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Four things you didn’t know about writing a book

Until you’ve written and published a book yourself, the whole process is probably a mystery to you. Unless, of course, you finish reading this blog post, but most other people keep having the same assumptions about it. If you’re one of those people, I don’t want you to feel bad! Just buy a coffee for your closest writer friend. Please. They need it.

I didn’t write this post to mock people or to say you can’t ask writers anything at all. This is just a public service to clear some confusion and to help people who genuinely want to write and who have no idea what to expect. I probably have some silly beliefs about plumbers or horse breeders, and if you’ve ever written a post about either of those professions, I’d be glad to read it.

Related reading: How long does it take to write a novelHow to get published traditionallyShould you write a book or a blog?Beginner writer mistakes

1 / Writing a book and getting published are two very different things

You know how it goes in movies. Your handsome but forgetful writer hero, probably wearing a brown suede jacket, finally finishes his manuscript. He sends it over to The Publisher, and before you know it, it’s on the shelves of The Bookstore. Wow! Finally that girl is going to fall in love with him.

The reality is, well, a little different. Unless you’re already known for something, you likely don’t have a publishing deal just hanging out waiting for you. For a non-famous, first-time author, getting a publishing deal is not easy and there will probably be several rejection letters. This is not a value judgement, it’s just the way things are. You or your writer friend are not, in fact, the only people writing a book, and there’s so much more competition than the general public can imagine.

You know how many published books there are in the world? There are even more unpublished works that no one ever gets to see. No book is guaranteed to get published and simply writing a book is neverrrrrr enough to get it on the shelves, no matter what happened to Peppa Pig’s mum in that one episode.

2 / Publishing a book doesn’t make you instantly rich

If the only authors you can think of are J.K. Rowling (ew), Dan Brown and Stephen King, then sure, it’s probably a logical conclusion that writing and publishing a book makes you rich. But did you know that The Da Vinci Code was Brown’s FOURTH published novel? I bet you didn’t. Even the richest authors have had to work their butts off for their fame, and there are even more writers who are working just as much but who never get a big break.

Just making a living through writing books can be difficult. It CAN be done and there are plenty of writers who do it. I would never tell anyone it’s impossible or that they shouldn’t dream of it. But once again, there are no guarantees. (I see you, people googling “how much money do you make writing a book”.) Although I do enjoy having food on the table, I’m totally fine with not becoming richer and richer with every book I write – my priority is always, ALWAYS, getting to share my stories with the world.

3 / Publishing a book doesn’t make you famous, either

This far, I have one traditionally published book under my belt. Unless you’re reading this blog because we’re friends, you’ve probably never heard of me. It’s totally fine. I know my social awkwardness is my problem and no one else’s, but I haaaate it when someone new finds out about my book and then asks my name or the name of my book with the assumption that they should have heard of me before. I am cringing just writing about it.

Author Katri Soikkeli, the face of Protagonist Crafts, writing a book.

Go to the library one day and go to a random shelf. How many writers there in front of you have you heard of before? Go to another shelf and do it again. And then again. Unless you are extremely well read, you probably have never heard of most writers who get their books published. Whether you’re hoping to write your own book or you know people who do, please don’t make assumptions about all the fame that’s waiting just around the corner. Otherwise, you’re going to make someone cry.

4 / There’s more to writing a book than writing a certain number of pages and then checking for typos

If you’re confused about what I mean here, you’ve probably never been in the process of writing a book and then had non-writer folks ask you questions about it. “How many pages have you written?” is pretty much the equivalent of asking a pregnant person how many months they are along – the people who it concerns simply don’t measure things that way. (It’s words or drafts for writers and weeks for pregnant people, in case you were wondering.)

If you want to know what goes into writing a novel, I have written about it extensively, but here’s the gist of it: first you have a plan and then there’s the first draft, and then the second draft, and then many other drafts before you start to even consider your grammar and punctuation. You don’t just start from page one, proceed to the last page, and then finish. There are a lot of stages to the writing process and it’s rarely easy to say how far along you are when you are in the thick of it, and the process doesn’t stop to getting a yes from a publisher.

If you want to know how someone’s writing is going, just ask “hey, how’s your writing?” and accept any answer you’re given. “When do you think you’re finished?” is also acceptable, but if the writer starts crying, please buy them another coffee and maybe some cake, too.


Now that you’ve read this post, perhaps you feel like you’re ready to start writing your own book. Fabulous! You can read this post to learn what you need to do to become a writer.


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