Jeff Goins says “The hard part of writing a book isn’t getting published. It’s the actual writing.” The daunting decision to get published is always blocked by this difficult question;

Is my book good enough?

Many at times authors are clouded by doubt, fear and they completely lose confidence. Authors fear rejection from the market.

How about the negative criticism that I will get? What if people don’t like the book? What if I don’t make any sales? What if I’m wrong? What if my theory is not good enough?

There are several “what Ifs” that one can come up with, but guess what, no one was born writing, even those with the talent had to develop it over time. All it needs is courage and self-confidence.

So, I’m coming through as the bearer of good news. Everyone loves good news, right? Here it is:

Oh YES! Your book is good enough, it just needs some work.

We described writing as a cumbersome process with a lot of steps, which if followed, surely produce a great piece of work. So, to help answer the question, on whether your is book good enough, take a look at the article again, What is Writing?

If a book is thoroughly written, it is good enough. The idea is not to doubt yourself. If your book answers the why, satisfies a need, has gone through the writing process, then yes, it is good enough.

Don’t confuse the role of an Editor with that of an entire lecturer whose job is to assess and mark you wrong. An Editor is yours to guide, correct, motivate and help you produce an amazing piece of work.

The fact that your work needs an Editor does not mean that it has been poorly written. Everyone needs a coach. Even the best-paid celebrities who are experts in what they do have coaches around them. Even the best-selling authors with several titles to their names still need their Editors, but that does not mean that the book is not good enough.

How do I know if my book is good?

The main objective of every author is to take the reader on a journey from beginning to end. No one writes a whole book and expects people to read just the beginning, or the middle only. This applies for both fiction and nonfiction books. Therefore, all elements of a book are important if the readers will take time to read the whole book. With fiction books, that’s the goal, with non-fiction books, you may not expect readers to go through all chapters but each chapter should be targeted to the relevant people. Which will in turn mean that the whole book needs to appeal to certain readers.

A good book is one that makes the reader feel

Amy in Meagan Frank’s article says a good book is one that makes the reader feel and takes the reader on a compelling journey. However, judging whether a book is good can be both an opinion and a fact. For instance, a story can be excellent and compelling but poorly written. That can either be classified as a good book or a poor book.

I remember back in high school when we would write the famous ‘my holidays essays’. As kids, one would generally expect those affluent children to get the best marks because their holiday would be appealing and out of the ordinary world, but that was not the case. The well written ordinary holiday story would garner more marks. This was a case of being an excellent story teller, with good grammar and sentence construction.

Since the algorithm can also be affected by opinions, a poorly written excellent story can also be viewed as a good book. Many at times you’ve seen how poorly written social media stories, for example, those found on Facebook groups have attracted a lot of traction. This is because the people may not care about the language and writing skills, all they need is the juicy story.

To be on the safe side, it would be best to:

• Tell the best story

Identifying the best story that will get the readers hooked is the first step to producing a good book. This is especially important now that because books are aggressively in competition with video and a lot of other digital products. Aim to give your readers the best for their eyes and time.

There are simple ways of finding out if one’s story is amazing. First, it has to be good and appealing to you. That’s the number one step. Ask yourself this; Do I like this story? It may be hard to objectively respond to this, with half the people being brutal on themselves and some being too lenient to avoid bias.

The best way to get out of this is to always listen to one’s gut. The general notion is to ignore one’s gut but it works greatly. We have these instincts for a purpose.

• Tell it well

It is one thing to identify a great story, and it is a whole different issue to possess the ability to tell it well. This is why there a lot of ghost writers. Ghost writers are the talented and intelligent writers who help write for people with great ideas but cannot present them themselves.

Does your book appeal to a specific audience? A good book/ story is one that readers enter wanting to find out who the cast of the story is and how their story proceeds. Readers like twists, turns, suspense and entertainment all packed in one. Serve them that and your book is GOOD for them.

• Publish it right

Step 1 and 2 can easily be nullified by this last step. What’s a good story if it’s not written well? What’s a good and well-written story if it’s not published well? There are no shortcuts in publishing if one is to boast of a good book. The Publishing Process needs to be observed, with the book going through all the stages, especially Editing and book design.

With these tips, your book is guaranteed to be GOOD.

Best of luck with your book project. I hope this has helped and you’re in a better place to identify your perfect story, know how to tell it well and Publish because yes, your book is good enough.

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As usual, I will take any questions, either in the comments section here or directly to my personal email peshywashe@gmail.com.

See you next week!