by Karen Newcombe
This week there's a lively discussion going on in the Harvard Business Review forum on LinkedIn about whether or not you should write a book.
Some of the commenters say yes, a book can make for a great marketing tool, which is true. Other say no, not unless you have something valuable to say. One fellow says that only expert writers should be writing books. I'm at the other end of that particular stick and think everyone should write a book.
Writing a book is a great accomplishment. Not only will you feel wonderful that you wrote a book, as a society we still hold the book in high esteem. It doesn't matter if it's a print book or an e-book, we respect the written word and therefore the people who write books.
Books help you share your knowledge and establish your expertise. Everyone has knowledge to share. If you started with a crazy idea and built that info a business that employs 5 or 50,000 people, someone out there will want to know how you did it. Writing those ideas and experiences in a book lends them a gravitas they lack when you share them over a salad at lunch. We tend to view people who write books as being experts in that topic.
You don't need to have some great, profound message to convey. To all the people who say "don't write a book unless you have something important to say" I point at the hundreds of thousands of mysteries and romance novels and suspense fiction that people buy by the bucketload. These books don't have "something important to say" but people love to read them. Not every book needs to be important. I've read a hundred business books that were interesting, useful, or entertaining, but not of earthshaking importance. That's perfectly OK.
It's fun to tell stories. Yes, writing a book is fun. The folks who think only experts with profound talent should write anything are missing the point. You don't have to be an Olympic level athlete to go out and jog for a mile, or a physicist to change a light bulb. I know everyone doesn't love the process of writing, but that's what people like me are for, we love the process and we love all the technical in and outs of language and grammar and structure that most people just don't give a bean about. Hire us to help, and we'll do the part we love so you can have fun, too.
Teaching is an intrinsic part of human nature. We do it all day every day, from explaining how our firm rescued a client's failing project last year, to showing our kids how to tie their shoelaces. People love to teach, and writing a book is a great way to share your understanding of how to do something without hanging over someone's shoulder and driving them nuts telling them what to do next.
Every person has unique experiences to share. We owned a motel in Florida when I was growing up, and our regular snowbirds showed up every Thanksgiving and stayed until the following Easter. They had great stories – some of them had fought in WWI and II, some had come to the U.S. with nothing but the clothes on their backs, some had nearly lost their farms during the Great Depression but stuck it out and made a success of it. Every one of those men and women is gone now, and I wonder if any of them wrote down the stories that fascinated me so their families would have them for future generations.
Your book may become a bestseller, or maybe only a few people will read it, but with digital publishing it will be there for years to come. You don't know who will find your book entertaining or useful or inspiring someday.