Ten reasons that you are not ready to write your business-building non-fiction book

Most business owners and coaches put A LOT of thought into all the reasons that it’s not the right time for them to write a book. And do you want to know the truth? The reasons are probably valid. A big chunk of these people SHOULDN’T write a book.

Writing a book takes time. Writing a book takes commitment. Writing a book often means looking at your business practices, outcomes and frameworks in a way that you’ve not done before – looking for the places that they could (should) be strengthened, where your practices could be tweaked for the better, where you can stamp your own IP on what you do. Writing a book might even change the direction of your business altogether.

Are you ready for that process? Are you open to that process? Because writing the right book, designing your business so that your book has a prominent place in your customer’s journey to becoming a client, well, it can open all sorts of cans of worms. And then it’s a choice—abandon the book or abandon the business (or both…until the thought process sparked off by trying to write the book brings you to the point where you make some tough decisions).

When I chat to prospective clients, I can usually see if they are ready for the journey. Some need more time. Others need a compassionate kick up the bum to get with the programme (otherwise known as my “Inner Commissioning Editor” personality).

My Inner Commissioning Editor, fresh from meetings with authors and consultants from my trade publishing days in fancy London hotels and slightly grotty North London pubs, knows that you have that book inside you (the right one) that will make a difference to your business. The book that will help you get clear on your framework. The book that will bring the ease that you crave, tired from challenge-model launching and creating webinars for six people to attend live and all the other hustle and grind that you’re happy to do some of the time, but it would be marvellous not to rely on all that to attract the clients ALL of the time.

So here’s a little cheat sheet I’ve put together. No point starting that book, investing that money, if you are not ready (really not ready). And it might give you some food for thought for the shifts that you could make to get you closer to being ready (because that’s the thing, no one ever comes to start to work with me 100% ready to write their book).

1. You say you don’t have enough time.

If you are ready to write the book, you are ready to find the time. You are ready to get your diary out and be real with yourself about how fast you want to write your book and, from there, work out how much time you need to work on it each week. I’ll help you work out the editorial, production and publication schedule (top tip, you need to schedule around eight to twelve weeks to feel comfortable that everything is the best it can be) but you, the author, need to write the manuscript.

If you are not ready to write, if you will be distracted by the idea that you could be working with clients and making money in the time you put aside, if you are not willing to commit to a couple of early mornings or later nights or weekend hours away from your family, you’re not ready. Now is not the right time for you to write your book.

2. You don’t like the writing process.

This one is obvious but not widely talked about by book coaches for some reason? Clearly, we don’t want to do ourselves out of a job but the last thing I want is to be attempting to motivate someone to write a book when they don’t want to…. You are not going to write a book if you hate writing.

If writing is the absolute last thing you want to do, if you won’t schedule it into your diary, if you have been trying to write a book for the past few years and always falling at one hurdle or another, consider this—is writing in your skillset or zone of genius? Maybe it's not. Do you outsource your content writing? Do you lack consistency when it comes to writing for business? Does the idea of writing a blog a week have you reaching for the duster to deep clean the skirting boards behind the sofa? Maybe you writing the book is not the way to get your book on the shelves (virtually or physically). And if you are considering working with me, you have the means. Hire a ghost writer. Your book will be born but all you’ll have to do is show up for conversations, review and edit and do all the fun bits. Imagine writing a book without having to actually sit down to write it. Feels good? Hire the ghost writer.

3. You have too many coaches or are working with too many people.

Do you trust yourself? Deep, deep down, do you know that if you weren’t working with a mentor or another coach to “level up” you’d be OK? I’m not talking about working with people who have the knowledge you need (Facebook ads experts, people who know how to make reels on Instagram that go beyond pointing at words in time to music—although there is nothing wrong with those kind of reels, but we all want to level up somewhere) but working with the kinds of coaches that you feel really are the scaffolding in your business and how you show up and put everything together.

