I hear you're writing a book

a mystery book, the topic of my next potential project and a roadmap for the rest of the year

‘Thought I’d reach out as I heard you’re writing a book about this. Shall we chat?’

Someone messaged me the above this week. I had to stop and ask myself, ‘Am I writing a book about that?’

As soon as you write a book, people ask you what the next one is going to be. Author Seth Godin reckons that the next book is always the best marketing for your current book so you might as well start it right away. I can’t remember who, nor can I be bothered to find out, but another author said they finished their book and called their mentor to ask what to do next. They did not find the answer inspiring.

‘Take the afternoon off. Then start the next one tomorrow.’

When I finished my first book, I had no idea what the second one would be. I did want to do another one but I felt like I’d thrown up everything I knew about rugby and my contribution to it into the first one and had nothing left inside to contribute to something else. Fortunately, Our Race landed in my lap. It didn’t sell so well but I’m still proud of the work.

(Get the book to coincide with the upcoming Olympic sprint relays…)

Funnily enough, two coincidental happenings this week both relate to this supposed book project.

One is one of this year’s Olympians who went viral for their contribution and even more strangely, they straddle the topic of my soon to be released book and this future project.

The other is that I began reading a rare and difficult to purchase book that takes a philosophically similar but hardcore approach to my intended subject matter.

This book became extremely popular in certain circles a couple of years ago, shooting from obscure but available to venerated and expensive to buy. You don’t want to know what I had to do to get hold of a copy but it was unseemly and for subscribers only…

go paid to see and comment on:

• this mystery book

• the topic of this next book project

• a roadmap for the rest of the year

otherwise, look out for my usual letter the outlier tomorrow.