Writing a book

Every once in a while someone asks me if I write these newsletters myself.

Every once in a while someone asks me if I've written a razor-sharp Web.

Now imagine if I answered NO.

In the case of newsletters? A man nods his head. He will say I have an experienced team of people. That we are able to produce a text twice a month that gives head and heels. He'll say I've got it well organized. He commends my leadership.

In the case of the book? I'm a liar and a fraud.

Our newsletters are also signed as Jan Řezač. A book... an expert book... is a whole different game. You can't be an author if you haven't written it! You are a liar and a fraud!

Today we will pass

👉 the myth of the lonely author of the book,

👉 why I write,

👉 the state of the book market,

👉 frenzied crowd

👉 and the consequences of it all.

Because those consequences affect all of us. Our entire cantry of forums dz fúčr. For the worse.

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Education

We have a shared experience. We all wrote typefaces at school. You get a couple of hours. You need to spawn a coherent text. For the first time. By hand. Some of us wrote a bachelor's or diploma. Once again, because school requires it.

We have a shared experience. Writing a longer meaningful text is a challenging task! When it's for one take, it's hell. We have to handle it ourselves! And maybe we'll get an A, too.

Thanks to this shared experience, we have a clear idea of how an expert book is created.

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Author

The lone author sits down at a table, soaks a quill in ink, and then, ideally, transcribes the book onto parchment in one fell swoop. Off the top of my head. It's a huge challenge for him. He overcomes her and, thanks to this, becomes an author. He deserves it. He's a hero.

I wrote the first version of the razor-sharp Web for a year. He wrote. And he wrote. And he wrote. Writing a longer meaningful text is a challenging task! The first version of the book had a crap feature. She was illegible.

At the same time, my almost 30 year old self had a stupid trait too. Ego the size of a smaller skyscraper. Ego is cool because you have the courage to do things. Which doesn't mean you're doing a good job. Fortunately, at some point I realized that I needed help.

A scholarly book is not written by a single author. An expert book is created as a teamwork. Each should have the name of the author on the cover... plus the magic formula _____ and collective.

About 10 people actually participated in the razor-sharp Web... opponents, editors, proofreaders, illustrators, graphic designers. There's my name on the cover. I have a right to do that because I put together that first completely illegible bullet. Then the other one. Third. These have already been created by the work of a bunch of people. Writing a longer meaningful text is a challenging task!

Some authors write books. Other books dictate and then edit their transcription. ” Like me at of this newsletter because the topic came to my mind while engraving in the garden. “ Other authors dictate their stories, and then someone rewrites the stories. Some enlist other people to write a book with them.

Forget the myth of the lone hero. The actual degree of involvement of the author in the creation of the professional book is highly individual. I don't know anything about writing fiction, let's stay in the field of professional literature.

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Writing

I write my own lyrics. Writing allows me to explore a topic. The razor-sharp web is actually a byproduct of my efforts to settle my thoughts about the modern approach to digital design.

Business-woman. Elegant blazer. 51 years. 30 years of experience in the industry. He wants to help the younger generation. So that they don't slap themselves in it like she once did. She's been doing business all her life. It has earned. He flies first class. And she's never written anything much longer than an email in her life. Because she was doing business all the time.

Sure, he can shoot podcasts or tiktok videos. He won't. The book makes sense to her. The assistant will find a suitable ghostwriter. She'll write a book with her. It's a great book full of experience. Written by a ghostwriter who has been writing for 30 years... so it reads great to people! Illustration will be done by a professional illustrator. In addition, the businesswoman will add some ten million to marketing. It will affect a whole generation of up-and-coming entrepreneurs.

And she's a fraud and a liar. Because she's on the cover herself.

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The market

The reality of the book market is terrifying. The author gets 4-8% of the price of the book. “I think it's better... this is the real experience of me and my wife from the last decade... in total we have 6 books published. “ The book costs 500 CZK. For the author, up to 40 CZK from the sold copy. Out of a thousand units sold, you have 40,000 CZK. Pre-tax.

Want a bestseller? Prepare hundreds of thousands to millions. Either cash or your own energy. Writing a longer meaningful text is a challenging task! Selling 10,000 or more books in our country is significantly harder.

