Virtually everyone has valuable knowledge they could share in a book and, if you’re a business owner, you’ll have experience to back that up. But writing a book isn’t just about sitting down and writing 40-50,000 words.
Research
A smart author does their homework. It’s important to look at what’s already out there – authors who write the kind of content you’re thinking about, publishers that publish that kind of book, what’s hot and what’s not!
Planning
With your research done it’s time to start planning your book. For a non-fiction book that means planning out the structure of the book, chapter by chapter. Also creating a structure for each chapter will make both it easier to write – and easier for the reader to read, as well as improving reader retention.
The writing process
If you have a book plan writing will be relatively straightforward as you are literally fleshing out the skeleton.
There are a number of ways to get the book out of your head and into written format. If you don’t like writing or feel your writing isn’t good enough (although a good editor will help with that), you could choose to work with a professional writer on the development.
This might be providing notes and/or other material for them to develop or you may simply talk to them and let them ‘ghost-write’ or record what you want to say and have it transcribed.
Editing and proofreading
Editing is an essential for a book to be successful. Even professional writers work with editors to hone and polish their work. If you have a contract with a publishing house editing is often part of the package. However, if you’re self-publishing or using an independent publisher this is usually an additional cost.
Editing isn’t cheap as it takes time and considerable expertise, but books that aren’t edited are often difficult to read and, consequently, never get finished. You don’t get reviews if someone hasn’t finished your book – or you may get negative feedback, which isn’t what you want.
Editing is all about how the content hangs around the book’s concept. What needs developing, what needs pruning, what needs moving or repositioning?
Proofreading is the final step before publication and is purely to check spelling, typos, wayward punctuation and grammar.
Publishing
This process depends on which approach you choose.
Getting a contract with a publishing house may involve a number of applications, a few rejections slips and certainly quite a bit of time.
Self-publishing means you literally do everything yourself (or pay experts to do the bits you can’t do) – editing, cover design, book layout, ISBN number application, etc. Then you would use a book publishing service like Ingram Sparks or Lulu to publish your book.
You may decide to go the ebook only route, but you’ll still need all of the above services and will need to learn how to convert your book into the various formats for ebook sales platforms.
The middle road is to work with an independent publisher. These vary enormously as to what they offer. Very few will include editing, but that will be reflected in the royalties you are paid.
Launch
This isn’t just the actual publication date, it’s about planning ahead and deciding how best to promote your book so you can get launch day sales. That can include social media and email campaigns, beta reader groups, launch partners, webinars, live broadcasts and more. It needs planning and quite a bit of work!
Marketing
If you don’t tell people about your book your sales will fall off the edge after the launch. You’ll need a promotion campaign like any product. Will you use Amazon, Facebook or Google ads, email marketing, social media offers or more?
If you want to dig into the whole book writing process there’s a free checklist you can sign up for and download here.
