35: Before You Give Up on Your Book, Listen to This

How do you know if your book is actually any good?

If you've ever asked yourself that question, you're not alone. It's one of the most common fears writers face—but it may not be the question that's really keeping you stuck.

In this episode, we're unpacking what's underneath that question. We'll talk about why seeking constant reassurance never brings the confidence you're hoping for, how fear can shape the way you see your writing, and why no one can guarantee your book's success before it's written.

You'll also learn how to define what a "good" book means for you, why understanding your reader matters more than trying to please everyone, and how to stop waiting for certainty so you can keep moving forward with confidence.

If you've been wondering whether your idea is worth pursuing, I hope this episode helps you ask a better question—one that puts you back in the driver's seat of your writing journey.

If you're ready for personalized guidance as you shape your book, I'd love to help. Strategy Sessions are designed to help you gain clarity on your message, strengthen your book concept, and create a plan you can move forward with confidence.

Click the link in the show notes to learn more and book your Strategy Session.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to For Women Who Write Podcasts. I'm Michaela, a certified writing coach, editor, and self-publishing expert with over a decade of experience helping women turn their ideas into powerful. If you don't become a writing, share your story, share your experiences, how you can help other people in you and writing. Here we talk about the realms of writing and publishing, from finding your voice to structuring a book, from overcoming resistance and imposter syndrome, and launching into the world with company. My mission is to show you that becoming published and become an author if it is possible. Absolutely. Your story matters, and chances are you're closer to holding your finished book in your hands than you think. Hello, welcome to another episode. We are going to talk about a very important question. It's a question I'm guessing you are probably asking yourself right now if you clicked on this episode. And that question is: Is my book, this chapter I've written, my book idea, any good? Is any of this any good? And it's a question that I really resonate and have a lot of empathy for because I get it. Anytime I feel some hesitation or I feel shaky about an idea, I start asking that same question. Are my ads any good? Is my email marketing copy any good? Is my parenting any good? Anytime there's something that means a lot to me and that I want to do really well at, I keep asking myself the excellence question: Is this any good? And we often ask that from somebody who is experienced in that field because we want assurance. It is a actually pretty loaded question. And so in this episode today, we're going to get a little nerdy about this question. We're actually going to kind of break down the question itself so that we can understand what's going on behind that question. Because I have found that there's a way more important question behind that question. And if you try to answer the surface level question, it actually just doesn't resonate for the writer. So I've had multiple people before send me pieces of their work saying that they're really anxious about it. They've read it a couple of times, they're not sure if it's even any good. And could I tell them, yes, it's great, or no, like you need to start over. And there's been a lot of people that I have done that for. And I've read through their work and I have given them an answer. And often the answer is, yeah, actually, this is really good. We might need to do a little bit of editing or retweaking some things, but this is actually really good. And they still don't do anything, they still stay stuck, they still go ask somebody else, they become paralyzed, even still. And that was because the question really isn't whether or not their content is any good. The question is really, is this going to be worth it? Can you guarantee me that I won't regret this? Will I be proud of this in five years? Will I get any negative feedback from people saying that I'm wrong or that this is bad? Those are really the questions going on behind that question of is it even any good? Because the reality is writing is a skill. When you first start riding a bike, you don't ask, is this any good? You just keep going. You keep practicing until you get really good at it. And now you can ride a bike no problem. And writing is just the same way. It's a skill. The more that you practice writing, the better you get at it. Same, really honestly, with anything in life, the more you do it, the more you practice it, the more good feedback you get, the better you are at it. And so writing is just a skill. So really the question you're asking, is this gonna be worth it? And unfortunately, no one can tell you if it's going to be worth it. No one can tell you if you should do something or not. There are some things that could be good indicators that it could go really well, but nobody can tell you if you're gonna make a bestseller list. And nobody can tell you that you'll get thousands of sales. Even some of the greatest, you know, books with some of the biggest names and thousands and thousands of dollars of marketing power, millions of dollars of marketing right behind it, still sometimes flop. There is no such thing as success. I believe that it's not something that you find, it's something that you make. You will be successful if you want to be successful. And I don't mean that in a kind of like woo-woo, manifest your way to finding best seller status. It doesn't work that way if you just think it all the time. What does work is are you the type of person willing to work hard to write a book you're proud of, to write a book that you know will help people, that