Writing a Book? Find the Right People.
Why We Should Choose Our Cohorts Carefully
Richard Riccardi just sent me a copy of his first book; it was excellent, both the writing and quality of the physical product. This is so rare for a first-time author that it’s worth noting.
When writing your first book, there’s so much you don’t know; it’s not only easy to make beginner mistakes—it’s almost impossible to avoid them.
Richard beat the curve, though, and not by accident. He had the right attitude and the right team, and those will take you far in this game.
Originally a series of emails sent to a handful of friends, The Wandering Worshipper became a series of autobiographical essays based on his personal exploration of various houses of worship over the course of a year. The book is a sort of travelogue meets mid-life reflection on faith, community, and belonging. It’s safe to say the author had no idea what he was getting into; we never do when we’re doing something for the first time.
The most important choice he made, however, was finding the right team to help him get published, the first of which was a small group of peers. For a year, Richard and three other writers got together each week on Zoom to discuss their projects. On these video calls, they would remind one another of deadlines and commitments and encourage one another, sharing what they were learning in the process. They would also challenge each other when needed.
And after fifty-plus weeks of this, Richard finally finished his first draft.
Then he hired Grace Bialecki, an editor I cannot recommend enough, to help with the developmental and copy editing. While he was making his revisions on the manuscript, he also attended an in-person retreat to get further guidance on marketing and promotion.
After all that, he worked with the team at Printopya, a US-based printer and independent publisher, to help him design, print, and distribute the book. And finally, after all that, he published the book—just this past week.
If you were to ask him, I’m sure he’d say this was a grueling process. The writing, revising, and publishing alone took two years, not to mention the time spent on those initial essays. Just when Richard thought he was done, more was required of him. But he always stepped up and always leaned in, searching for the best people to help him figure out what he couldn’t pull off on his own.
As it should go for all of us.
Writing a book, or really creating anything—whether you realize it or not—is most often a collaborative process. It rarely, if ever, involves a single person. There’s almost always behind-the-scenes mentors and peers, people pushing and prodding you along, offering feedback and assistance, sometimes in very visible ways and sometimes not.
In a way, it is a lot like recording an album.
I have always loved this mini-documentary where John Mayer invites a couple musicians he has never worked with before to help him write a new song—in a single day. The tape starts rolling, John shows up to the studio, and the other two mosey in sometime mid to late morning. They get acquainted with each other, then start playing their instruments, getting familiar with the place.
John pulls out something like fifty different guitar pedals he just has lying around his apartment; and as the other guys jam, he finds a few he likes and settles on a combination that makes his guitar sound like an organ. Soon, he finds three chords and puts together a similar progression. The bassist and drummer start playing along, and John begins singing scratch vocals over the top. Soon, you see a song taking shape.
It goes like this for a day. They take breaks, play around, try things. John keeps stepping away to write the lyrics, then comes back excited to share. At one point, toward the end of the doc, he’s sitting in front of some shrubbery with a sheepish grin on his face, saying he’s discovered the theme of the song. “It’s, like, sad hope,” he says and can’t hide his smile.
By the end of the day, they have made something new—something special, something the world has never seen.
So goes the creative process.
Now, to be fair, a song is not an album, and music is not literature; but the parallels remain. When creating, you rarely work alone. Each project requires a set of collaborators, helpers and guides to assist you in your work. For the musician, this often means sound engineers, producers, other musicians, and a whole host of support staff.
For writers, it might mean editors, designers, publishers, salespeople, and more. Yes, a person can get away with recording an album in their living room, mixing it on their computer, and uploading it to Spotify; and self-publishing allows just about anyone with access to a word processor the opportunity to put ideas out into the world pretty easily. But the skill of collaboration remains essential to finding true genius. At least, I think so.
Truly remarkable work is something that takes time and tremendous amounts of effort, not to mention other people to help you recognize when you’re moving in the right direction. Before the invention of the printing press, authors would read their manuscripts in public to a small group of friends or colleagues. If someone liked what they heard, they would have a scribe copy it, even make small “improvements” here and there.
This is essentially the origins of publishing—and editing. And even then, there was collaboration. No great thing gets created in a vacuum. Engaging with the right collaborators helps. You need other perspectives to ensure you’ve done your due diligence and smoothed out as many kinks as possible.
You aren’t just shooting from the hip. You’ve had help thinking through what you want to say; and call me crazy, but I think a reader can tell. People notice intention. They can see and feel when an artist has taken their time. In a world where almost anything can be microwaved, it’s increasingly important to slow things down where you can, to apply a little more effort and awareness. To think carefully and chew slowly. It is, at least, a differentiator from what most are doing.
If you want to make a book that’s worth the effort of reading, something that demands to be savored, I recommend doing what Richard did. Spend the time. Hire the right people. Trust the process.
In the end, people will feel how much you cared—or didn’t.
P.S. Still looking for the right collaborators? I’ve got a few spots left for an upcoming writing circle, which starts in January, as well as an in-person retreat in Franklin, TN this coming February. If interested in either, send me an email (or hit reply to this message if you’re getting it in your inbox). I’ll share more directly with you.
P.P.S. In other news, I’m speaking at a few events coming up, which would be good places to connect with other writers and creatives:
November 18, 2025—I’m interviewing
about his upcoming book The Idea Machine: How Books Built Our World and Shape our Future. This is a free, local book signing and Q&A event in Franklin, TN. Register here.
March 19 to 21, 2026—I’m keynoting the Creative Legacy Gathering, a conference for Christian artists and entrepreneurs in Kansas City, MO. I’ll be talking about my book Real Artists Don’t Starve.
March 13 to 14, 2026—I’ll be speaking at The Practice, a writing conference in Atlanta, GA hosted by Joe Bunting.
If not at one of these, I hope you see somewhere out in the world. Until then, happy collaborating. I hope you find the right people to help you bring your work into the world. It makes all the difference.
Jeff, thank you for the kind words. More importantly, I thank you for the guidance, instruction, counsel, and for creating the ecosystem that raised me from an email writer to an author. Your words are spot on - you need to find your team and work with them.
I attended a workshop in addition to meeting with Jeff and my cohort. If you are interested at all - do it; you will reap the reward.
I can vouch for the truth of this message. I met Jeff at a writer's retreat in Oxford, England, and the meeting radically changed the direction of my hybrid self-help/memoir. Today, a year later, I realize it *had* to happen in person. I notice that Jeff and Joe Bunting are presenting another retreat in March. Highly recommended.