There is just ONE thing you need to make millions of dollars selling books.

A finished manuscript!

I get a lot of emails from authors asking how to market their books, how to get more reviews, and how to sell more books. Generally how to make a lot of dough selling fiction. I always follow up with the same question: Have you finished your book?

You’d be amazed how often the answer is no. Spend any amount of time on internet groups for fiction and publishing and you’ll no doubt run into this very thing. There’s a horde of writers out there spending countless hours debating the best way to market and sell books, but they don’t actually have anything published. Some of them are on YouTube handing out all sorts of good advice about how to write best sellers. They’ve got very large audiences that hang on every word. (See my post on Role Models for Writers.)

The most important thing you can do to make money writing fiction is finishing a novel.

Now, a lot of people will think I’m being a wisenheimer. I’m not. You can’t sell a book you haven’t written. That is true whether you are self-publishing or going the traditional route. Nobody is going to plunk down hard-earned cash for a book that’s only half finished. Debate the best way to market until the cows come home, it’s not going to change the fact that you haven’t got a complete product. Would you pay Chevy for half of a car? Of course not. You want a working vehicle before you hand them your bank card. Same goes for writing. The customer wants a novel. Preferably one that says “the End” after three hundred or so pages.

So if you are one of the masses of writers wasting time on Facebook and YouTube learning the ins and outs of marketing before you’ve even finished the book, do yourself a favor. Shut down your internet connection and hammer away at that book until you’ve got a finished product. Put it up for sale on Amazon, then worry about how to market.

Like my Daddy always said: Don’t put the cart ahead of the horse.

First thing is first. And if you are a writer, the first thing should be writing the novel. Nothing will compare with the feeling you get after finishing a novel. All the money in the world is nice. Finishing the manuscript is better. In fact, because less than ten percent of people actually finish writing a novel, it will put you in the top ten percent, and that should make you feel pretty darn good. Heck, Navy SEAL training has a 90% dropout rate. Let that sink in.

Well? What are you waiting for? Hit like, share this post, and then close your internet browser and put some words on the page!