Go to as many "How To" seminars on how to make it as a bestselling author as your wallet will allow. Seriously. Do it. Watch all their videos. Buy their DVD sets. Hell, buy their book! Sit and follow along.
There's one mountain you will have to climb, rock by rock, handhold to foothold, no matter how well equipped you come away from all of those short-cut promising gurus and insiders.
You will have to actually write something.
Just thinking about writing won't cut it. Strolls on the beach pondering your masterpiece is something anyone can do, whether or not they ever put a single word down.
You will have to write. But even that isn't Step One. You must first have something to write about.
Here's where I am going to make you mad, if you've wasted a single dime on some guidebook on discovering your new instant career as a bestselling author. They too will tell you, that before you write, you need something to write about. But they then tell you to research what's hot and what's not, regarding what people are currently paying money to read.
Why shouldn't you do that? Seems legit...
For one thing, whatever that Hot Topic is, you're not an expert on it. If you are, it's by luck alone. But we'll assume here that you are among the 99% who likely won't be.
Your next step will be to research the hell out of other authors' books and articles on that topic, and basically regurgitate their actual work into a tome of copied – and therefor more generic and less insightful – content. Let's face it, you are really just attempting to cleverly reword someone else's book into an inferior book of your own, written from a point of greater disconnectedness.
It amounts to giving yourself a high school writing assignment on a subject you have zero passion about, but a built-in goal to finish, as rapidly (sloppily) as possible, theoretically to start raking in those booksale revenues.
Does your "new" book on that topic actually offer anything new to the discussion of said topic? Meh… probably not. In fact it probably offers less insight, with poorer articulation, than the original author's older work. It's watered down to a second-hand lecture. If you're copying from another research-monkey who's beat you to the topic, then your "book" is an even bigger waste.
Want your book to impact people? Write about something you are passion about, about which you can offer unique insights. Otherwise, why should anyone give a crap? They may buy your well-researched book report, marketed as a book, get to page five and realize you're full of shit and have pulled a fast one on them. Sure, you got their money this time, but one review exposing you and those marks start wizening up.
Once you have actual content that is legitimately yours, the next step is to offer something substantial in exchange for the readers' money, not to mention their attentiveness. No one with a brain is going to shell out $29.95 for 31 pages by a little-known author – no matter how poetically composed it is.
If it's worth writing, it's worth putting in writing. By this I mean, don't you dare give an invested reader a paragraph anywhere in your book that only reads something to the affect of, "but through many years of hardships and struggle, they made it through." More no-no's include, "but those details are a subject for another time," or "space does not permit here, but..."
This "book" of yours IS supposedly your story, dipshit. Give it to them. They bought your book to read the damned details; you give them a brochure? Don't tell the story like your describing it over the phone with your minutes about to expire. "Space does not permit" my ass! Make the space! If it takes an extra 100 pages to go into detail, then you've got a 131 page book to write, not a 31-pager with "details are too involved to include here." Bullshit! Include them, in full, or give your readers their money back.
"After many years of hardship?" Erase that sentence, and replace it with a series of whole chapters, beginning with a chapter just on the first of those hard years. That's your story! "They had a hard time, but made it?" Great. I'm not paying you $9.95 for that. My grandmother had a hard time getting to the bathroom the other night, but made it. That isn't worth a book, unless she had to fight a platoon of ninjas, perhaps, and they were all ex-lovers.
The bottom line is, writing is work. Now here's where I really frost you. It's work, and the becoming-a-bestselling-author part is not guaranteed. You will write a book, not an outline, and it will be work. Work that will make you wonder if you'll ever finish. Work that will make you obsess over every page even when you realize you're going to need 200 more pages to adequately tell the story. Work like finishing page 156 and realizing pages 75 through 89 need rethinking.
You're not finishing in a night, or a week. Hell, you may be looking at a finish date a year away… for your first draft. Greater authors have fought those battles. You will too.
It still may not result in a bestseller.
Okay… let's say you follow that seminar leader's sage advice to the letter. You find a "hot topic" that everyone is gobbling up and throwing money at. You do all the research and manage to crank out a copy-catted "new" book that sells. I mean, it sells – and you decide that I'm just an asshole with an axe to grind.
"Yeah, Rob, I'm so ashamed of faking that book… all the way to the bank."
Sure. Kudos, right. Now… do it again. Write the sequel, when that lone wave of revenue runs dry. You can't. You shot your wad on that first book of yours that managed to fool some people into putting some quick cash in your pocket. But there's nothing left to write about.
You wrote all you "knew," that first time. There's nothing left to research, because you gilded the lillie. Since you had no real passion for the subject anyhow, now you don't even have the faux passion. You promoted yourself as an expert – that's what writing a book about something implies. Are you going to go back and plagiarize from those same real experts again… and write what? A rewrite of your first book. Sure, that ought'a sell like hotcakes, hmm?
Time to find another "hot topic" and hope to get lucky again… only now you're going to write about something completely different. That will clue in most folks that you weren't really such an expert on that other "hot topic."
Wait a minute… I thought this guy was the Snowboard King… now he's writing about Seaweed Diets? Yeah, you'd better make that second book one hell of a page-turner. If seaweed diets don't catch on, what's next? What will you claim dominant authority on with your next work?
Border Collies? UFOs? How long do you think it will take for even marginally attentive readers to realize your name is synonymous with "hack?"
Pick a subject you love and want to share your unique perspective on, with every reader. Chances are, you won't run out of content by the time you're finishing up page 280… and realize, you're gonna need another book to tell more. In detail. And do it whether or not it makes a dollar the first year. You're a bona fide expert on this – and there's more where that first volume came from. Develop a legitimate reputation, and people will backtrack your first book after enjoying your 4th or 5th… or 10th. They'll pay to read it.
That's how you become a "selling" author. "Bestselling" requires the second million steps. Space does not permit details here.
