A Book Will Tell You When it Wants to Be
TL:DR Sometimes to finish a book you need to wait until you know how the story turns out.
Today’s post brought to you by the presence of all visible colors combined, aka white.
This afternoon, I had my monthly call with a client whose book we’ve yet to finish because, well, we realized we probably won’t be able to tell the entire story until the end of 2026. So, we’re checking in monthly so that I can create a breadcrumb trail of goings on, since the purpose of the book is to chronicle the author’s journey from double bankruptcy to $100 million business.
It’s a cool story. And the stuff he’s living through now doesn’t usually show up in other books by people in his industry because so few of them have gotten to this point. So, I’m just going to keep fanning the book flame til the time comes to dive back in and complete the project. (Q1 2027 if I had to guess.)
You might be thinking: “Why didn’t you find a way to finish it?”
Answer: Because the first and last time I contorted a book to completion I was gravely disappointed in the end product—even though the book is actually really really good and the author was thrilled with the result (so much so we started talking about doing a second one, which did not go forward, for reasons).
The moral of the story is: The book will tell you what (and when) it wants to be and at the end of the day, as the author, you must be 100% sure that every word in that book reflects your point of view or you may find yourself on stage getting questions about content you forgot was in your book because it did not originate from you #awkward.
