Today, almost everyone wants to write a book, and not necessarily to have it read. The book has become a physical extension of personal branding.
In the past, writing was reserved for a few privileged individuals; today it is marketed as a social requirement. Influencers, entrepreneurs, YouTubers, coaches, opinion leaders, television hosts, singers, and various personalities include publishing a book in their professional task lists.
In Spain, the publishing output is nearly 90,000 titles annually, which averages to about 250 copies per day, half of which belong to fiction or popular science. The other half comprises functional or specialized titles, including professional manuals, academic texts, children’s and young adult literature, and a large number of self-published works.
With the data at hand, much is published, but little is sold. Most books do not exceed 400 copies sold, a figure that clearly shows that today having a book is more an exercise in visibility than in real impact.
We have been led to believe that we need to constantly demonstrate authority, and the book has become the perfect emblem for that. It’s such an appealing spell that almost no one wants to miss out. Showing on social media that «you are writing a book,» revealing the cover, narrating the process day by day… all of this is part of the contemporary ritual of visibility.
Self-publishing has acted as a catalyst for this phenomenon. It has removed intermediaries, reduced costs, and sped up a process that was once long and complex. It has democratized publishing and, with it, the opportunity to leave a mark, to build a supposed transcendence that, in many cases, serves more to the ego than to the reader.
With all the conveniences at our disposal, many of us have succumbed to the spell, although the reality is that most of these books go unnoticed, and the magic of validation becomes merely an illusion. Having a book does not automatically make you a reference; sometimes, it only makes you another name on the shelf and just another person online who «has written their book.» The heaviness of the speeches from those who seize any opportunity to «sell their book» is working against them and is generating widespread irritation among people who, upon hearing the word book, break out in hives and reject without even listening to conversations that could be productive.
So why, then, does everyone want to write one? Because we have been led to believe that it will provide us with status when most of the time it’s nothing more than a personal legacy packaged for social media.
Publishing a book today is easy. Selling it and keeping it alive is the hard part. What is undeniable is that the publishing industry is changing. Perhaps everything requires a bit more maturity to stabilize. Perhaps we should lower our egos and our need to leave a mark and consider whether what we write truly serves anyone other than ourselves.
Because writing a book and publishing it is just the beginning. The real question remains why we write, not why we do it.
