Welcome back to this short series on why you should write that book.

Reason 2: You’ll learn how to write and how to self-publish

If learning about yourself wasn’t enough, you will also learn about the process of writing and readying a book for publication – the next book will go so much better. And you will learn how to launch a book and how to market it.

The more you learn with your first book, the better you will be with subsequent ones and the more confidence you will have.

Reason 3: A stream of passive income

Okay, so you may not be the next Stephen King or JK Rowling but bringing in a decent stream of passive income doesn’t mean you have to sell such large numbers of books.  And the more books you can write, the bigger that stream – so long as they are books that sell, of course.

Passive income is a bit of a misnomer – there is quite a lot of work that goes into writing, publishing, and making sure it stays visible in the marketplace. A few hours a week should be enough for marketing to keep it where the public can see it and to keep a steady stream of sales coming in.

Reason 4: No regrets on not trying

Nobody wants to be the person who leaves life thinking, “I wish I’d done it.” It is all too easy to persuade yourself not to do something; you’re probably scared of failure and don’t even give a second thought to future regrets. You have two choices – write the book and never regret it, even if it doesn’t do as well as you’d hoped (at least you tried) or don’t bother writing it, give in to your fears and forever regret the missed opportunity.

If you have the ideas and you really want to do it, writing that book is about far more than just sales numbers. It's about doing what you want to do and not letting your fears beat you – do it with one thing and the rest of your life will be much better for it.

Reason 5: More ideas

Writing a book can generate tons of ideas for future books. Or you might have ideas about starting an online writing course, building your own website, even going on a speaking tour. One book is just the start; the ideas will come thick and fast and the hardest part will be deciding which ones to run with.

Reason 6: Your creative genius will roar

Creative ideas don’t come out of thin air. Writing requires you to dig into yourself and bring out your authentic side.  Forget rewriting or regurgitating stuff that others have written; you want this experience to be unique.

Share your own perspective, your own experiences but beware; if you don’t feel anything about your writing, your readers won't either.  Your real passion is the fire that stokes your creativity. Think of what elicits strong emotions – if you come up with an exciting book idea, there is a good chance those emotions are involved. And that is a good thing – emotion in you equates to emotion in your readers.

Write this book, arouse your readers’ emotions and there is a good chance you will want to do it all again.

Join me for the concluding part in this series.