What every creative should know before they write a book

“We’re creatives, so book writing should come easily, right?” asked Knock Three Times’ co-founder Kat Thomas, before finding out the hard way.

There's a particular kind of creative delusion that strikes people like me. We're conceptual thinkers, wired for the big idea. Part of the process is mentally writing the headline that grabs attention and tells a banging story in a few simple words. So, when the thought of writing a book enters your head, it feels entirely natural.

“Of course. A book. Obviously”. You can already see the cover.

What you cannot see, until you’re deep in the thick of it, is everything that comes after that delicious dopamine-fuelled “eureka!” moment.

I wrote ‘Weapons of Mass Confidence’ in the window between handing over the keys to One Green Bean to Havas and gearing up for the launch of my next venture, Knock Three Times. That luxury of time turned out to be a total godsend.

I learned that a book requires sustained, single-minded focus that cannot easily coexist with running a business. I take my hat off to people who have done both. In my experience, it needs to be treated like a full-time job, because it is one. So here are a few lessons learned.

The big idea is the spark. The re-drafting is the actual job.

Big ideas people can mentally picture the entire thing before they've written a single word. The structure, the narrative arc, the chapters that will land best. That instinct is good because it gives you a north star. The problem is it can also give you a false sense of progress. Seeing the book in your head is not the same as writing it.

You know that moment ahead of a pitch when you finally crack the idea? You sleep well that night, momentarily tuning out of the effort that sits between convincing your colleagues you're onto a winner and actually turning it into one. Writing a book is a bit like that, except the gap is eight months of re-editing chapters you thought were done, reworking sections you thought were final, and reading the same paragraph so many times the words lose all meaning. The book I published was manuscript version 18.

For anyone who thrives on collaboration and pace, the solitary grind rally requires an adjustment.

You are simultaneously the creative, the strategist, the editor and the client. 

No one to sense-check with. No brainstorm to push the idea further. Just you and your screen. And 14 kilos of Reese's peanut butter cups (other vices are available).

Strangely, in this comfortable era of hybrid working, I found it completely impossible to edit at home. Especially when the job to be done was deeply grammatical and tense-focused. I ended up joining the laptops-in-libraries club, and God, I absolutely loved it. After a decade in a corporate tower block, there was something so brilliant about sitting in a community space surrounded by people reading, thinking and getting on with things. Oldies coming in to read the papers, folk of all ages popping in to warm up and nose through the new arrivals. Find your library. And get there early enough to nab the table in the sun with the plug socket.

Sometimes the title arrives first. Let it.

‘Weapons of Mass Confidence’ came to me before the book did. I'd originally planned to pitch the idea as a Guardian long read. Something sharp, focused, considered, a bit provocative. Then it got out of hand… another classic creative tendency.

I’ve learned more recently that not every writer gets that lucky. Many authors are so deep in the narrative that they agonise, for months, sometimes years, over what to call it.

A title with no book attached is its own kind of pressure; it sets a promise you then have to spend months delivering on. 

But having it early gave me a creative anchor to write towards, which turned out to be more useful than the subsequent chapter plan. So if the title comes, grab it. If it doesn't, don't force it; I’m told a rushed title is worse than a slow one. Either way, treat it like the most important brief of the whole project. Because it is.

Don't AI the cover. And don't assume you know what good looks like.

This one's for every creative who has spent years commissioning brilliant design work and now quietly thinks that experience qualifies them to do it themselves. It doesn't. 

Knowing what good looks like is not the same skill as making it.

Book cover design is a very specific specialism. What reads at full size needs to work at a thumbnail. What feels striking in isolation needs to hold its own in a category. You're good on the old Claude design, but not that good, trust me.

I worked with the brilliant Hayley Warnham, who brought both craft and challenge to the process. One of the most useful conversations we had was about direction: do you skew literal, choosing imagery that directly reflects the book's theme, or go more abstract, something the reader can interpret and bring their imagination to? There's no right answer, but it's so worth exploring properly.

I was writing a book for women, about women, and had one firm position from the start: nothing pink, nothing stereotypical. No visual shorthand that signals the category before someone has read a single word. 

Knowing what you don't want turned out to be one of the most useful briefs I gave. 

Brief your cover artist like you'd brief a great creative team. Then bugger off for a bit.

Clear the decks

Beyond writing the damn thing, a book requires you to think about lots of adjacent stuff… the budget, sales, marketing and distribution, all simultaneously. The kind of operational detail most creatives are relieved to hand off to people better at it, most of the time. 

When it's your own project, your own money, your own name, every decision carries different pressure. 

There were definitely moments in the editing rounds where I questioned whether the whole thing was any good at all. Apparently that's universal among authors, but that’s not reassuring when you're in the middle of it, just stressful.

But here's why you should do it anyway

A book is one of the very few creative projects where you maintain genuine control from start to finish. The idea, the argument, the structure, the cover, the title, the tone… all yours. For good or bad. In an industry where we spend most of our careers executing other people's visions, that is not a small thing. It’s a fucking thrill.

It will crystallise your thinking in ways that nothing else forces you to. It will make you a more rigorous, more patient, more considered creative. And it will live on enduringly, in a way that campaigns, however brilliant, rarely can. Also, your parents will finally know what you do.