I have found that the people who are ready to write their books have less noise in their working lives. They check in with fewer people to sense check what they want to do next. They might have a few trusted sounding boards or biz buddies but in general they know what they are doing and are comfortable showing up.

This is the headspace you need when you sit down to write a book as a business owner. Think about it. It’s your book. It’s your business. It’s going to be your intellectual property. If you are checking in with others for the confidence that your stories and framework really do change people’s lives, it’s not the right time. Too many voices are distracting and muddle the journey.

4. You’re not ready to show me your book outline.

This one is a bit from left field but stay with me. If you are working with me, we’ve done the work right at the start of the book project, before you’ve even put pen to paper to work out who your ideal reader is, what kind of transformation or change your book will affect in their lives and how your book fits into your customer journey. From there, we pick up our coloured pens and post-it notes and magic whiteboard sheets and get started on the book outline. This is where I love to get involved. To ask you questions about your book outline and how it fits together from a reader’s point of view. To take an overview look at it and offer you feedback and suggestions to make it better.

Here’s the thing. If you are not ready to let me (your book consultant and mentor who you are paying) see your book outline, is it 1) the right book or 2) are you ready to let ANYONE see it? How are you going to feel when you’ve got a draft of a book sitting in front of you and it’s time to send it to the editor? How are you going to feel when you publish it? The start of the process of being confident that people will want to buy, read and be transformed, even in one small way, by your book is showing your book outline to someone who can give you feedback. It’s scary for sure. But means that you are more likely to write the right book, right from the start. If you are working with someone on a book and won’t show them your outline, ask yourself why. And then get over yourself and sent it to them. It will feel great and your confidence in yourself finishing your successful book will skyrocket.

5. You’re fixated on the trade publishing deal.

And I get it. There’s something that feels like you’ve made it when you sign a publishing deal. Not only do you not have to find the money to pay for the editor, the designer, the proofreader, the indexer, the printer and the myriad of other people involved in the process of making your book, you actually will get paid (something) for it. And your book will be on shelves in an actual bookstore.

But when it comes to writing your book, you need to be clear on your purpose for it. Is it to bring clients into your business with ease? And do you want to be in control of the title, the content, when it’s published, what the cover looks like? Can you wait around eighteen months, depending on when you sign your book, for your slot on the publishing programme to roll around? That’s one (fairly big) consideration.

The other one is that when you are looking for a publishing deal, you are writing a proposal for an agent initially. Your market research, your table of contents/aka book outline, your synopsis, your marketing and sales platform, your sample text. And it can take a little while to get the interest of an agent and then to find the publisher willing to take you into their stable and then the (18 month) process begins. How will you feel to be on this lengthy process? Is it worth the time? Will you be able to keep yourself motivated to write the best book you can? Or will you flounder along the way because the dream wasn’t really the book but the external validation from “the publishers” that what you do is good enough?

6. You’re looking for the cheapest way to write the book

There are ways to not invest the big bucks in this book writing journey but if you are fixated on how much it’s going to cost and how cheaply you can get the cover done, checking Fivver reviews for the people you think can get it done, are you really ready to write your book? Do you really want it to be the best it can be?

Do you want your book to attract new clients to you who are ready to join your high-ticket programmes? Do you have a clear customer journey on from your book that means that you can see that taking on a certain number of clients from a targeted next step offering from your book will return your investment and the rest of profit?

I care how your book will look. A lot. I judge books by their covers (like hard!). I judge books by their margins, by misplaced page numbers, by industry design standards. I want your book to be the best it can be (I always say that bad books hurt my soul) and I want to help you to create a book that you couldn’t tell that it is self-published when you see it side by side with a book from Penguin or Hodder or Hachette. If you aren’t ready to invest in a high-end book, are you ready to call in those high-end clients?

7. You say you don’t see what kind of difference it could make in your day-to-day business.

Are you tired of launching? Are you burnt out by community building? Are you tired of showing up on ALL the platforms hawking your wares?

