When you first started blogging where did you see it taking you?
If your answer was “to write a book” then you’re in good company, it’s pretty much one those things most bloggers thought about when they started writing, after all if your writing 800+ words per post, 1-3 times per week – why wouldn’t you think about turning your blogging habit into writing a book?
If you dedicate those early years establishing your blog and your abilities as a writer, it seems a natural progression to one day announce to your growing fanbase:
“Hey if you’ve been enjoying my work all these year, then I’m sure you’ll love this 200+ page book I wrote…”
Writing these words down on paper makes me realise how good that introduction would have been to announce that I now have a book available, but that just isn’t the case!
The Third Goal
When I first decided to start a regular writing habit, my first goal was to:
“Just start writing more…”
By the time I realised I would achieve this goal by starting a blog, this evolved into a second goal:
“Start a blog and commit to writing at least one post every week”
Thoughts that this could become something bigger and better if I just persisted in my blogging habit sat on my mind from day one, and this was to become my third goal:
“Write a book.”
And here we are today in my eighth year of blogging and I’m nowhere closer to achieving this vision – it’s fair to say I’m actually further away than when I first set it, because unlike the early days my focus has been elsewhere.
What happened?
Why has the third goal never been realised?
The logic that if you can write a blog post every week, then you can write a few pages of a book too isn’t quite true.
Writing a book to maintaining a regular blog is a different beast – both have their complexities; both are appealing for their mass entry appeal.
From experience of being a blogger, to aspiring author the challenges are:
A book requires sustained focus
Something I’ve always enjoyed about blogging is the flexibility to explore different ideas.
I can spend a week working through an idea resulting in a completed post ready to publish, allowing me to go onto the next thing I’ve wanted to pursue.
This has given me the luxury to be diverse in the topics I write, and over the years I’ve cover all sorts from handling braggers to analysing the success of the Wright brothers, from taking about how to stay motivated to giving advice to those with no ambition.
Now imagine taking just one of those topics and having flesh out this concept into something that can sustain reader interest beyond 1000 words.
Some posts I can’t wait to ditch after a few hours, never mind a year!
Also, there are lots of books out on the shelves of your high street store, that should have stayed a blog post.
Start With Why is a fantastic business theory, and myself along with millions of others was inspired by Simon Sineks TED talk that we went and bought the book, but upon reading you soon realise you don’t need 256 pages to understand it, it could have been a journal article a best.
Most of my thoughts I’ve written down don’t offer much value beyond the blog post they were originally intended for.
Writing a book requires “a bit more”
My belief is that your book should offer a bit more to what you put out for free.
I’ll always remember my disappointment from the blogger who inspired me to start this journey, when I bought his book and realised it was nothing more than cash grab – a dozen glorified blog posts patched together in a pretence to be something deep and educational.
Since then I’ve always had a touch of imposter syndrome that the first book I publish needs to be good enough to meet the expectations I have as a reader.
That involves having a coherent idea I can delve into.
Setting aside the time to do the research (it’s not just my thoughts documented down).
Adding a bit of fluff onto my existing posts isn’t enough – I want something that can really help the reader, not my bank balance.
Debunking that writing a book should be your ultimate blogging goal
Putting too much faith that writing a book is the most thing you can do as a blogger is just going to make you either make yourself feel worthless, or write something worthless.
There are other ways to mark your achievements.
If you’d ask me all those years ago how blogging would change my life forever, I’d never would have guessed the correct answer.
Instead I would thought that I would end up writing a book, which somehow would be the silver bullet to solve all my frustrations.
As my journey evolved I came to realise this was not the only path of success a blogger should pursue.
The career I have today I give credit to starting blog – it allowed me to express my creativity, something that would bleed across into my work that when options opened up allowing me to explore this itch, I took it.
I’ve always accounted my writing as “free therapy” and although it’s difficult to prove, I’m certain many posts I’ve written about solving a particular problem, has spilled over into my real life, allowing me to assess and make the sensible choices.
It’s also allowed me to let go – if you’ve been reading for a while, you’ll notice much of my writing reflects on the past, these have been hang-ups that have held me back, and when I’ve shared these reflections, and what I’ve learnt from it, it’s been like a mental unloading where I can final make peace and let these insecurities go.
Writing is the most powerful thing you can do – it’s help me grow and change into a better person, an achievement I’d take over a book with my name on it any day.
Conclusion: Respect the art form
If you enjoy the art of creative writing, but prefer to write poems over a work of fiction, does that make what you pursue inferior?
Of course not! Neither can boast worthiness over the other – both serve different purposes, both are valid ways to express yourself, both can be appreciated for the beauty they offer.
The same applies to whether you’re sharing you insights in a blog post a book.
When making the jump from blogger to author remember:
- Although writing a book is a common aspiration for bloggers, it shouldn’t be your sole measure of success.
- Both mediums require different skills and disciplines – recognise what you are achieving.
- Blogging offers many journeys – you don’t need to follow a set path.
- Whatever you do, you’ll be better off in your life by sustaining a writing habit.
This post isn’t to say I’ll never write a book, but also to set the expectation that it doesn’t matter if I never do.
