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Should Everyone Write a Book?
If you have an idea, let it out
“Everyone has a book in them, but in most cases, that’s where it should stay.”— Christopher Hitchens.
Agree or disagree? There’s a lot to discuss here.
After coming across this quote, it got me thinking. All kinds of people dream of having a book published one day and will view it as the pinnacle moment of their career if they succeed. It’s often a goal many of us work towards, myself included.
In an age of self-publishing and gradually working towards greater inclusivity within the industry, it could be argued it’s now easier than ever to publish a book. But that has its problems for writers and readers.
As readers, we may become drowned in a sea of content, stories and knowledge which can be overwhelming. As writers, it means the industry is even more competitive, and we have to fight harder to get readers.
However, there’s only so much you can say in a short piece of writing, which is why writing a book is so appealing. I’m a firm believer in the idea that writing should be open to everyone, and if you want to write a book, then you should.
But there are some downfalls to this philosophy, as suggested by Christopher Hitchens.
If everyone wrote a book, the industry would be more oversaturated
The pandemic opened up time for people who previously had busy lives. As many of us had social commitments cut short and were confined to our homes, we started to write and love the idea of completing a whole book during quarantine.
After all, William Shakespeare wrote King Lear during the plague; how hard could it be? As it turns out — hard.
Still, with this sense of a writing revolution during 2020 and the backlog caused by a year's worth of Covid-19 restrictions, the publishing industry found itself in a difficult position. On 3 September 2020, 600 books were published in a single day in the UK. This may not seem like a bad thing for book lovers, but authors rely on having a good marketing campaign to sell their books.
With everything crushed together and so much competition involved — it has been harder…
