It’s okay not to publish your book

Are you feeling pressure to publish your book? A sense that you’​re not a ‘real’ author unless you publish? 

I recently wrote a post about shipping your book and then leaving it at sea. I reference Steve Jobs, who told his staff at Apple, ‘You must ship.’

Actually, these are the exact words he said, in a 1983 speech to the Apple Macintosh development team: ‘Real artists ship.’

Of course, Steve was trying to inspire his team to share the products they were developing. Was he making a statement about all creatives in all artistic fields? Probably not. But that neat little aphorism has gone on to haunt some writers (and artists and composers etc., I imagine).

If you don’t publish your book, does that mean you’re not a real author?

Actually, no. If you look up the word ‘author’ in most dictionaries, you’ll see that publishing the book isn’t integral to the definition. Here’s the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of ‘author’: ‘The writer of a book or other work.’

And if we look at the etymology of ‘author’, we see that it’s derived from Latin and Old French words meaning ‘creator, one who brings about, one who makes or creates’.

If you write a book, you’re an author. A real artist.

The vast majority of my clients come to me for editing because they plan to publish their book; they want to ship it. But sometimes I work with an author who doesn’t want to share their book with the world. They’d like my help in polishing it, but the book is just for them, or perhaps just for family and friends.

That’s absolutely fine. It’s okay not to publish your book!

Perhaps the book feels too personal to you. Perhaps you know it’s not marketable – it’s a book you wanted to write, but it doesn’t fit neatly into a genre and conform to genre norms. Perhaps you’re anxious or introverted or highly sensitive and publishing your book would make you feel too exposed, too Out There.

Again: it’s okay not to publish your book. It’s okay to be an author but not a published author.

Publishing isn’t for everyone. Apart from the exposure, it’s a lot of hard work. Even if you’re traditionally published, you can expect to market your book a lot.

Writing is the art. Publishing is business. There’s nothing wrong with focusing on the art. 
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​With my best wishes,