085: How to Choose Between Two Book Ideas

 

What do you do when you have multiple book ideas and can't decide which one to move forward with? That's the situation I'm currently in! In this episode, I give you a few questions to ask yourself that can provide clarity about which is the best one to choose first, as well as what to do if you really can't decide. 

- Click here for ways to work with me + a free character profile template: www.thekatiewolf.com/info

- The last Tuesday of the month is a Q&A episode! Submit your questions for me HERE.


- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@katiewolfwrites

- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katiewolfwrites


 

 

HOW TO CHOOSE BETWEEN TWO BOOK IDEAS

Hello, and welcome to the blank page to book podcast. I've done a few episodes about book ideas, like coming up with book ideas, just your book idea have to be unique. But I really want to talk about how to decide because this can be something that gives people a lot of anguish. And when I say people, I'm including myself in there, because this is where I currently am, in my writing life, is I'm deciding between two book ideas, and it's causing me a lot of stress. But it's like, I just I keep going back and forth. And I'm not taking action on either of them. Because I'm like, I don't know, I don't know which one is right.

So let's talk about it. I have to just tell you, I'm recording this episode on my podcast closet. And I'm doing like a co working session right now with some people on Zoom, where we all get on Zoom, and everyone's muted. So no one can hear this. But we have our cameras on our video on so I'm watching myself on the Zoom record in my podcast closet while everyone else is like still in probably, you know silent and working on something at their computer, it's kind of funny to see myself, I'm going to just minimize my Zoom screen because otherwise I feel weird.

And you know what I'm going to be doing, I wanted to say this too. Once I get my office all situated and ready to go. I want to start recording the episodes on camera and then putting them on to YouTube so that you can watch the episodes as YouTube videos if you want or you can listen to them as podcast.

So that's coming hopefully soon. Not Not yet. It'll be a while I still gotta get my office ready and figure out the best way to do it and everything. But yeah, I'm excited about that. I've been doing some YouTube shorts. I've been repurposing some of my my content from reels and tiktoks to YouTube shorts. But I haven't posted like long videos on YouTube yet so. So yeah, if you're on YouTube, and you want to follow me, you can do it at the Katie Wolf.

I post shorts there. But that's coming, I have a lot of projects that are in them kind of on the backburner and exciting stuff coming. Okay, so let's talk about how to decide between two book ideas. I'm gonna give you a little bit of context for my situation. And then we'll talk about like, I'll give you some questions to think about if you are currently in this situation. So my book is still in submission. I'm recording this in early May.

And I don't have any news, unfortunately, just we've gotten some rejections. And we're just waiting to hear back from everyone else to read my book and decide if they want to buy it and decide if I get a book deal. And it's very stressful. I'm not gonna lie, it's it's extremely anxiety inducing, especially because I'm just going to be real with you and say this, that there was a bit of like, grieving, I had to do to let go of the idea that this was going to be a quick process. I'm not going to be one of those writers who gets a seven, you know, will not even seven figure. I'm not going to be one of those writers that gets like a multi six figure deal on auction where multiple houses are bidding to buy my book, and it happens in three weeks.

That's not going to be my story, which is fine, because it's not 98% of people's stories, either. I think sometimes we can see these success stories and think that that's the norm, but it's not those people are like the exception, not the rule. And it's wonderful for them. Like it's so expansive to me to hear about people who have that experience, because it's like, you just never know what to expect and how cool for them that they thought to have that experience. Like that's amazing.

So there's not even like jealousy of it. It's really, it's really cool. But there was a part of me a week or two ago that realized like, okay, that's not going to be my story, at least not right now. At least not for this book. And that's fine. What I want is I want to find an editor who understands my book, understand my vision that can partner well with that I can partner well with. I want to find a great home for my book. That's what I'm interested in, you know, to start my career as an author this way.