you find success internally and not simply externally. That maybe some of the external success is really exciting and fun and you celebrate it, yes, but you find way more success internally than you do externally. You can't seek outside validation that your idea is good because you will be constantly running in circles. You'll be constantly asking people if they think it's good. And honestly, sometimes you end up asking the wrong people. Because I may be able to, as an editor and a book coach, to tell you that from, you know, a purely writing craft stance that something is really good. But have you actually worked out this content with a client? Have you actually worked out this content with an ideal reader? Because if it is resonating with them, we go with that way more than writing craft. We pair writing craft with what works for your ideal clients so that you can just soar. But if you are using like a ton of flowery language for an audience that just does not resonate with flowery language, you're not going to connect with them. And ultimately, that's what writing is it's connection, it's transformation for people. So when you are constantly seeking outside validation from people, even in the writing industry and publishing industry, it's not always going to be super helpful for you. And I say that as an editor and as a book coach, as somebody who makes a living off of helping people write. It's not always the editors who are best at understanding if it's quote unquote any good. It's the people that you are talking to. It's how are you giving them a transformation? And I think this question is really important to talk about too, because I think there's a lot of fear behind the question as well. You are likely living out a worst case scenario right now. You might be imagining something terrible happening. Maybe it flops, maybe you're embarrassed by it, maybe you get a one-star review. Maybe your Uncle Joe reads it and disagrees with everything that you have to say about it. Maybe somebody you respect doesn't like what you wrote. There could be some things that you are living that feel really terrifying. And then you run from it because you don't want that experience. You don't want to have to live through that disappointment, to through that embarrassment. You don't want that negative experience to actually happen. And that's totally normal and very valid. But I was actually reading about impact bias the other day. And impact bias is this idea that as humans, we aren't capable of making smart judgments about our future emotions through huge life events. Research has shown that people have the same level of happiness as those who win the lottery and others who have terrible, horrific circumstances happen to them. The people who have terrible things happen to them, they are able to get up, to move on, and to find a new level of happiness. Their devastation isn't as bad as they thought that it would be. But I was reading actually about impact bias recently. And impact bias says that as humans, we aren't capable of making smart judgments about our future emotions through huge life events. So when we project some really big thing happening that's negative, we aren't capable of knowing if we'll be able to survive it. And right now, in this fear state, we think that we are not capable of surviving it. We think we are going to be miserable for a long time after that. We think that it's going to destroy our businesses, it's going to destroy our relationships. And so we want to avoid any possibility of that. And so we run the opposite direction. But research has actually shown that we are very capable of living through difficult things. There has been research that has shown that within a year of a lottery winner winning the lottery and someone becoming a paraplegic, their level of happiness a year after the event is actually the same. And I think it really speaks to our resiliency as humans that although we go through horrific, devastating, terrible things, we find the courage and ability to adapt and to keep moving. And so your worst case scenario that you may be playing out right now for your book with this idea that you are playing around with, even if the worst case scenario happens, I'm going to tell you that you can live through it. I'm going to tell you that you can learn something from it. I'm going to tell you that you're going to become a better communicator and a better writer because of it. I'm going to tell you that you're going to learn how to regulate your nervous system because of it. You're going to learn how to find the right support because of it. Because you are resilient. Because you are a human created in the image of God who can adapt and find ways to still move through it. And I think this a lot of people also believe that like these ideas that you are given, they're either like gifted to you or they're not. And it's like you you've got one in your hand and you're like, okay, is this good? Like I some, you know, I just had this idea and now I want to know if it's any good. But the reality is, good ideas are not just gifted to you, they are created from hard work and feedback over time. And so the question isn't, is this good? The question is, how can I make it good? Right? Like, how can I take this idea and make it really good? That also puts you in control. That is not something that somebody can tell you, yes, it is good, and like deem that this is something you should go and you are guaranteed to have success. But when you see this as something that you can make good, you know who to get on your team, you know the hard work that you can put in, you can listen to the right feedback so that it becomes a really good idea. So let's talk about this definition of good because I think it's a really tricky thing to define because good is a very, very abstract, subjective word. I think that Chipotle bowls are really good. I literally I eat one every week. They're my favorite. And I