How to Finally Write That Book!

You’ve made the decision to write a book. Hurray!

That is literally the hardest part of this journey is to finally wake up one day and say to yourself “I am going to write a book this year.”

But let’s start talking about the actual process.  What does it take to go from idea to creation?  How do you refine your idea to make it into something others want to read.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” ― Lao Tzu

Here are some tips to help you with The Process.

1. Write what inspires you

Often you’ll hear people say “write what you know”.  Like you, I know a lot about a lot of different things but not all of them deserve to be the focus of a book.  Rather, you should write what you love. Write about things, ideas, concepts, and people that you’re curious about or that inspire you.

Just like starting a business that you’re passionate about, write on a topic that you feel inspired by.  You will be putting in a lot of hours into this work so make sure you will still be interested when you’ve read through your draft for the twentieth time.

2. Work with the numbers

There are 250 words per page of a book. If you’re shooting to write a book that is 200 pages then the total amount of words you will need to produce is 50,000.  Wowza! That sounds like a lot.

However, let’s say you dedicate 5 days a week to writing 2,000 words a day (that’s roughly the length of two beefy blog articles, right?).  That would equal 10,000 words in one week and 50,000 words within 5 weeks!

Of course we’re talking first draft but that isn’t nearly as daunting right?  That is a pretty tight time frame that I just proposed so you could easily lengthen that to 1,000 words a day for 5 days which would come out to be 5,000 words a week. At this pace you could reach 50,000 in 10 weeks or just over 2 months.  That’s not bad!

3. Get committed

But all the numbers, plans and grand ideas won’t matter one lick unless you actually keep at it. One of the hardest parts to writing is simply sitting your tuchus in a chair and writing.  You will find every conceivable reason to be anywhere else. You need to show yourself that you are serious about this endeavor and carve out time to write. Book it like an appointment, turn off all devices and write.  Even if you have nothing to say, just write and write and write some more. See what happens. You sometimes have to wrestle with yourself to stay in that seat but it will be worth it when you see your name on the cover of a book.

4. Write for your audience

Write for your audience and not your 9th grade English teach, or worse, for your critics. I will never forget when my editor sent me back the introduction and asked, “Who did you write this for? Definitely not your audience.”  Ouch. I quickly realized that I was writing for publishers, for professors and for critics and not for the women that I was hoping to help. Once I wrote to my real audience the words just flowed and the writing was much less stuffy, formal and boring!

5. Create a framework

If you’re writing non-fiction, bake in a framework into your book (examples of books that do this: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Seven Spiritual Laws of Success). Although it’s crucial to weave in stories, metaphors, examples and personal experiences into your piece, it helps the reader to see there is structure to what they are reading and learning.  Additionally, you can extract this framework and teach a course on your message, use it as modules in a workshop or simply use it to better structure thought pieces, guest articles and blog posts.

6. Hire an editor

You definitely need another pair of eyes (or two) to review everything you write so hire a solid person to help with editing. Don’t cheap out on this process because it will make or break how well-received the book will be in the hands of other people. Check out hiremymom.com or Elance (now Upwork).

You can always get super creative and find ways to do a trade with a solid editor.

One of the best things about having an editor is that they can keep you accountable. I set a schedule with deadlines and told my editor when I would have each chapter. This worked perfectly for me because that way I had someone who was expecting me to finish what I had committed to. No slacking off when you’re paying someone and she’s expecting chapters regularly!

So, if your dream is to write a book someday, there is no better time than today to start. You just have to stay committed, write what you love, be thoughtful in your approach and find an editor to hold you to your commitments.

For the love of books. Get to it!

No doubt you have something to say and the world is waiting to read it!

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