So, anyways, I say that I know it sounds kind of silly because it's ego, right? It's like, my ego wanted this big, flashy experience so that I can share about it but um, And really when it comes down to it, like, I'm just looking for a good home for my book. And I also, I, I don't know if it's good or bad that I do this, but something that helps my anxiety in situations where I feel out of control. or I shouldn't say out of control where I don't have control over a situation, like being on submission, something that helps me is thinking about the absolute worst case scenario, like what is the worst possible outcome that could happen in this situation and being on submission? The worst possible outcome is that this book doesn't sell.

And then I have two books that didn't sell. I've been years into this process, and I still don't have a published book. Like that's, that's the worst case scenario. And when I thought about it, at first, I had a couple of seconds of panic and dread, of course, because, of course, that would be disappointing. If that happens. Are you kidding? I would have to grieve that and be really frustrated and pissed off at the universe, like, what is happening, why, why am I experiencing this? But if that happened, do you know what I would do? After grieving and going through that and letting myself feel all that stuff, I would write another book, I would finish writing one of these books that I can't decide between, I would just keep writing. That's what I would do.

And because I have this new agent who I love, I would imagine that we would go through the process, and I would write the book, and she would give me some suggestions. And we'd do a little bit of revision, and then send that book on submission. And I will try again. That's the worst case scenario. And I've decided that you know what, yes, it would sting a bit to have to like, talk about this publicly and say, like, yeah, my book didn't sell, and I'm just trying again, but I could live with it, it's fine.

Like, I'm gonna keep writing anyways, regardless of what happens with this book, I don't have any plans to stop writing, just because you know, in the event that the book doesn't sell. So I will just keep writing. So I decided that I could live with the worst case outcome, and it wouldn't Shatter Me completely. So that helps me feel better about this situation.

Okay. So I have these two books that I started, I have between five and 10,000 words on both of them. And they're different. But I'm very excited about both of them. They're different ideas different. One is the first person all the way through. One is we have three point of view characters, and it's third person. So writing them, even starting to write them was a very different experience.

Both of my books that I've written have been in first person. So writing in third person is challenging for me, but because there are different point of view characters, I think that book calls for it, it needs to be told in third person. So yeah, I'm excited about both of them. And I'm not sure which is the right one for me to move forward with. And I really don't think there is a right one. But I still just been stuck in this limbo. And I did so much work editing the book that's on submission, that I felt kind of not burned out with writing necessarily, but like, I just needed to step back and take a break.

And to be honest, the last few months, I've been so busy with editing, so busy with the business that I really just haven't had a lot of brain space for writing, I haven't really felt like I wanted to write. So I just took a little bit of a break. But now it's been long enough. It's been a few months where I'm like, Okay, I'm chomping at the bit to get back to it. I want to be writing again. So it's time to make a decision. So the first thing I'll say when if you are deciding between two book ideas, or even multiple book ideas, even if you have three, four or five, and you're like I don't know which one to go forward with. The first thing I'll say to ask yourself is, Which am I being pulled to more? Which can't I stopped thinking about Which am I most excited by?

Sometimes there's a clear answer. Sometimes this can if you get quiet, you can even close your eyes. And take some time like ask yourself this question. Sometimes you might feel if you imagine these books in your head, imagine these ideas. You might feel a physical pole in your body towards one of them. Maybe it doesn't show up that way for you. Maybe it's just you see one of the book ideas so much more clearly than the other and it it feels like that's the it just feels like an intuitive knowing that that's the right one. Maybe it's theirs. Yes, you're thinking about both book ideas and you're excited about both of them. But there's one that you just cannot stop thinking about it consumes your thoughts that you even dream about it. You're making notes to yourself all the time. Pay attention to those things.

And if the answer for you if you get honest with yourself and both are appealing and exciting, and you can't stop thinking about both of them And then that's okay, then move on to the next question. The next question to add to your ask yourself is, for those of you who have already written a book, so if you have book ideas, and you were writing book two, or more 34567, whatever is one of these book ideas, a more natural fit for book two? Or three, or four or five or whatever? Meaning is one of these book ideas. Very, very similar to book one. And if it is, is that a good thing? Or a bad thing? And only you can know the answer to that.

