WRITE A BOOK
Writing a book, a novel or a movie script is like writing your own cheque. One only has to visit a bookstore to witness the amount of different titled books on sale, ranging from children's books discussing the ABC's, to books on adult self development, decor, gardening, mathematics, biographies, geography, physics and computer software, psychology and medicine among so many, many others. Novels range from the mundane to fantasy, from the unimaginable to the unbelievable. Books are really amazing purely because each and every one of them are different, yet so very, very similar, considering they are all composed of differing combinations of the 26 letter English alphabet. Foreign books written in foreign languages are no different since they are also incarnations of the alphabets of their respective languages.
Virtually every person in the world has a story to tell, an experience to share or skills to teach or advice to give on subjects so diverse that we will never run out of topics to write about. Once at a publisher's association meeting one of the authors related that she attended a neighbours funeral and whilst standing and looking at the tombstones she heard one of the grave diggers say. "Graveyards are the wealthiest places on the face of the earth". She then engaged the gravedigger inquiring about his statement. Only for him to reply "Every tombstone here represents an untold story, an unpublished book or perhaps even an unwritten movie."
At first when contemplating writing a book, the idea seems very appealing yet very daunting, so that the book gets postponed in most cases. However with modern day word processors, spell checkers with their huge vocabularies and thesauruses, half the job is virtually done. Book editors can assist in getting your book ready to publish and several of them can be found on sites like freelancer.com. When writing a book keep it close and don't allow anyone to read it until completed. A book is intellectual property and should be protected, so sign a non disclosure agreement with the editor and proof readers and publishers.
Alternatively you can self publish the book, if you have a familiarity with desktop publishing software programs like, Quark Express, Aldus Freehand, Coral Draw, Photoshop and Adobe InDesign, etc. Designing a good book cover is also really important because when the finished books stands on a shelf in a book shop, it needs to say "pick me up" much louder than any of the other books on that shelf. The title should be captivating and well though out. Remember if its a mediocre title, it will only attract mediocre interest. Titles should be bold and should be embossed and gold foiled, or verkotyped so that is stands out in relief. Or if the cover image is printer on a matt surface then the title should be spot varnished.
According to Guinness Book of World Records, the Bible is the best-selling book in the world. It is estimated the bible at almost 4 billion sold over a period of 50 years or 5 billion sold in toto. That's around 80 million books per annum sold. If you were the sole author of the bible -though you could never be-, you could have netted as much as 13% of the value. If you earned as little as 1 US dollar for every bible sold, you would have made yourself a whopping $80 million per annum.
Pulitzer Prize winning author Harper Lee, who wrote the classic "To Kill a Mockingbird,” has already sold more than 40 million copies globally and still averages more than a million copies annually. It has now been translated into more than 40 foreign languages. Translate that to writing your own cheque!
Novel writer Joanne K. Rowling has sold more than 500 million copies of her best-selling 7 book series - Harry Potter - globally, which has subsequently been translated into seventy-three foreign languages and made into movies. Translate that to writing your own cheque!
The Hobbit trilogy / Lord of the Rings Trilogy is another best seller exceeding a 100 million book sales that has also earned J.R.R. Tolkien's movie rights. Translate that to writing your own cheque!
More about this later...
