Want to write a book? Steal what I know about being a published nonfiction author

The glorious and inglorious truths about turning your big idea into a book.

About a month ago, I received an email saying that my publisher had decided to clear their storage and get rid of my books. All 876 of them. And they were asking if I might want them.

Initially, I felt like shit. I didn't want to deal with it for many days. Even the thought of re-reading that message felt as pleasant as listening to nails scraping against a chalkboard while sitting in a dentist's chair.

To learn that your books have become trash is not something any author wants to hear. And the irony is that my book about never feeling enough was now deemed only good enough for the bin or a hidden storage unit.

This is just one example of one of the disappointing realities of being a published author.

Very few of us become Yuval Noah Hararis or Michelle Obamas.

Most of us have to deal with multiple levels of rejection and disappointment – basically, all the things our ego hates.

So, this post is as much therapy for me as it is a resource for you. I’ll share my honest, glorious and inglorious experiences of being a published nonfiction author.

My hope is that if you decide to write a book, you’ll have a realistic reference to compare yourself to.

This story comes with the disclaimer that my book was published in a very small language area, Finland, in Finnish. We're only less than 6 million people so the story might look different to a native English-speaking author.

At the end of this post, I'll recommend a few good texts from authors in other countries to give you a wider perspective.

How and why I ended up with a small publisher instead of a big one

My first book, Good Enough – A Survival Guide to Working Life (2020) would never have been born without the coach and mentor I was working with at the time.

She was a published non-fiction author herself and when I introduced the idea of my book, she was so encouraging that I couldn’t come up with excuses not to do it.

My first book was to become an autobiographical non-fiction with a journalistic touch. It combined my own story with burnout, interviews with others who had been drained by working life, statistics and data about work well-being and journalistic interviews with experts.

My mentor recommended small publishers over big ones because I’d get more personal attention from them.

For big publishers, I’d be a small name and might get a lesser chance to voice my opinion on matters like cover design and title (basically, both of these are the publishers’ choices, and the most you get in any case is to have an opinion that may or may not influence the outcome).

My mentor also told me that many publishers wouldn’t need to see a finished book to sign a publishing contract, but a book pitch would do.

At the time, I was working as a pitching coach, and my work revolved around making presentations, so I was thrilled.

She also told me to hold off on sending the presentation right away, starting with a short email to see if I could get into a meeting room with them.

Because I’m pretty fast to act on things like this (even when I don’t really know what I’m doing), it took me about a week or two to get going.

On the 11th of January 2019 at 10:14 AM, I sent an email to a publisher describing my idea. I was on a diving trip in the Philippines and the sunshine was making me feel optimistic about life. I hoped to get a response by the time I’d return from my holidays in two weeks. But as I checked my email late in the evening in Cebu, I was surprised to find a response in my inbox.

Hi Aurora, thank you for your message. The idea sounds really good, and I would be happy to discuss it with you. Could you come by, for example, on Wednesday, January 23rd?

I could. And I did.

By this time, I had also contacted another publisher but they didn’t want to sign a contract before seeing the book first. So I chose the one who was willing to take a chance on me. I also liked the cover designs of their books.

My first publishing contract was signed on the 13th of February 2019.

This was one of the most thrilling days of my career.

The pros and cons of having a publisher

If you’ve ever written professionally, you’ll know that a good editor is the best thing to ever happen to your writing. Having someone tell you what’s not working, where your logic isn’t obvious to the reader and where your grammar could use a polish is the biggest luxury a writer can have.

A publisher gives you an editor for free. A publisher will also take care of all the administrative work for you. They know how to turn a Word document into a visually compelling and easy-to-read book and deal with the bookstores to bring it onto their shelves. They’ll help you meet your deadlines and pitch your book to the media when it’s finished.

Your editor will also remind you that you’re not a shit writer and that you have what it takes to get the work done. They’ll become a close companion throughout the ride.

A publisher will also pay you an advance, which in my case was not a big one but still enough to afford me a (skim) month off work to focus on my writing.

For a first-time author, this all felt indulgent.

Reality hit me only when my book came out.

The creative period was over, and I realised that the 25,000 words that once seemed like the perfect blend of magical creative impulse, therapy, and soul-cleansing had now become a product with sales targets.

It now existed in the vast spaces of bookstores and online reading services, amongst all the other titles that are trying to get sold.

At this point, it was my publisher’s and my job to convince people that this piece of text was worth their time and money.

And that’s when more egoistic aspirations start to arise.

Why is my book not placed in the front row at this bookstore? Why haven’t I been invited to morning shows yet? Is my publisher really even marketing this book?

