When you look at the authors of non-fiction books that do well, what you generally find is that the books grew out of the authors’ expertise, not the other way around. It seems terribly unfair if you’ve spent your life dreaming of being a publishing author to discover the people who have the best luck at it actually don’t really care about writing as much as they care about the topic they write about.

That’s probably why non-fiction is so much wider of a field and sells so much better than fiction. In a highly literate society, literacy is not an end in itself, but only a means to an end.

Victoria

I really like the idea of soul-searching to determine the goal *before* doing all the work everyone says we are supposed to be doing. I have been struggling with these questions since I started blogging, in particular over the past year as I ponder whether I should write a (non-fiction) book, and why. My research shows that it can’t be for the money, so could it be for the notoriety alone? What would that get me in the long run? It must be something, else I wouldn’t keep wondering about it.

Achieving a lifelong writing goal can take a lot of wrenching your supposed goals around to match your actual goals—our whole cultural picture of what it means to be an Author bears very little resemblance to either real authors or the real dreams of those trying to become them, particularly as marketers and writing ‘teachers’ and others-who-stand-to-gain-from-it, in increasing numbers, fan the flames of illusion.

It’s all smoke and mirrors! How will the emerging publishing industry affect that? Honestly, I’m on the edge of my seat.

Victoria