How to write a book with Lori Gottlieb
My interview guest this week is Lori Gottlieb, LMFT. Lori is a psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, which has sold over a million copies and is currently being adapted as a television series.
In addition to her clinical practice, she is co-host of the popular “Dear Therapists” podcast produced by Katie Couric and writes The Atlantic’s weekly “Dear Therapist” advice column. Her recent TED Talk was also one of the Top 10 Most Watched of the Year.
I spoke to Lori about how she got her first book published, how she landed on the New York Times bestseller list, and what she’s learned along the way. Enjoy!
How did you get your first book published?
My first book, Stick Figure, was written long before I was a therapist—it was actually published when I was in medical school. I decided that I was going to apply to medical school when I was working in the entertainment industry on the television series “ER.”
I had to take the classes to apply to med school, so I was looking for my old physics notes and I found my diary where I wrote about the time in my life when I was really struggling as a child. At the time, memoir was just starting to become something that younger people valued as a genre. I learned how to write a book proposal, found an agent, and they helped me develop the proposal and I sold the book.
You wrote Marry Him next, your first New York Times bestseller. But then you canceled your third book. What happened?
In 2011, I wrote a piece for The Atlantic called “How to Land Your Kids in Therapy” that went viral. Publishers wanted me to write the book version of the article and I didn’t want to. People thought I was nuts to turn this down. I was offered this huge sum of money. It was a fast, relatively easy book to write since I’d already done months of research for the article. So what was the issue?
The issue was it didn’t feel meaningful to me. It felt like I was selling out to write about a trendy topic. I didn’t want to write the parenting book, but I did want to write about our lives in a deeper way. The publishing world made sense of this by calling it a happiness book, and that wasn’t what I was interested in. I tried to make the book my own, but it still felt hollow, like I was going through the motions. I could write it as a journalist but not as a human. My brain was in it but my soul was not.
My agent said, “You have to write this book. You’re under contract.” It didn’t occur to me that I could return the money (which was much less than I had been offered for the parenting book) and write what I wanted to write. It was very important to me to write something meaningful, something that would truly help people. Eventually, I wrote to my editor and told her the truth. When we tell the truth about who we are, people often respond to us. She was lovely.
What happened next?
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone was the book I always wanted to read as a person who loves books that delve into the human condition, and when I became a therapist, it was also the book I wanted to write. Publishers said, “Nobody wants to read about people sitting in a room talking.” And I said, “Well, if three people read this, then at least I’ve written something that will be meaningful to those three people.”
I wanted therapists to see themselves in this book but I also wanted to show how universal our experiences are whether you’re a therapist or going to therapy or just, as I say in the book, “a card-carrying member of the human race.”
Why has Maybe You Should Talk to Someone been such a hit?
This was such a “word of mouth” book. It was about the deep connection readers feel to the people in the book and those readers telling their friends, family, co-workers, and social media followers that they MUST read this book. It was one person saying to another, “This book changed my life!”
The month before publication, we had no major publicity scheduled. I was on a mission to get on the NPR show Fresh Air with Terry Gross so that I could have a longer conversation that would capture the nuances of this book. And that’s what Terry Gross does best. So that was our big initial publicity hit, but then it really took off because of everyone telling everyone else how much the book had impacted them. And then more publicity came my way because of this word of mouth.
I was told no one would read Maybe You Should Talk to Someone. Now it’s sold over a million copies. People will tell you all kinds of different things about what the market wants and what people want. I’m glad I didn’t know how many people would be reading it, because it gave me so much freedom in the writing. I thought, “If nobody’s going to read this, I don’t have to worry about how vulnerable I am.” And because it was so raw and authentic and I didn’t try to write a sanitized version of myself, people see themselves reflected in the book.
When did you know it was a hit?
I did an event in Portland, OR in the first week and it was an author’s worst nightmare: the books didn’t arrive! I answered everyone's questions for over an hour and then I had no books to sell or sign. The first-week sales numbers are very important for bestseller lists, and there were hundreds of people who wanted to buy my book that never arrived. It was a disaster.
Then the Fresh Air interview aired and it instantly got on the New York Times bestseller list. But that’s not considered a hit. A hit is something that stays on the list and continues to sell at that level, which is what has happened with Maybe You Should Talk To Someone and what’s happening with it even two years later. It was one of these things that crossed age, gender, and socioeconomic status because it’s about the human condition. It’s a book for everybody.
Why do you think someone should write a book?
Writing a book is really hard, and publishing isn’t the glamorous experience many people imagine it is. Writing is very solitary and takes a lot of time and effort. So don’t write a book for your ego. Write because you have something of value to share and a passion to share it.
Why do we read? We read to feel connected. I grew up as an avid reader. You learn so much about yourself through the lens of other people’s stories. We’re all trying to understand ourselves better and understand our world better. If you can help people do one of those two things, that’s a great reason to write a book.
What final advice would you give to a therapist who is interested in writing a book?
I’d suggest that they get very clear about why they want to write a book. What is its value—and to whom? And are they willing to go through what can be a very time-consuming and challenging process, especially if like me, they’re also seeing clients and have personal obligations like family or other aspects to their professional lives?
At the same time, if you’re clear on your purpose and vision, like with anything of value to you in life, it will be worth the sacrifices. I liken it to having my son. I knew in every fiber of my being that I wanted to be a parent so no matter how hard people told me it would be, I was set on making it happen. That’s how you have to feel about writing.
One big misconception, too, is that you’re going to make a lot of money. And while it’s true that sometimes people get very large advances for their books, usually those advances go to people whose books have already been extremely successful. So don’t go in with the idea that you’re going to make a lot of money.
What Maybe You Should Talk To Someone did was that it got me a really good deal for my next book. And now I have to write that!
Thank you Lori for sharing with us. Her latest book is Maybe You Should Talk To Someone. Check out her “Dear Therapists” podcast, “Dear Therapist” column, and TED Talk. She can be found on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
To learn more and sign up for her newsletter, visit her website.