Sometimes that can help, you know, kind of help you make a decision and think about it. If those questions don't help, I have one more question to that I want you to ask yourself. If I could only ever write one more book. One, that's it, everyone's allotted a certain number of books, I get one more book. And I had to tell only one of these stories. Which one would I tell you can't write both of them is the one that you feel pulled to over the other.

Now, if after going through those exercises, thinking about those questions, really checking in with your gut instinct here, you're still confused, and you're still not sure that do what I am forcing myself to do next week, at the time of recording, just pick one, force yourself to pick one you can do a coin toss, you can do something else random to decide. And focus on that book for a period of time that you commit to, this can be three months, this can be six months, whatever length of time you decide, I'm going all in on this book idea.

The reason why I want you to do it for at least a few months versus like two weeks, is I really want you to get into this story. And after three months, or four months or six months or whatever you will start to tell you, you'll be able to tell if that was the right call or not. That's long enough, where you've gotten over the initial hump of writing your into this story.

And you can start to like really diagnose are there serious issues with the story idea that are going to require a lot more work? Am I just actually not that excited by this book idea that I've been spending the last three months on? If that's the case, then maybe it is okay to just jump ship and go back to the other idea. That's fine. And also remember that when we're talking about deciding between book ideas, this is only if you want to decide you don't have to. Some people do really well working on multiple writing projects at one time.

So if that's you don't feel like obligated to decide you can absolutely do that you can work on both. This is only these are only things to consider. If you want to decide which I that's the situation that I'm in, I don't want to work on both, I want to put all my energy towards one of them. So what I'm doing, because I honestly am feeling excited about both of these, I don't know which one is the right one. I'm just gonna pick one.

And I think, as I'm saying this, I'm recording this in early May. And I gave myself until like next week, then next week to decide. And then when Friday comes around, I'm just going to pick one. And you know what, as I'm saying this, like, I think I've already kind of decided that it's going to be the it's going to be the third person multiple point of view. Even though it's hard, even though it's hard for me to write them first. And I'm just gonna go for it. Because I really that's the story that I even though I'm thinking a lot about both.

There's something so compelling about this idea that I'm excited to explore. And I'm not going to share anything else about it, because I'm still kind of teasing out exactly what the book is. I think I've written about 8000 words of that one, maybe. But so yeah, so for now, I think that's what I'm going to decide, but I'm gonna give myself until next week, and then just make a decision whether it's this one, and me, like I actively make the decision to choose this one, or I get to next Friday, and I'm like, I still don't know I'm not totally sure. In that case, I just do a coin toss.

And I want you to remember that when you're deciding, again, like you're just setting it to the side, you are not saying I'm never reading this book. You're not saying I'm giving it up completely. You're just setting it aside for now and focusing on something else. That's it. You can come back to it. It will it will still be there. Thank you for are letting me kind of talk that out because I think that was helpful for me to get closer to a decision. But at any rate, like I said, I'm really just excited to get back into a regular writing routine routine and practice and, you know, move forward with whatever idea I end up going with for sure.

And I hope this was helpful for you. If you are in that space of of deciding and deciding can feel it can feel so heavy and like, this is such a big decision that I'm making. And yes, it is a big decision. But like, again, you can come back to the other ideas later. You're not saying goodbye to those ideas forever. So take some of the pressure off, go through these exercises. And if you honestly can't pick, just make yourself choose one and commit to it for a while. Alright, thank you so much for listening, and cross your fingers for me on submission. I will update y'all as soon as I can, hopefully with good news. But at any rate, even if it's not good news, I'll keep you posted because I'm really committed to just being honest about this process and what's going on. So, alright, see you next week.

Katie Wolf