Would You Buy This Book?

Many aspiring writers are looking for a sure thing. They want to make sure that if they start they will become wildly successful. With several years, and thousands of hours of work, just about anyone who really wants to be a writer can become successful. But these writers aren't in to years of work and 15 publishing credits before they make the New York Times Bestseller list. Nope, they're looking for a sure thing. So they ask the question, "Would you buy this book?"

Would I buy a book about a pig and a spider? If it's Charlotte's Web, sure. If it were anything else? Probably not.

Would I buy a book about rock climbing or boxing? If I were interested in rock climbing or boxing, which I am. If I weren't interested in rock climbing or boxing, probably not.

Would I buy a book about a teenage boy wizard? Probably not. But that didn't prevent millions of other people from buying the Harry Potter series and shooting JK Rowling into fame and fortune.

None of these ideas for books is any better than the others. Ideas, more or less, are dead. Nearly every idea has been done in one way or another. The execution, however, the method for which it is done, changes every day.

To ask "would you buy this book" before writing it is like asking "would you like this person" before meeting them. There's no way of telling if the book might catch our interest. You can have a great plot, write a great teaser, and photograph a fabulous book cover. But if the writing is dry, boring, full of mistakes, or hard to understand, you've just ruined the whole thing.

Asking "would you buy this book?" is, frankly, pointless. No one can really give you a helpful answer that will mean anything in the end. It is, however, guaranteed to set you up for some major disappointments if you don't like the answers you receive, or the results you get later on.