Zero content books seem to be the latest ‘thing.’ This idea is being pushed hard by ‘writing gurus.’
They even tell you how – all you have to do is register for their seminars.
Sound tempting? Well, not to me.
If you look closely at these adverts you will see advice such as – be repetitive, produce colouring books, repeat content, write books with only a couple of hundred words in them and do all this in an afternoon.
These adverts sell hard – really hard and they do that because they have to.
They have to convince you that their system will make you money – that’s how they make money.
You can imagine the quality of these books if they are produced in an afternoon.
I am a writer because I love to write and to be honest I think that should be one of the main reasons anyone writes.
If you think money while you are writing you will write rubbish.
Thinking about money while writing leads to chasing trends, trying to copy the latest breakout hit and generally writing yourself into the boring corner.
That’s not to say it’s not nice to be financially rewarded for your hard work but with very few writers making much money – you need to love writing to do it.
Of course, we all need to make some money but a bit of horse sense will tell you that the work, craft and art of writing has to come first.
If you concentrate on telling the story that you really want to tell and making it the best it can be you might just write something that appeals to readers.
If you focus on money you will simply write a poor imitation of a story that doesn’t appeal to anyone – not even you!
Finding the story you really want to write is crucial. If you don’t do that you will give up before you’ve finished.
It takes a lot of commitment to write and you won’t get that by reworking the latest trending book. In fact by the time you have finished that trend will be over.
Money should be a product of your writing – not the other way round.
You see, appealing though it may seem, writing zero content books will only make one person rich and that’s the person who sold you the seminar on how to do it.
Take care
Grace
Getting started – Writing for beginners
Increase creativity – Creative Writing Exercises
I’ve written 6 Kindle books since 2015, Grace, and the latest one was in March 2018. The topics that I have written on are ones that help my audience overcome 1 specific problem in each book. Am I a 6 figure author or laughing all the way to the bank? Not really. 🙂
It’s true that when I wrote the Kindles, the objective was to share knowledge and I do bring in passive income every month. I also have to promote the books to make sales and this is not my main income stream.
I’m sure Zero Content books could work but what the hardsell webinars don’t tell the audience is that the sales come not from creating the Zero Content books but from marketing on a regular basis and the ROI might not be worth it.
Thank you for highlighting the first motivator for a writer – the passion to write.
Yes, it’s easy to forget our love for writing when we are concerned with marketing – finding the balance is the key. Thanks for your comments – great to hear from you.
Grace
I had to look up what a zero content book is. It’s just a buzzword. Zero content books have content. A diet tracker with a company logo on it is valuable. It just isn’t really a book. Nothing wrong with such a thing. It’s a fine marketing tool. A planner usually has some sort of philosophy or approach to it. There’s content, but the content is just expressed in a product rather than in prose.
Thank you Barbara – great points. However, there are some unscrupulous marketeers out there selling something altogether different than the examples you mention.
Best wishes
Grace