have a friend who thinks they are disgusting. And so your definition of good is going to vary person by person. So when you use something really abstract like good, you kind of start to get into some dangerous territory. So defining for yourself what is good is going to take you the distance that you want to go. It's going to get you the success that you want. So if good means you're getting 400 five-star reviews versus good means that you've made a New York Times bestseller list versus good, that means you've been able to generate 50 new leads in this last quarter because of your book. What does good mean for you? That often comes in alignment with your values. What's really important to you? What's really important to your business? So this requires you to do some work, to do some self-analyzation. What is it that's really important to me? Why do I want to write this book? And by the way, this is one of the things that we work on in strategy sessions is really getting down to understanding why you want to write this book so that you can make the right decisions for your book because your why is going to dictate a lot of your actions, a lot of your mindset, and a lot of things that you should and should not do. So it's an incredibly important question. So when you know your values, when you understand why you are writing this book, it can help you define what good means so that then you know how to make it your definition of good. So we've talked about some abstract ideas here. Let's bring it down into a little bit more practical. What are a couple of things that you can do to help yourself rightly answer this question? So, number one, get your mind in a good place. A lot of this is mindset work. I sometimes feel like a part-time therapist because we do a lot of mindset work in my coaching, in these strategy sessions and outline intensives, because this is scary work. It is vulnerable work. You are putting yourself out there. It is not easy. And so the mindset that you have in this is really going to dictate a lot of this book writing experience for you. So tell yourself that you know what the goal is, you know your definition of good, and that you are the type of person that will go after that with hard work and with feedback. You are going to learn a ton through this process, and you will likely change as a person throughout it. And that is a very good thing. So putting yourself in the controller, putting yourself in the driver's seat, you have control and changing your mindset around that. Number two, decide your level of success. Getting really honest and very specific about what you want with your book will help you. What is your definition of a success externally and internally? How do you want to feel what is really important to you in this process? And then externally, what would you love to see? What are some numbers? What are some practical things that you would love to see? Doesn't necessarily mean it would happen, doesn't necessarily mean it won't happen, but when you get very clear on that, you can approach this appropriately. Number three is to know your audience. This is huge. When you get really clear on who your audience is, then you can write a book for them. Exactly like what I was talking about earlier. Is if you're writing a book for people in the publishing industry, you should probably write, ask them if this book idea is any good. But you're likely not writing to the publishing industry. You are likely writing to someone different, to stay-at-home moms, to people in corporate, to you know, people who are trying to get better health or better relationships. Those are the people you are writing to. So know them really, really well. I think a lot of people believe that if there are one-star reviews on books, that means the book was bad. But that's actually not true. In my opinion, now it may be poorly written, it may be AI slop, and that's legit. But usually, if there are a ton of five-star reviews and some one-star reviews, it just means that the book wasn't for that person. That person probably went into the book with the expectation that it would be more advanced or more beginner, or that it would be faith-based or not faith-based. And then they got into the book and it did not meet their expectation. So then they gave a one-star review. That doesn't mean the book was bad. Most of the time, it does not mean the book was bad. It just means that the book didn't align with what the reader wanted. So when you know who your reader is and you mark it to that person, then you can have a book that transforms people, which is likely in alignment with the definition you have of what a good book is. So know your audience. And yes, I'm going to talk about strategy sessions again. This is a lot of what we talk about in our strategy sessions, too, is knowing who your audience is. And then number four, resolve to make it your definition of good. Resolve that you are going to do the hard work. You are going to get the feedback that you need. You are going to stick with it to make it happen. You are going to find a way to make this work. So I hope that's helpful for you. I hope that really starts to answer some of the questions behind the question. I don't really believe that you should try to answer this question, is it any good, without first doing some deep dive in yourself, asking yourself some other questions. What am I hesitant about? What am I scared of? Are there relationships that I'm afraid are going to be different? Are there embarrassing things that could happen? What am I really afraid of? And start to address those. And then start to get to know who your people are. Start to write for those people. And once you are getting transformations, that's when you know you are ready to write a book. So I hope this is really helpful for you. And I will see you very soon in the strategy session. If you want more information on those, you can click the link in the podcast description.