If you want to publish a book, don't try to write one—focus on your "core." #WritingHabitEventReport

It's my fourth day writing on note since I read "The Habit of Writing." Today, I participated in a session where I asked the editor of "The Habit of Writing," Mr. Ishii, "How can I get a book published?"

Let me start by writing down a conclusion that sounds about right.

"If you want to publish a book, don't try to publish a book."

Yeah, that turned into the kind of phrase you'd expect from a catchy title.

To put it more simply, the advice was that rather than trying to publish a book by creating a proposal, writing a manuscript, and pitching it, you're better off sharing your work on note or Twitter.

And if you keep a "core" in mind while doing that, it becomes easier to turn into a book. (Or rather, I feel like your "core" naturally starts to seep through while you're posting on note or Twitter.)

During the talk, there was a point that from the perspective of an editor, publisher, or bookstore, it's good to be conscious of "Which shelf will this be placed on?". That, in essence, becomes your core or theme.

Let me introduce a few questions excerpted from the event.

Q: What about pitching book proposals or manuscripts?

A: Pitching has a high barrier to entry. I'll share it with the team, but in most cases, it tends to be overlooked. I think the barrier is even higher at major publishers. It's not zero percent possible, but I think it's probably difficult.

I think it's good to share your work on note, blogs, or Twitter.

＊　＊　＊

Thinking from the opposite perspective, even if someone brings me a finished proposal and manuscript, I'm already busy with my existing work, so honestly, I probably wouldn't have the time to read it, and considering the hit rate, the probability that it's actually good is low. So, it's only natural that its priority would drop.

I appreciate the passion of saying, "I want to make this into a book!" but even if you bring me something like Howl's Moving Castle, it would be a huge effort to decipher and restructure it from scratch, so it would ultimately end up being a burden on the editor.

"That person is interesting."

As Mr. Ishii mentioned, he is more interested in people who others are already saying are "interesting" or "amazing," and he often reaches out to those people.

In fact, when asked about the process of finding "Yupi-san," to whom he offered a book deal, Mr. Ishii replied,

I wanted to create a book with the theme of learning to love writing, so
"writing love" and it came up in the search results.

Some might think, "Seriously? Was that just a lucky punch?" But in reality, that wasn't the case; the trust balance was already built up within Mr. Ishii.

He knew that Yupi-san was frequently retweeted on Twitter, which he monitors, and he also knew that Yupi-san was writing articles for New R25, so there was already an evaluation from a third-party media source, creating trust that "Oh, this person is someone interesting who has already been filtered."

That was the final push, when I Googled "writing, falling in love with it" and Yupi-san's note popped up.

Quantity that guarantees it's not just a lucky punch

Furthermore, another key point was that Yupi-san used the magazine feature on note to compile 16 articles into one magazine titled "A Writing Magazine to Help You Fall in Love with Writing."

If you Google and find one interesting article, while it may be interesting, from the perspective of someone offering a publishing deal, you might feel a bit anxious, thinking, "This might just be a lucky punch where they happened to write one good article."

However, when you see 16 articles that have a defined "core" of helping people fall in love with writing, that visible sense of volume becomes a source of reassurance for an editor considering a book offer.

I really have to define some kind of "core" and make a magazine. I learned something good here. This might be a shortcut to publishing, haha.

Q: Why did you compile the articles into a magazine?

There was an opportunity to ask questions during the event, so I asked one.

Q: Did you actually intend to publish a book with your "Writing Magazine to Help You Fall in Love with Writing"? I'd like to know the background behind why you decided to make it a magazine.

The answer I got back was something I could relate to myself.

Yupi-san: "People started asking me things like 'How do you write?' or 'Are there any books you use as a reference?' and it started to get a bit tedious to answer every single time, haha. So, I thought I'd create something I could just point to and say, 'Check out this note!' when asked, and that's how I started writing. Once I decided on a theme and started writing, I realized there was actually a lot to write about, and before I knew it, it had become 16 articles. Haha.

That's so true. When you get asked the same things often, it becomes a hassle, and you start wanting to turn it into an article or a video. Then you want to be able to just hand it over and say, 'Here you go!'

I have this stance in my work too; for things that get asked over and over or follow a pattern, I want to turn them into templates as much as possible so I can fire off responses quickly. I even do this with company-wide systems and various other things.

It's fine to handle each interaction carefully, but if you end up focusing only on that, you become nearsighted and start feeling satisfied just by the volume of work you've done. In reality, creating templates or systems where customers can solve things themselves helps more people and reduces the burden on our end.

And then, you can focus on the interactions that truly require a human touch.

There's a certain online shop that does this. They are often praised for their incredible customer service, and people tend to focus on that, but...

Actually, behind the scenes, they are aggressively implementing the underlying systems so that inquiries and issues that can be solved by a system are handled by the system. That is precisely why they can dedicate time to customer service and engage in deep, personal interactions.

Wait, I'm writing about something completely unrelated...

Well, let me end by writing down the point that really struck a chord with me.

Is that really the "language that exists within the reader"??

Actually, it seems the title "Writing Habit" was something else at first.

Initially, it was titled "Learning to Love Writing".

But that was rejected.

Why?

Because the phrase "Learning to Love Writing" doesn't exist within the readers.

To be specific, there probably aren't many people among us, the potential readers, who go around thinking, "Oh, I want to learn to love writing."

And when I look at the book title "Writing Habit" again, it uses words that already exist within the readers.

Within our hearts, we do think, "Oh, I want to build a writing habit.". We definitely do.

To put it more concretely, it's something like, "I want to build a habit of writing daily or weekly, and be able to consistently share my thoughts on blogs, note, or Twitter.".

Yeah, I certainly do think that. It exists as a phrase that naturally comes to mind. I see, using "words that exist within the reader" was the point that really struck a chord with me today.

So, while I think it would be interesting if I ever ended up publishing a book, rather than being too conscious of that while I write, I'll just write freely,

and I thought it might be fine to just create a magazine once I have a theme where I think, "I want to write about this!" or "Ugh, I'm tired of explaining this over and over!"

Somehow, the 30-day challenge is still going. I've cleared the three-day slump and am on day four. Somehow, I ended up writing 3,000 characters. My reward is a Premium Malts. Goodnight.

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