on Career Authors:

The question for author Ben Mezrich came from an audience member high up in the amphitheater seating.

“What would be your advice for a beginning author?”

Ben (the author of The Accidental Billionaires which became the movie The Social Network and the new The Anti-Social Network which will soon be the movie Dumb Money) thought about that, and then said: “You can write whatever you want, and that’s fine. But “writing what you want” may not be the point. You need to think about whether anyone else would want to read it. You need to think about–will this SELL?”

And that brings up a dilemma every author has faced: Whether to take someone else’s suggestions if they might put your book on the road to a sale.

Let’s agree that it’s always possible that someone other than you has a good idea. In fact, it’s likely, right?

On the other hand, your book is your book, and you want it to be the way you want it to be.

On the other hand, what if you were missing an opportunity to make your book better? Should you just do what the person says?

But what if you disagree with that? What if it’s not how you want the book to be at all?

Yes, but what if it’s a better book the way they think of it? Especially if this is not a relative or dear pal giving us suggestions, this is a stone smart editor or a brilliant agent who knows their stuff. And they probably know more than we do, right?

But on the other hand…