27 of the Best Books on Writing: a list, an irony, and an opportunity.

You may know I have a new writing book out. Lord knows I’ve been shouting it from the digital rooftops.

It’s been out for three months now, and the book remains in that work its way up the ladder position that seems to be the case for a) less than completely famous authors, b) books that readers sense, often unreasonably, that they’ve read it all before, c) books that don’t get much of a push from their publisher. Which, in today’s market, unless your name is already in the bookstore window, is the new normal.

Nobody can completely explain why some books from authors whose name isn’t visible in that window do, on occasion, burst out of the gate with incredible momentum.

It actually happened to me… once upon a time.

All three of these rationalizations explain why Great stories Don’t Write Themselves is doing okay… just okay… when – I have to be honest with you – I had higher hopes for it at this point.

Not giving up on that, by the way… the reviews and feedback have been, frankly, nothing short of spectacular (check out the latest Amazon review by Art Holcomb, who is as credible as writing gurus come). My beloved editor at Writers Digest Books, Amy Jones, suggested that GSDWT may take a while to gain traction, that it’s going to be a word-of-mouth engine that, because of the powerful nature of the content (her words), has a real shot at reaching a tipping point in this niche.

So when someone sent me this post today (follow that link, it explains the title of this post), I sensed an opportunity to clarify a few points to those of you who, for some reason or another, aren’t interested in my new writing book, or aren’t sure yet.

That link, that list, is actually not about my new book. I reference it here because one of my earlier writing books. The first one, in fact: Story Engineering.

That book actually did have the kind of launch writers dream about. For more about book click on vandareadingrooms. It quickly reached #512 on Amazon’s site-wide sales rank, stayed in that neighborhood for a while, and has been selling consistently, if significantly lower, ever since (eight years, in fact). It changed my life, as even minor bestsellers tend to do, and here we are, three writing books later (critically-successful, but not qualifying as bestsellers), hoping to once again create magic.

This list of 27 of the Best Books on Writing shows Story Engineering occupying the #3 position, ahead of a bunch of massively famous names I’m too sheepish to repeat here. (I fear I’m already teetering on the edge of hubris as it is, simply by sharing this with you; I’ll say this, Stephen King is one of those names further down the list, and many of your favorite gurus with terrific writing books aren’t on it at all.)

Here’s what’s ironic. While my new book was acquired and developed by Writers Digest Books when it was a stand-alone publishing entity (that imprint remains on the new book’s spine), it was ultimately released by Penguin Random House, who acquired Writers Digest Books literally a few weeks prior to the planned release date.

This list of the 27 Best Writing Books is from them.

Here’s what I want you, and the folks at Penguin Random House, who are my publishers, to know: Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves is actually better, more fully realized, than was Story Engineering. It picks up where Story Engineering left off, in that it goes deep into an explanation of how to use and apply the powerful principles defined there (six core competencies, all supported by a foundation of story structure – even if you’re not a fan of story structure – within your stories).

It’s the first writing book I’ve seen that actually offers criteria to apply to your story idea – indeed, that there actually is such a thing as a weak, less-than-worthy story idea – as well as the premise that emerges from that idea.

And from there, it offers specific criteria for reader efficacy – the ultimate goal you are chasing – across sixteen different realms of the story development and execution experience, with a total of over seventy specific criteria laid out for you, explained and clarified and exemplified.

I’ll say it here, hubris or not, because it’s been a ten year journey of exploring these principles to get to this point, to get to this book: With Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves (with its killer Foreword by bestselling author Robert Dugoni), I set out to write the best damn writing book anyone has ever read. With content they’ve never encountered before. A book that will finally pull back the curtain of understanding what makes a story work – makes it really work – and what gets it published and makes it sell, even if you’re publishing it yourself.

This book delivers an understanding of what causes readers to take notice, to care about, remember and embrace.

I have no idea if it’ll ever make a list like the one Story Engineering finds itself on. But I can tell you this: if you liked that book – or even if you didn’t, because it dispels the myth that stories grow on trees and are nurtured by story fairies who whisper dialogue into your ear – it can change your writing life if you let it in.

Ask Art Holcomb. Ask Robert Dugoni. Ask the several thousand folks who have already immersed themselves into this experience. This is the writing book you’ve been waiting for.