility with a blog, and people want you to write a book, how do you decide on a good subject and actually write a good one?

[zak]

20somethings.ning.com

It's a group of 20-something blogers; there's about 600 of them. A lot of the bloggers are writing dear diary type blogs, but there are a fair number writing about issues and ideas not just what they did today.

If you're starting a blog join the group to start building your audience. They're a very friendly bunch.

Also, females can get their blog listed on blogher.org which may drive the occasional traffic to you as well.

[Alexandra Levit]

Hi Rebecca, good to see you! I think the key is to assess the market and determine a unique niche that you could fill. This means that few (if any) books are published on the topic already, and you could provide a certain angle based on your experience and credentials. We can chat more offline if you like!

Zak, thank you so much for writing. This is an excellent lead. I'm going to check it out myself!