Writers and the Wannabe Author

A very interesting phenomena exists among writers who want to become published authors; very few of them actually know how to write.

This isn’t some elitist commentary; not in the least. Almost everyone can tap a few words onto a keyboard and to them, it reads wonderfully. Of course! That’s because it came from their own imagination. The trick is, however, that in order to become a successful published author, you have to make others want to read it; and hopefully to be willing to buy more of the same.

Things have changed dramatically over the past two decades. Traditional publishers controlled the market and to become one of their rank was more difficult than winning the world poker tour.

Then came digital publishing and a strange phenomenon came about. Suddenly those who played poker were interested in writing about it. It became part of their personal brand. They wanted to “write the book on it.” They did, and digital publishing and on-demand fulfillment slayed the middlemen, as well as the guards of the hallowed golden gates of big name publishers.

Now the market became flooded with so-so books and content that, while authentically voiced by the poker champ, was hardly in demand in numbers large enough to really become a money maker. This called for a new business model.

Enter the marketers. These are clever folks who hire others to write, edit, design and quickly, while they load the books onto Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iBooks and soon a new kind of business model came about.

The key to success in all this is to know how to market. It’s hard work. There is no secret formula—if there were, everyone who does it would be filthy rich. They’re not.

One of the reasons is because the content they invest in was written by someone who would turn out poorly-written drivel that, no matter how widely marketed, simply died there.

The moral of the story is if you’re not a great writer, become a great marketer and spend your budget on hiring that high level writer. To do anything less is to frost a moldy cake. There’s simply no market for it!