Wishing you the best in your success
James @Perfect Manifesto
Perfect Manifesto 
Ever since I can remember, I always wanted to write a book. Blogging allowed me to do just that, although many of the stories in the book appeared on my blog first, with a few new ones thrown in for good measure.
I went on to publish a second collection of stories, but since then haven’t wanted to publish anymore. Wring and publishing blog posts have taken priority. I feel like I’ve gone around the board and find myself back at ‘start.’
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Bravo! I wanted to write a book and in the course of learning the ins and outs, heard about blogging and the idea’s appeal just grew and grew. I did write a book but writing my blog has been far more satisfying! Like you, I enjoy the capacity to post on any subject. And I’m only getting started. Thanks for the post!
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Thanks Susan, blogging is an exciting way to explore ideas – from the context of book writing it almost lets you have tasters on a particular subject, then if something takes your interest, you can invest a bit more time in exploring your ideas.
Good luck with your blogging and writing journey 🙂
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I agree with you 100%. All of us who have some writing talent keep hearing from other people, “You should write a book.” Maybe that was a legit goal years ago, before the internet, but nowadays it’s just not the answer for a lot of us, as you pointed out. I started using YouTube a few weeks ago, and my third post has received almost 10,000 views and gained me 150+ new YT subscribers (and growing), which isn’t too terrible for a brand-new channel. To get that many people to purchase a book takes TONS of promotion, which we have to do ourselves and most of us just don’t have time (or inclination) to do. Many, if not most, of us can reach more people using the internet than might be possible with one book.
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Wow that’s really good numbers – I think it’s good to experiment about with different formats, and move to different platforms. Someone I knew was on YouTube but not getting much traction so they started posting on Instagram and found they were getting better results!
I wouldn’t mind writing a book, but luckily am in a place where I base my whole self worth on it, and thinking that it’s the ultimate goal everyone who starts writing should aspire to.
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After I wrote my first book, I learned that I needed to market it. Whether a person is published by a brick-and-mortar publisher, or they decide to self-publish, 99% of us need to do our own marketing. Gone are the days of companies doing the marketing campaigns! It isn’t cost efficient for them anymore, plus they can drastically cut costs by having authors do their own marketing!
Unless a person is famous or is part of a national or international story, an easy ready market no longer exists!
When I did my research for how to market a book, the advice I found was to create a website and to start a blog. By blogging one was supposed to build up a raving fan-base who would then buy the book.
So I followed that advice and found that building a fan base is a lot harder than it sounds. So I kept blogging. Then I wrote my second book… and I kept blogging.
I sell enough (personal development) books to keep me in coffee each month, still working on selling enough to pay for groceries!
I found that selling books is really hard! If that’s my only goal in life, I need to move on!
However I found that I like writing blog posts and interacting with my readers and visiting other bloggers and interacting on their sites.
Writing a book is very intensive (at least for my genre) and I pour so much of myself into it. I’m working on a third book, but this one is a different genre, a bio-novel from some of the strange years in my life.
If you want to write a book, start doing it! There are so many different ways of going about it, and I didn’t fit into any of the prescribed “real” methods, and instead created my own way.
When I’m in writing mode, ideas can come to me when I’m away from my computer, but thanks to the notes app in my phone, I can type the ideas and then email them to myself to be added to the manuscript when I get home.
Prior to having a smart phone, I was using little notebooks I kept in my purse to jot down my ideas.
There aren’t many barriers, and the first big barrier is questioning if we could even do it!
Once the first book has been written and published, the second one is much easier, because we know we can do it, and we’ve figured out a method that works for us!
James, if you wish to write a book, start by looking at what you write about most, what are the commonalities between your posts, and figure out what speaks to you the most. For now, don’t try to figure out what would sell or what people want to read.
It is impossible to write one book that encompasses everything (that would be too general), or to write a book that would be the ultimate reference on that subject!
Knowing this is very freeing, for then we can just write about what we know, and write in our own style and share those parts of our lives that fit into the subject at hand!
Start from what you want to share about your journey! Writing has been therapy for you, so it stands to reason that there are other people a few steps behind you who are trying to figure out the things you did!
Then trust the process! Trust that your gut and your hands know what need to be done, and write! Don’t spend time pre-editing, or doing heavy editing in the beginning, for that great paragraph that you may think of deleting? It may well belong in another chapter!
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Thanks Tamara for your advice – there is so much useful advice here that I need to keep coming back to it (you could easily turn that into a blog post to inspire first time writers).
I’ve read a few books with celebrity names attached to them, and often thought (especially with the quality), that if they can write that then there is no reason I can’t write something too!
I particularly like your advice about focusing on something you find interesting – I’ve put a lot of thought on what the market wants.
I have a couple of ideas that I could write more about, I’ll have a look at planning these out.
Thank you for your support and advice!
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You don’t have to narrow things down right away! I have a lot of material that I wrote that didn’t fit into the other books, but I know I can fold it into future books I write.
You’re allowed to keep a few manuscripts going at the same time, LOL! Follow your inner muse! When you hit a roadblock, don’t worry, move onto a different project. When the time is right to return to the first one, you will feel it, and probably be surprised that you needed to experience or learn xyz before being able to write more about it! That has been my experience anyway!
I am taking your advice and turning my response into a post; it has been a long while since I created a post about writing a book. I am referencing you as my post inspiration! Thanks for this!
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