This week I’ve been meditating on the many blessings of working with a coauthor.

In recent emails, I’ve railed against the “lone wolf” approach to writing and hailed the benefits of writing in community. Today I’m going to go a step further, and suggest that working with a coauthor might be just the strategy you need to hit your writing goals.

As I type, I feel the immediate wall of objections coming from the hive mind: Coauthoring is a cop out. Real writers publish alone. It doesn’t mean anything if you publish a coauthored story/book/article/etc.

Nonsense.

I had a very successful career as a professor and the majority of what I wrote was coauthored over the years. Nor is coauthoring just an academic thing. In pretty much every corner of the writing world, from business books to mainstream fiction, a growing percentage of work is coauthored. If you look to Hollywood or to mainstream music, the majority of that work too is the product of multiple authors.

At this point, I should acknowledge that the spur for this week’s newsletter is a book I’m reading for our family book group. The Mercy of Gods, by James S. A. Corey. You may have heard of The Expanse, a popular sci-fi television show based on Corey’s previous book series.

But here’s the interesting thing: there is no such person as James Corey. James Corey is actually the writing duo of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. The two have coauthored more than ten novels and many short stories and novellas and I’ve enjoyed them all. Millions of raving fans later, it’s clear that coauthoring was a good move for them.

I’m not telling this story to argue that coauthoring is a better strategy for everyone, or for anyone in particular. Instead, I want to point out some of the benefits coauthoring offers and to suggest a few situations that might merit its consideration.

Benefits of Coauthoring

• 2 > 1: With two, you have better problem solving, more ideas, more experience and knowledge to draw on as you work through your project.

• 1 + 1 = 3: When you get the right coauthor, you get creative dynamism, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, especially when you have complementary skills and can fill in gaps for each other.

• Speed: Two people can work more quickly than one.

• Motivation and enjoyment: Writing alone is great for people who like it, but rough for people who don’t. Working with a partner can be a blast.

• Learning: You will learn a ton from working closely with a coauthor, no matter what kind of writing you’re doing.

• Accountability: For those who find it difficult to keep promises to themselves but easier to keep promises to others, writing with a coauthor is a great way to bake accountability into your work. Meeting with coauthors every week on my various projects is what made me a productive academic author over 25 years.

When Might Coauthoring Make Sense?

There are many situations in which rolling solo is the right move. If you’ve always wanted to write your own book, or you need to write something alone for professional reasons, it’s totally understandable that you want to write it yourself.

That said, there are many situations in which coauthoring can help you hit your goals more quickly and easily. Here are just a few:

You’re struggling with motivation and making little progress. If you’ve been trying the solo writing thing and you’re not getting anywhere, consider whether having a partner might give you some juice.

You’re branching out into a new arena. If you’re a fantasy writer trying to write romance, or an accountant trying to write your first novel, an academic who wants to use a new data analysis technique, or you want to reach a new audience, it is worth thinking about a coauthor. You will learn a ton working with a coauthor who has expertise you lack.

You’re afraid to get started. If you are an aspiring writer but have been afraid to take the plunge, working with a coauthor can help immensely. In the academic world, the majority of PHD students work on a number of their mentor’s papers before they ever write their own. There is no reason you need to write your first novel or screenplay by yourself.

You need to produce more writing. If you need to publish more work to hit your goals than you can comfortably do alone, then coauthoring is definitely worth considering. Academics coauthor in part because they need each other’s expertise to tackle complex projects, but also because they need to publish quickly enough to get tenure and to get promoted. One way to think of this is to ask yourself: Would you rather be rich, or be the King/Queen? You can write everything by yourself and be the sole decider, or you can work with others and get rich by producing a lot more writing.

Wrapping Up

There is no right or wrong answer here. If you love writing by yourself, then keep at it. But if you feel like it would be easier, or more enjoyable, or just more productive to work with a coauthor, then I encourage you to think about it.

Thanks for the writing you do, and thanks for reading mine. I'll see you next Friday.

Happy writing,

Trevor