Lessons From Helping 50 Non-Fiction Authors

A few weeks ago, a woman I casually know from my gym approached me before her class began. Skyler (a pseudonym) knew that I had written a bunch of books. She wanted to know more about the logistics and cost of penning a proper one. As an intermittent faster, I'm a sucker for a big post-workout meal. We made plans to grab breakfast the following week.

I brought a backpack with a deliberate sampling of books. Some I wrote; others were from Racket clients. I made sure to bring at least one book each from:

• True self-publishing services or subsidy presses.
• Traditional publishers.
• Hybrid publishers, such as Racket.

Over the course of the meal, I listened to Skyler’s questions—the first of which involved the pros and cons of each publishing method. After a while, her general curiosity began to resemble those of the 50 or so prospective authors I’ve helped in over the last dozen years. (I fondly remember a writing seminar I hosted in 2013 in Vegas.)

In this post, I'll offer some observations that will help would-be scribes.

The Required Resources Typically Surprise Prospective Authors

“How much time and money will writing and publishing a good book take?”