If you’re writing your first business book, you don’t know what you don’t know. I sure didn’t when I got started.
I was a complete rookie. I had written articles that caught the eye of the acquisitions editor, but I’d never tackled anything as long or complex as a book. I was clueless about the adjustments I would need to make to my daily routine and how many rewrites I would do.
That was more than fifty years ago. I learned the hard way, by getting surprised and then figuring out what to do. I don’t recommend that method.
A lot has changed since then. But before you decide if you’re going to spend a year or more working hard and disrupting your life, you must still answer the question: “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”
An astonishing number of people start writing a book without answering that question. And an astonishing number of them abandon their project without finishing their book. They devote time, money, and effort to a project that goes nowhere. They strain important relationships while they work on a project that never produces anything—lots of squeeze, but no juice.
By now, I hope you’re thinking, “Got it. I’ll do my due diligence before I finalize the decision to write a book.” So how do you find out what you don’t know? There are four common ways.
You Can Engage With a Book Coach
I love book coaches, and I think we can do great things for people who want to write a book, but I don’t think we should be the first place you look for answers. The odds are pretty good you won’t find the right boat coach for you–the one with the right competence and good chemistry, without a lot of time and expense.
So, wait a bit for that discovery call. Instead, do a little research on your own.
You Can Read a Book or Two About Writing a Book.
Books are great sources of information. We read a lot of good ones. But books are best when things are stable. The publishing world today is anything but stable. Check out the books, but realize that many of them are years, if not decades, out of date.
You Can Scour the Internet Looking for Answers
You can poke around the Internet and find all kinds of information. Some of it will be accurate, well-phrased, and helpful. A lot will either be wrong, too specialized, or hard to figure out. There is also advice that is true but not detailed enough for your situation to help you.
Of course, you can use artificial intelligence. Fire up your favorite AI, I’d ask it to tell you about writing a book. Alas, the problem with that approach is the same with any AI research project. What you’ll get is a summary of all that’s out there, good and bad. You may even get a hallucination or two.
There is a way to use AI to get good advice.
Wallybot Can Help You Decide if the Juice Is Worth the Squeeze
WallyBot is my chatbot. It’s trained on the advice I’ve written and given to clients over the last 25 years. There’s no AI slop from other sources. There is Information and insight that my clients and I have used to write great books. The chatbot format is excellent for your due diligence.
When you find information on the web yourself, you often have a follow-up question. That’s no problem with WallyBot. Get answers through a dialogue with the chatbot. You can ask follow-up questions and get answers specific to your situation. You can come back an hour a day or a week later and ask any other questions that occur to you.
WallyBot is not human. It doesn’t get tired. The chatbot is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
What does WallyBot cost? You can try it out for two weeks for less than 15 cents a day. Try it today to determine if the juice from writing a book is worth the squeeze for you.