You have a book (or 3) inside you and if you haven’t started writing it yet then maybe it’s because you just haven’t found the right reason to start. There are as many ways and reasons to write a book as there are people and while I think my list is pretty good, feel free to disagree with it and state your own reasons.
1. Self Development
Have you ever gotten an idea in your head and couldn’t get past that idea until you wrote it down? What happened then? I’m willing to bet that you had a new idea that replaced the old one!
Thoughts and ideas are just another form of energy and energy flows best when it’s expressed. I often encourage journaling for exactly this reason, but for holistic healers, teachers and life coaches I encourage more directed writing. If you know enough about a topic to teach it then you know enough about it to write a book.
2. To spread your message
We all have a message. Take a moment and think about your practice and see if you can boil everything that you do down to one sentence. I’ll give a few examples based on my books and the work I do with them;
For The Spiritual Entrepreneur – My primary message is that you can use your business to generate multiple streams of passive income that will support the charities you care about; you don’t have to sacrifice to give.
For Awaken Your Inner Power! – You have the ability, right now, to tap into unlimited energy; all you have to do is get out of your own way.
For The Self Help Author – You have the ability to help people at a much greater level; here are the tools you need to make that happen.
As you’ll see, writing the book is just the tip of the iceberg, but for many people the book is the biggest step that they can see right now. My goal at this point is to make it as easy as possible to take that step.
3. To help those in your tribe
We all have our own tribe. Your tribe is the people who listen to you and benefit from your teachings, experience and hopefully, wisdom. The interesting fact is that you could take any of my books and not change one single word other than to put your name on the cover rather than mine, and there are people who would buy that book with you listed as the author who wouldn’t buy it from me.
Your tribe is waiting right now for you to show up and there are a few points that I want to make before we go farther with this;
· Your tribe doesn’t expect you to be perfect
· Your tribe will never present you with a problem that you can’t find the answer for
· Your tribe does not care about your level of education, your experience or any other hang-up you might have about getting in front of them!
· Your tribe, however large or small, will appreciate and benefit from what you can do right now
· As your abilities increase, so will the size of your tribe. If you only have 1 person show up to an event then give that 1 person 100% and I guarantee you that by the time of your next event your tribe will at least double. Did you ever have anyone ask whether you’d rather have a million dollars or a penny that doubles every day? Think about it.
I’ll cover all these points in greater detail as we go along, but for right now just realize that if you didn’t have everything you need to go forward then you wouldn’t be reading this.
4. To build credibility
Just having a book on Amazon.com can give you a greater level of credibility. In fact, there are some organizations that won’t allow you to be a speaker unless you have a book!
I remember how shocked I was about people’s reactions when I got my first book published. To me it wasn’t that big a deal because I had been so close to the project for so long that I had become used to it, but for everyone else it was a very huge event and for some of my friends it continues to be so.
According to some statistics that I recently saw, over 70% of the population would like to write a book, but only 4% actually do it. Think about that, from the moment your book shows up on Amazon.com you just fell into that 4% and that 70% of the population now see you as someone who’s done something they’d like to do. Never underestimate what that can mean.
Getting on Amazon.com is insanely easy, by the way. With a little know-how (and I have at least a little) you can get on Amazon in less than a week completely for free. Keep reading.
5. To develop passive income
I don’t write books to make money, but it’s a damned good side effect! I remember reading Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad and thinking about how cool it would be to develop some passive income.