Hardest part about writing a book?

Wondering what some of my fellow authors remember being the biggest grind in the process?

Me? I think it's trying to track people down for interviews, some of whom, depending on what sort of book you're writing, might not have talked to a reporter for decades. It's such an effort to, first of all, find dozens of people, and then to get a hold of them and convince them to share anywhere from 10 minutes to a couple hours of their time with you. It can be draining.

Other elements of authorship that just wore you out? (And didn't Jones say he talked to like 50 people for a single magazine piece? Amazing).

 

How would you do it different if you wrote another one?

 

Sirs, Madames,

Separating publishers from their money.

Selling a book is the hardest (from conception to pitch to negotiation to racks). Nothing else is hard.

o-<

 

I haven't written a book (though I've written several small excerpts of the book I'll one day write) but I think the hardest thing for me, being a newspaperman, would be the lack of a daily deadline. I find it hard enough to focus on stuff that won't run for a week or two, so if the light at the end of the tunnel is months or even years ahead, I think I would struggle.

 

If you're referring to "The Things That Carried Him," I think it was over 100.

(checking) Yup. 101.

 

for me, the hardest part has always been the gathering of info -- waiting for call backs, trying to track down phone numbers for forgotten people, hours glaring at microfilm in the library looking for that one quote you know is there somewhere ..

writing is the dessert after a meal you didn't really like

 

We are kindred spirits then.

 

I have a naive question. Is there any sort of market for people who specialize in the research end of book writing? Because that would be my favorite part of the process.

 

I'd like to know this, from the author's standpoint. I was reading Seth Davis's acknowledgements at the end of "When March Went Mad," and like most major authors, he thanked his reasearchers, including a guy who had conducted some interviews for him. But I've tried to use the Google to find the market for these people, get them to do some digging for me, but there doesn't seem to be a big industry out there.