One of my readers sent me this a quote from an email she got today for a weekend course:
Not only will you get some notes down about the book, you will WRITE a book that weekend, and you will learn essential business and marketing tools...
She wanted to know what I think about the possibility of writing a book in a weekend, so I looked up the site in question.
Yes, they are talking about business books not the great American (or British) novel, but still--WRITE a book in a WEEKEND? And the headline is "Wanna be a best-selling author?" OK, so not only will you write a book in a weekend but it will be best-seller? Wow! And it would cost you only a little over $600 early bird or $700 regular. (For that, they should tell you not to use "Wanna" in a headline.)
Oh wait, later on it says it'll be an AMAZON best-seller. That's where you wait for a quiet time on the publishing calendar and get all your friends to buy your book on the same day and maybe you buy a hundred copies or so yourself that day, and for an hour or so you're on the Amazon best-seller list.
Guess how much credibility being an Amazon best-seller has in the publishing world. No, guess lower.
Look, I don't enjoy dissing my fellow writing coaches/teachers/authors and for all I know there is lots of useful information in this workshop, but let's get real.
Generally for what most people mean by a "book," we're talking about 50,000 words minimum. Forget about writing, let's just think about typing. Let's say you're a good typist: 60 words per minute. That's fourteen hours of non-stop typing. How long is a weekend workshop? Two times eight hours? Hey, you could do it and have two hours left over if carpal tunnel syndrome didn't drop you first.
I looked at the testimonials. One of them said "We recorded for an hour, I can't wait for it to be transcribed and see my book." Aha! So somebody interviews you, gets it typed up, and that's a book. The average person speaks at about 150 words a minute. Time sixty minutes is...9600 words a minute. Short book. More like a booklet.
Here's my advice: if somebody says you can write a book in a weekend, ask them what they mean by "book."
If they say you can write it in 14 days...ask them whether amphetamines will be involved.
If they tell you it will take time, sweat, and maybe some blood and tears, shake their hand.
They're the ones telling you the truth.
(You can get information about all aspects of writing a book in my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey Publishing, and you can find out how to get support for setting and achieving your writing goal via my Writing Breakthrough Strategy Program at www.jurgenwolff.com.)
