Reasons to write a book

9 08 2010

There are many rea­sons to write a book.

Some are enhanced cred­i­bil­ity, to leave a legacy, to help other peo­ple, to make money, and a few more.

The book will bring you more cred­i­bil­ity than any­thing else you can do. You can invest your time in writ­ing a screen­play, pub­lish­ing a line of greet­ing cards, or teach­ing a Work­shop. All are viable con­tri­bu­tions to soci­ety but none will give you the cred­i­bil­ity of being a pub­lished author.

Peo­ple think if you wrote a book you know some­thing. And you prob­a­bly do because in order to write a book you not only use your accu­mu­lated knowl­edge, you read every­thing else that has ever been pub­lished on your sub­ject. You study other books, mag­a­zine arti­cles, web­sites, blogs, inter­view experts, and so on. You take that infor­ma­tion, dis­till it down, focus it to a par­tic­u­lar type of indi­vid­ual reader, and give them the answers they are pay­ing you for.

In effect, you’re giv­ing your­self an advanced degree in your sub­ject. You are giv­ing your­self a PhD. After all, you are doing the research and you are writ­ing the paper.
Dan Poynter/Para-Publishing

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