I’ve been a little absent from my blog these days as I’ve been working fast & furiously on a new product I am very excited about. I’ll talk more about that next week as I plan to be ready to launch by then, but basically we have been working on a turnkey book promotion campaign system called The Author Platform (www.theauthorplatform.com). Stay tuned.
Even though I should be working on The Author Platform now, I wanted to take a moment and talk about two movies, Australia and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I think it was near the end of the movie when Benjamin Button, the movie’s narrator, says, “I left this world as I came into it, naked and with nothing except my story.” I may have the exact quote wrong but it was something like that. The movie Australia was a story of a young boy who was simply telling his story. I found it interesting that in order to “get” his story, he needed to go on a walkabout.
While I was conducting a recent seminar on book publishing and promotion, an attendee asked me that if it is so hard to get published (I had just told the class that about 200,000 out of 6 million manuscripts get publised by the big houses each year), then why do so many people write? I think I had managed to totally discourage this poor author.
The answer I gave is that writing a book, either fiction or non-fiction, is the most self-actualizing activity we humans can engage in. If not, then why is it that many self-made billionaires end up writing a book? It’s obviously not to make money and I don’t think it’s just to stroke their own egos. I think they write to tell their stories to help the human race move forward. I firmly believe this.
Publishing a book is hard work and very few authors get rich from their endeavors. But I believe that anyone who has finished a book feels a great sense of accomplishment. In addition, the author has left a part of them for their families and friends and in some cases the community at large to learn from and in their own small way, every book written, if published in some form, helps move the human race forward.
I know authors who have written many books and have never published a single thing they’ve written. Even their own families will not benefit from their life’s stories. I am writing this post to encourage everyone to write their stories and then, once written, publish those stories. Although I spend every business hour helping authors make money from their books, we have to keep in mind that money is not the only reward.
My grandfather just passed away at age 96 and thankfully he left his history behind. It was a simple history, but reading his history was facinating for me and my family. One thing he said was, “we were always poor and we were always happy.” This really got me thinking. In fact, it’s changing the way I see life in general. My grandfather has helped me move forward with his story.
If you have a story, write it and then publish it, even if publishing means printing out 20 copies on your home printer. A story not shared is worthless.
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