Well, my publisher did pitch my book to the media. They also organised an event at a major bookstore where I and two other authors were involved in a panel discussion. For my second book, I was invited to another panel discussion at the country’s biggest book fair.

However, there were no lavish book tours, free nights at hotels or personal assistants.

But a lot of the stuff they did worked.

For a country the size of Finland, I did pretty well in terms of media exposure.

I was interviewed by several national media and business media and mentioned in women’s magazines. I was invited to podcasts. The reviews of my books were generally positive.

I was also asked to do speaking engagements for non-profits, associations, and a few companies.

Because of my lack of effort and audience on social media, I didn’t go viral on Instagram or receive a huge number of new followers. That would have taken much more than what I had at the time, working 40 hours a week in a 9–5 job.

The surprises I wasn’t prepared for

If you’re used to online publishing, you might struggle with the fact that selling print is slow, and books are slow to read.

There are no immediate likes.

After publishing, you find yourself alone and scared that no-one will read it or that the ones who will won’t like it. You spend your days secretly wishing and praying that someone would say “you did a great job”.

By the time people start to finish your book, in 3–6 months time, you have likely moved on to other things.

And so has your publisher.

Their attention is on you for a very limited amount of time since no matter how big or small they are, they have other authors to promote, new book deals to sign, and a spring catalogue coming up.

Very early on, you’ll realise that your marketing = you.

If you’re not a celebrity, a well-known author or an influencer (or have the money to hire a personal Samantha Jones for the job), your book’s visibility is a matter of the hours you put in, your connections and your effort.

So you need to either get very good at self-promotion or feel slightly ashamed when someone asks how your book is doing.

This is where having a publisher is not very different from self-publishing.

In both cases, you’ll have to develop a personal brand and figure out a way to tell people to buy your book without being a total c*nt about it.

This is what I did for my marketing

Once I realised speaking gigs were a pleasurable sidekick to being an author, I hired a booking assistant to sell gigs for me. I also made the occasional social media posts on LinkedIn and Instagram. I had very few followers, so this had minimal effect.

For my second book Freedom Seekers – Why we want to resign our jobs? (2022), which was about becoming self-employed and trying to make it as a creative, I hired a PR assistant and got my publisher to split half of the cost. I also made a podcast series where I interviewed people connected to the theme of my book. And again, I did the occasional social media post and was featured in my publisher’s Instagram for a day.

The money I’ve made

Altogether, I’ve made less than 10,000 euros from the sales (and advances) of my two books combined in the four years they’ve been on the market.

I’ve received a 22% royalty of each sold copy and less for books that someone listens to via audio apps. For a book that costs €30, 22% equals €6,60 per book. For audio, the maths is trickier as the apps will only pay you royalties if people actually finish the book. And even then, you get a percentage based on how many other books they’re reading at the same time. (I know, it’s weird.)

However, to write my second book, I applied and received grants worth 11 000 euros. That afforded me about three months off work to write my book.

The most sustainable income I’ve made from my books has come from speaking engagements.

My first book also led to a paid gig as a magazine columnist for a year.

To make a better income from your book, you could try self-publishing. In that case, you’d get (almost) all of the profit yourself. If you sold large volumes, this could be lucrative.

Now, selling large volumes via self-publishing is easier said than done. But if you’re great with sales and marketing, have a solid personal brand, and have a lot of time to invest in promoting your book, the sky is the limit.

Of course, self-publishing doesn’t come without any costs attached. You’d have to pay for the cover design and layout and whatever your platform charges.

If you publish on Amazon Kindle (like many self-publishers do), the platform acts as a publisher and pays you a royalty (see resources at the end of this post to learn more about Amazon publishing).

You may also have to pay for professional editing and, potentially, graphic designer services for cover design and layout.

In my opinion, the best bit about self-publishing would be that you’d never get an email saying your books have become redundant and need to be thrown in the bin. You’d be the boss of that.

The best things that came out of my books aren’t listed on my account balance

Writing a book is a commitment. It allows you to dive deep into your topic and form grounded opinions. It’s very different to online writing, magazine writing and social media writing.

You put more thought into what you say because it will be published in ink. You’ll also have the luxury of time to dwell on sentence structures and word choices.

The gravity of a sealed product is scary but also rewarding.

Because of its ‘eternal’ format, books have longevity. People discover your book at different phases of their lives and a book doesn’t have to be recently published to attract the reader.

Once the right readers find your book, and if it’s a book that touched their soul in one way or another, you’ll be rewarded with feedback. Personal, open, honest feedback. The thoughtful emails I’ve received from my readers have been the most glorious part of being an author.

