What to Expect When You’re Expecting to Write a Book

A few weeks ago, I came home to find my husband on the patio with an iPad and an iced tea, ready to watch the Preakness Stakes. 

We like all sorts of sports. In “horse season” we usually watch the Triple Crown races (which also include the Kentucky Derby and last Saturday’s Belmont Stakes.) While watching the horses line up in the starting gate, I thought about all the effort that owners, trainers, jockeys — and the horses themselves — put into that day. It’s a lot of work just to get to the race. There are years leading up to the moment before the gun goes off. Sometimes generations.

And then of course, one horse pulls ahead and wins.

I think a lot about publishing, so my mind makes connections to it everywhere. 

Watching the Preakness, I thought about how many horses run these big races. Up to 20 horses run the Derby; nine horses are in the Preakness; and up to 12 horses compete in the Stakes. 

There’s not just one horse out there. 

The same can be said for books. There’s not just a single relationship book out there. Nor is there just one health book, one personal finance book, one inspirational book, or one guide to making work more productive and fun. 

So many authors I talk to worry that someone else is going to beat them to publishing or that somehow, their idea will get “stolen” when in reality, they are just one horse in a bigger race. (And whether you beat the others is up to a lot of factors.) 

The truth is, you will have competition. There will be another book like yours. The likelihood of someone else having the same idea as you is high, and gets higher every month you put off building an audience or creating intellectual property from your idea. Another reality is that there will be many entrepreneurs with businesses like yours, and results like yours.

But don’t let those fears stop you from getting to the race in the first place. 

Because there’s always the opportunity to win. 

In horse racing, there has been a Triple Crown winner only 13 times in history (most recently Justify in 2018). To me, a horse winning the Triple Crown is a lot like becoming the What to Expect When You’re Expecting in your niche. 

Once in a while, a confluence of magical forces comes together to make a remarkably successful horse — and a remarkably bestselling book. That may or may not happen to you and your book. I don’t think anyone in horse racing would guarantee a Triple Crown win talking about a pony and I can’t make similar guarantees about your success either. (You should run away from anyone who makes those kinds of promises in publishing, by the way.)

However, what I do know — for absolute sure — is that you need to show up to the starting gate to be in the race.