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Servant Authorship

How serving the reader advances your writing

Wooden sign post in the mountains.

We write for many reasons. But if no one reads our words, those reasons don’t matter.

What if we stop focusing so much on our own objectives and think about the readers’ needs? What if we practice servant authorship—writing with the clear intention to serve a specific need?

Servant authorship may sound altruistic and fuzzy. But it’s a powerful strategy.

A servant authorship mindset helps you answer many puzzling questions, like:

  • How should I publish?
  • What should I include, and what should I leave out?
  • How long should this thing be?
  • How do I get the word out and market my book?
  • Is a book even the right format?

Paradoxically, by focusing on the readers’ needs, we better serve our own. We tend to write better books, to keep going through the tough patches, to make better decisions.

Servant authorship is the guiding principle behind my approach to nonfiction coaching and developmental editing.

Three Benefits of Servant Authorship

Mark Leslie Lefebvre and I talk about servant authorship on this episode of Draft2Digital’s Self Publishing Insiders.

Learn more

Read more about the practice in Get the Word Out.


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Disclosure: This site includes affiliate links to recommended books on Amazon. Any proceeds I get from Amazon will probably go to buying more books to recommend and review. I know, I've got a book problem.

© 2023 Anne Janzer · Rainmaker Platform