A New Year’s Resolution: Write that Book!
As a book collaborator, writer, and someone who has worked in publishing for decades now, I’m surprised that among the top New Year’s resolutions for 2025, writing and/or finishing a book is not a top contender.
According to Statista Consumer Insights, the #1 resolution among U.S. adults is to save more money (21 percent). Next up is the resolve to eat healthier (19 percent), then comes exercising more (17 percent), losing weight (15 percent), spending more time with family/friends (14 percent), quitting smoking (9 percent), and reducing spending on living expenses (9 percent, though I don’t know the difference between saving more money and reducing spending). A staggering 43 percent of respondents said they will not make any resolutions. Other polls show that prioritizing mental health also claims space high on the list.
Where are all the wannabe authors? I asked Chat GPT “How many people want to write a book?” And here’s the response I got:
Surveys suggest that around 80 percent of Americans feel they have a book in them and would like to write one (that’s over 200 million people in the U.S. alone). But only about 15 to 20 percent of these people take steps to start writing a book, and of those who do begin, an estimated 3 to 5 percent complete a manuscript. And the most shocking number of all: fewer than 1 percent of people ever publish a book either traditionally or independently.
I know you aspiring authors are out there.
I know you’ve dreamed about starting—and finishing—that book for years.
I know you can do this and help grow that 1 percent group of published authors.
Maybe you need a push, perhaps a challenge. Make 2025 the year. Set your intention now. Then plan it out and follow these 6 steps:
Step 1: Create a dedicated schedule for book time. It can be twenty minutes a day, 1 hour a week, or whatever works for you. Stick to it.
Step 2: Find your comparative titles—other books in your genre—and get to know your market and the potential audience for your book. This step will help you write better and know how best to reach readers. You’ll want to understand the demand for your writing and where you can fill in blanks other likeminded books missed.
Step 3: Draft your outline but don’t overwork it too much before you start writing. You can change the flow of your content and even the content itself as you write. If you get bogged down in the outlining process, you’ll never arrive at the next big step.
Step 4: Write! Write! Write! Don’t stray from your book time schedule. And don’t wait until Halloween to reach this step.
Step 5: Share, edit, rewrite. Polish your manuscript with the help of some trusty readers or a writers’ group. Accept criticism and use the feedback to finesse your manuscript.
Step 6: Explore and pursue options for publishing.
All five of these steps can be done within a year. You will inevitably hit speedbumps and might have to move around a few unexpected obstacles along the way, but anyone can write a book in a year or less no matter the challenges. And while it may take time to officially publish, you will use that time to continue to build your platform and increase the chances that readers will find—and buy—your book. The only time you’re wasting is not getting started. I promise, this resolution will be easier than saving more money, exercising more, and losing weight.
Cheers to the new year.
Photo credit: Tim Mossholder on Unsplash