Do you have so much knowledge that you have written down in many different places (checklists, lead magnets, short courses, follow up documents) that it’s got you to a point that you don’t know how to arrange it into a coherent structure so that your expertise can make you money? Do potential clients get in touch who you wish you could help but you are fully booked?

Do you want to open your programme to a waiting list? Do you want someone to read your book, look up your website, click on buy now and wake up the next day to discover a new client in your group programme?

Do you see that writing a book—the right book—could do all of this for you and is worthy of the time and money you will invest in creating it?

No? Then, keep on with the hustle.

8. You think the most important outcome of your book is becoming a bestselling author

 Everyone wants to be successful but what does “bestselling” author actually mean anymore?

Does it mean that you’ve sold thousands of copies of your book? You’d be going head-to-head with titles such as The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse by Charlie Mackesy.

Or does it mean that you’ve researched your Amazon categories and priced your book at 99p and asked your family and friends to buy your book on the same day that you launch?

There’s nothing wrong with wanting that title, that plaudit. And if you do some launch events, you can even become an Amazon bestselling author in an authentic way, if you activate your ideal readers to buy.

But it’s not the be all and end all. Yes, being able to say that you are an Amazon bestselling author can add some authority and prestige to you, your brand and your business.

But, wouldn’t you rather steadily sell books, rather than have a week of sales and then everything stops? Wouldn’t you rather have a good number of great reviews about your book? Wouldn’t you rather people who could become clients to join your email list regularly having read your book? Wouldn’t you rather readers who become clients rather than an army of family and friends bolstering your self-worth buying your book and not really reading it, and certainly not becoming paying clients? I know what I’d want.

9. You are not ready to see the first draft evolve (and your business along with it)

When you sit down to write your book, essentially you are taking a closer look at your business. You are putting it under the microscope. You are looking at things that work and don’t work. You are looking closely at your ideal client/ideal reader and the stakes are high (your time, your money!) to make sure that your book works as a hook for the clients that you want to work with going forward.

You’ll be looking at your systems. You’ll be reviewing how you work with your one-to-one clients. You’ll be seeing what’s missing from the results of your membership clients or self-study clients or group programme clients.

You’ll be writing a lot, so you’ll be looking closely at your voice and your message.

So this might mean some uncomfortable truths. This might mean some up levelling. This might mean some changes in your business. This might mean that the book plan you started off writing to and the first couple of chapters of your book might be exploratory and will either need to be discarded or heavily edited to be included in your book.

This is normal. This is to be expected. This is OK.

Prepare for it. It can be uncomfortable.

But you’ll come out the other side with a stronger business and loving the life you are designing for yourself even more.

10. There is always an excuse

I left this one to the end because if you’ve read all the way through all the other reasons why you are not ready to write your book yet, then I’m sure you’ve got some more reasons to add to all of these ones. And they are probably great reasons. Maybe you have another focus. Maybe your family is at that stage where you really, one hundred percent, can’t find the time and committing to a book would just stress you out. Maybe your business needs some more time to develop, and you don’t want to do that alongside your book writing journey.

Writing a book means you have to show up. I show up for you with my time and my experience and expertise – heck I even show up six hours a week with accountability spaces (where I do get my own work done, writing this blog in the Write Now #teaminbetweeners session) but you have to show up. You have to do the work. You have to write the words. You have to ask for what you need. You have to show up the other fifty percent.

I can’t help you write a book if you are definitely not ready.

I am a compassionate person. If you tell me to back off and not touch base with you, I will give you space. If you have a big upheaval in your life or you need to take some downtime, we work it into your schedule. There’s a balance to be struck between compassionate space holding and accountability. And every person I work with is not ready, at some level to write a book.

But the ones that are successful take the leap, back themselves and get uncomfortable.

Seriously. Are you ready or not?

I only work with the people who are ready.