You have to pay that team of 10 people. With any luck, they're buddies, so you'll just “owe” them. You need to promote the book. If you leave it to a mainstream publisher and do nothing, that book will fit in among thousands of others. Publishers in my experience drive on quantity. Either the book grabs or it doesn't. Didn't it work out? Next please. You, on the other hand, have only one chance.

Writing professional books is a volunteer activity. There's a good chance you'll write a book and a dog won't bark at it. If you expect a book to help you do business... there are a LOT of more efficient, cheaper, faster ways to do marketing. There are a lot of more successful entrepreneurs in the market than me. Among other things, it may be that I write and they do business. 😈

Forget the book as a marketing tool for your business. This only works for a narrow circle of the lucky and the insane at the same time. The few authors who actually sold out their professional books repeatedly put a huge amount of energy into them. You're much more likely to have a thousand books in your basement. Or your publisher will have them there. You're not gonna throw it away. And slowly sell them off piece by piece. Or they're rotting in that basement.

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It's a crowd

Solitary diploma writing. The myth of the heroic author with the quill. The demonization of ghostwriting. What does it bring us? Less experienced people will write a book. Just because of crap like this that they can't write. Writing a longer meaningful text is a challenging task! So instead they prefer to fly to Bali and do nothing.

Cantry forums dz fjůčr. A canter in which heated crowds effectively prevent the passing on of know-how to younger generations. The cantry in which we all keep inventing the wheel. And we can blame ourselves for it.

Think of that the next time you judge some author for not having done it all on her own. I couldn't do it myself either. I write that often and gladly. And these newsletters.

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Questions and answers

Did you write a razor-sharp Web, then?

After this newsletter, you should realize that this is a really bad question. And as long as we keep asking questions like that, we as a society won't move forward. A much better question is... did the book help you? Did she influence you? Did she benefit you? That counts.

Tell others about the book because the author does this as a volunteer activity regardless of the actual degree of his involvement! Well, at least let him have some coffee. Otherwise, yes, I wrote the book. Just me. Alone. Quill on parchment. In one go. Off the top of my head. Just like everyone administrative authors.

Did the energy put into the book come back to you?

Yes, I do. The trouble is that no one can see the cemeteries of forgotten and unsold books. I'll make it easier with the next book. When I feel like volunteering again. If it weren't for those other 10 people, the razor-sharp Web would never break through the greys of the book market. Today I know. I didn't know that at the time. Don't write books for the sake of marketing. Write books because you want to influence society.

Should a book be on the cover?

Right, everyone on the cover! An author who doesn't use generative AI when writing a book is shooting himself in the foot for me today. AI is a tool. It's like using a search engine. I was writing this book in Microsoft Word and once in a while I Googled there should be a mandatory sentence just after the thank-you for the co-creator. By the way, I write this newsletter in Notion. Now you know. I hope that helped you. And a colleague puts him in the mailing. The newsletter should also end Jan Řezač and the collective.

Ghostwriters should be on the cover!

That's not the question. That's the attitude. An attitude that discourages people who have something to say and at the same time cannot write. Because then there will be a crowd of nice people out there saying things like, “Vona is written there as the author, but the other guy wrote it.” That seems like a pretty unhelpful attitude to me. It doesn't help us as a society. It degenerates us. Do you want to participate in this?

But one should write the book himself!

Another non-question. If I wrote the razor-sharp Web as a lone quasi-hero, it certainly wouldn't have helped so many people. Write expert books. Dictate them. Let them write ghostwriters. Share your experiences, theories, thoughts. Let the next invention, revolution, change... arise in the Czech Republic.

The more books out there, the more there will be The really beneficial ones. And that's what we need.

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die...”
-- Max Planck

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Reading for the weekend

Clinging Desperately to a Metaphor

Between 2000 and 2007, 10% of the wealthiest Americans received 100% of their average income growth. The other 90% gained nothing. Do you also think we should leave the solution to this minor problem to the free market? Ursula K. Le Guin criticizes capitalism. Briefly and mercilessly.