Bad News: Someone Has Written Your Book Already

Here’s the good news — you can still write it.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Before I go to writers’ conferences, I crack the same joke to my husband Scott. I say, “I’ll be back after I crush a few dreams.”

And guess what? That’s usually true.

At writers’ conferences, there are a lot of authors who have holed up and finished an entire manuscript without doing their homework. This means there are a lot of authors who don’t know that they spent months of their lives writing the exact same book someone else — and maybe even dozens of someones — has already written and published.

These authors sit down and proudly proclaim something like, “I’ve got a unique book. No one has ever written about this before!” 

But unless it’s something super obscure, that’s just not true. 

And that’s the moment I turn into a dream crusher.

(Hell, I could be doing that right now, for you, while you read this email.)

There are hundreds of thousands of books published every year, perhaps millions. Digitization keeps nearly everything available, either in print or as an ebook. So it’s more important than ever to assume that someone else has written — or is writing at this very moment — the same book you want to write.

You have to be able to differentiate your book from what’s on the market. 

And the only truly unique thing about you is you. 

Your intellectual property, your knowledge, your life experiences, your personality — my client Melissa Cassera calls it your Swirl (and has a whole course on how to work that into your brand and business that is totally worth your time). 

Now, this doesn’t mean your book has to be a memoir or include every moment of your life. Please don’t do that. 

But you should think about what you uniquely bring to the table.

An example.

My client Melody Wilding.

She’s a career coach who helps women get out of their own way at work.

Pretty awesome, right? But Melody decided to niche even further down and tackle the sensitive, high-achieving strivers that tended to seek her out. And that’s when she got her book deal.

So today’s lesson is to NICHE down. 

Identify your unique strengths and leverage that sh*t.

And if someone crushes your dreams, listen — because we’re usually trying to help.