I’m not saying you don’t get thoughtful feedback as an online writer. But a book is a different type of engagement. People spend a long time with a book compared to an online text. They read it in relaxed environments with little distractions. Reading a book is a conscious choice, whereas reading an online article can be a form of procrastination from something else. The level of commitment is different.

So if you’re going to write a book, write one that moves something in you. Only then it can move something in other people.

Would I do traditional book publishing again?

Publishing a book via a publisher isn’t the sole norm anymore.

Even though self-publishing tends to have a bit of a less credible rep amongst writers, many readers won’t care if your book is published by a known publisher or self-published on Amazon.

They’ll care more about your recommendations and ratings. If those are good, you can find your readers.

Many writers are also experimenting with other types of digital publishing.

Substack is a favourite for some authors who want to publish a book in small bits and get people to pay for it via subscription.

You could also just make a pdf and sell it via your website.

Or then, you could try crowdfunding and get people to pay for the release of your book upfront.

So, which of these options would I choose? I’d be open to all of them, depending on my intention for the book.

If I was to publish again in my native language Finnish, I’d likely go back to my publisher since I already have one. If I’d publish in English, I’d likely choose one of these options: a) try to find a publisher, b) rely on self-publishing or c) publish serially on Substack.

None of these routes is easy and there’s only one thing that really matters if you want to become a (financially) successful author: having a decent-size audience.

I’d love to say that if your book is good, it will find an audience. But this is not always the case. Mediocre books get big audiences and great ones struggle to find any.

So if there’s one act I can recommend to any author wanting who wants their book to be read and enjoyed by people (and let’s be honest, we all do–otherwise we’d be writing diary entries) is learning the skills to build an audience. This might take years. But it’s the only way to really guarantee someone will buy your book. And alongside that, do put effort in becoming a great writer. That just makes your book a better experience for everyone involved.

And, the most important thing: write a book only if you enjoy writing. Don’t write it for the money or the fame. Write it from an unconditional place in your heart and enjoy the process. The joy really is in the journey rather than the outcome.

More perspectives and resources

If writing a book is something you’re currently contemplating, I suggest you gather more thoughts and opinions about becoming and being an author in this day and age. Here are a few resources you might find useful:

• For an American perspective on similar issues I’ve discussed in this post, please read

  Summer Brennan
  ’s The 9 Biggest Myths About Nonfiction Trade Publishing, Debunked.

• Veronica Llorca-Smith
  writes a newsletter called The Lemon Tree Mindset. She’s published a book with Penguin Random House, self-published on Amazon and serially published book chapters on Substack. She has plenty of resources for aspiring authors but you could start with this one about publishing an ebook on Amazon. Her advice doesn’t come for free so you’ll need to subscribe to her newsletter to get the juicy bits.

• For some serious truths about the global publishing industry, read this post by

  Elle Griffin
  where she combines data and interviews with people from top publishers to reveal how the industry really works.

• And for a bigger story on being an author in the 2020s, I warmly recommend Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. It’s a novel about an author who struggles to find their niche in the publishing world and ends up taking a series of morally questionable acts to become relevant and seen as the author she thinks she should be.

And, if you want to help me rehome my 876 books…

If you’re a Finnish speaker (or know a bunch of them) and want to help me find entities that could make use of the extra copies of my books, please let me know. I’m looking for organisations such as educational institutions or associations who want to a) educate their students/members about working life in the 2020s or b) share my mission of making working life more enjoyable for everyone. Even though I’d love to send the books to individual readers, it would be too costly for me (sorry), so I’m essentially looking for entities that could take on at least 50–100 copies.

Read more about my books here.

***

Thank you for your time and presence.

And if you’re an author struggling with similar issues I’ve mentioned before, let’s keep believing in our work and keep writing.

After all, hope is not given to us but created within and by us.

Until next week.

With kindness,
Aurora

***

About High on Hope

Want a career where purpose comes first? This newsletter is a mix of personal growth, meaningful creative work, and big ideas. No fluffy self-help, no societal cynicism. It gives special attention to generalists, creatives, and multipassionates trying to pay the bills and leave a mark.

I, Aurora, am a multi-passionate soul with various creative pursuits, from improving work-life to merging spiritualism with science. I’m an eternal optimist and want to believe in a better future, regardless of the odds. I’m a coach for creatives, a freelance writer, a published author, a creative, a consultant, and a yoga teacher. Originally from Finland, I spent years trying to become location-independent and achieved that milestone two years ago. Now, I spend most of my time in Portugal with my partner and rescue dog called Zeus. I love to take midday dips in the ocean and have deep and meaningful chats with strangers.