Top Fears of First Time Authors

Any aspiring writer wishing to write his or her first book will usually get hit by three fears. The first fear is the belief that they will first require some special brains, or great talent, or some master’s degree from a top university to indulge in such writing activities. The second fear is the scary imagination that their writings and ideas may be ridiculed by their friends, relatives, and strangers. The third fear is the belief that it is mandatory to write thick, detailed, or complex books with great flowery language in order to be classified as an author. As an aspiring author, you may also be troubled by the same three fears. But let me immediately assure you that these three fears need not really scare you because all of them can be easily overcome as explained below. So, let us begin.

The first fear can be overcome by understanding that you don’t need any ultra-special brains or master degrees to become an author. Actually, anyone can become an author if they have some good knowledge and experience in any subject, patience, and some simple writing skills. I recommend a concept called “being two to three steps ahead” for writing or coaching anyone. Let me explain through an example. For example, a fifth standard student can confidently teach a first standard student on how to write his homework or read a textbook. Similarly, a third or fourth year engineering or medical student can guide a first year student. This is possible because they are two to three steps ahead in their knowledge and experience. You can use the same concept for writing your book. For example, if you have worked in a chemical industry for many years, then you would have gained enormous knowledge that you can pass on to newcomers with your book. This is why I say you don’t need any ultra-special brains or a master’s degree to write a book. All you need is to be two to three steps ahead of the reader that you are trying to coach or educate.

The second fear can be overcome by understanding that becoming an author is a long journey spanning months and years. No one can become a good author overnight or within a few weeks. Hence, there is no need to announce to the world with a trumpet that you are going to become an author by a certain date. Nor is it mandatory to display your beginner’s writings or ideas to anyone. You can keep your author aspiration and its scribbling a top secret until you are confident and comfortable with your own writing to show it to others. So, don’t rush for feedback from anyone as you start your journey. It’s very easy to get discouraged if your initial amateurish writings gets laughed at or ridiculed by your friends or relatives.

The third fear can be overcome by understanding that a majority of readers don’t want complicated books. Instead, they prefer simple and concise books that can help them understand or achieve what they want. For example, if you write a complicated book on stress management with heaps of complex medical jargon, deep psychology concepts, etc., then no one will be interested in reading it. But if you write a small book in a simple language with practical examples of how common people can reduce stress in their lives, then plenty of readers will be interested in reading it.

Let me now give you an example of a useless book. When I was in college there was a physics textbook written by an extremely intelligent professor. The theory explained in this book was quick and short. Each chapter also had a few easy and simple solved problems. But at the end of each chapter there were heaps of awfully complicated problems that no student could solve by reading the theory and examples provided in the same chapter. To make matters worse, only the odd-numbered problems had the answers (without the solution steps) printed at the end of the book. To make matters even worse, that professor would not solve those tough problems even in the classroom and expected the students to brainstorm and solve on their own.

So, the professor’s method was to help students to solve simple and easy problems, but let the students tackle the tough ones without any clue on how to solve them. Secondly, due to his ferocious short temper no student would approach him for any assistance.

To summarize the story, it was a bad textbook written by an intelligent professor who was unable and unwilling to realize that he was a bad author as he was not interested in helping his readers. Soon every student realized they could pass no exam if they studied only that tough textbook. Fortunately, there was another textbook written by some other professor containing detailed theory and fully solved problems explained beautifully, which every student would quietly buy to pass exams and the earlier tough textbook would just remain as an ornamental piece. So, remember it not always necessary to write a 300-page complicated book to be classified as an author. Even if you write and publish a 60-page simple book on some subject, you will still be called an author.

So, go ahead and boldly write your first sentence and don’t let the three fears haunt you. As a Chinese proverb says — The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

Thejendra Sreenivas
Author and Publisher — Self Improvement International Magazine