Earlier this year, I started a meet-up here in Portland for business book authors. There had gotten to be several people in town who were at some stage of working on a book. I’d talked to each of them individually and I thought there would be value in bringing them together.

Being an author can have a certain loneliness to it. We have to navigate a foreign process of developing proposals, wooing agents, and waiting to hear from editors. That’s all before we have even really started to write the book. The list gets even longer as we approach the launch with needing to rally friends, find new advocates and shout to the world, “My book is here!”

I don’t know any author isn’t deeply affected by the book they write. It’s a powerful experience to take a part of you and what you believe and release it into the world for laud and critique. The more personal the connection to the material, the more vulnerable we are. We need support in that process.

We met last night for the third time as a group. The session was ninety minutes of sharing knowledge, frustration and celebration on the crazy path to publishing books. It took another thirty minutes for the meeting to break up as the conversation continued. I’m really happy the group exists and it supports authors creating their books.

If you are starting a book, find friends to help you along the way.