As an entrepreneur, validating an idea isn’t a new concept to you. You’ve gone through the validating process when you’ve launched courses, products, services, and the like. The concept is the same when it comes to a book: Ask the people who are your ideal clients (and thus likely your ideal readers) for feedback.
Read MoreSome of the hesitation I hear regarding a plan for book writing comes with the unknown. As a business owner, you've planned a launch or two (or 10), but you've never spent months writing and then publishing a book. Whom do you need to hire? What steps come first? Here’s what you need to know to plan your book writing and publishing for best results.
To allow plenty of time for schedule mishaps, breaks, and, you know, life and business, author-entrepreneurs should allow six to nine months for this process. (More wiggle room in the schedule never hurt anyone, did it?) Sure, you could do it quicker than that, but putting together a high-quality book takes time.
Ready to dig in?
As it is with any large project entrepreneurs take on (course creation, for example), organization is critical to book writing and publishing. And make no mistake: This post advocates using Trello to organize your book publishing plan, but what’s most important is that you have some method to organize your project, whether it’s Google Drive, Asana, Evernote, or whatever works for you. No need to reinvent the wheel here: Use what you (and your team) are already comfortable with in your business.
The ability to share a Trello board with your book team (your VA, your editor, your designer, your publicist, a co-author — anyone you want to have access to the details about your book project) is one of greatest reason to use it.
Read MoreRepurposing comes up a lot when it comes to content. I'm not suggesting that you can cut and paste a bunch of blog posts together, slap on a book cover, and consider yourself an author-entrepreneur (PLEASE don't do that). You probably have a lot more content than you think that is appropriate for a book, with some tweaking. One of the first exercises we do when I work with book coaching clients is to look at their content archive compared to their book brain dump.
Read MoreHow much time do you really need to write a book? If you enjoy writing and write regularly in your business already, you can likely write a 50,000-word book in two or three months (assuming your schedule is fairly open for those months). If you don’t particularly enjoy writing, it might take longer to reach the point where you’re consistently producing larger word counts. The key to book writing is to have a plan before you start writing.
Read MoreEntrepreneurs often ask me, “When is the perfect time to write a book to serve your business?” This isn’t a cop-out answer, but truly, there isn’t one. Lots of factors play into when the “right” time is for people, but here are three guidelines that I discuss with author-entrepreneurs to gauge whether it’s the right time for them. (Note that these will look different for every entrepreneur.)
Read MoreI know from writing a book myself, not to mention it being a hot topic during book coaching calls with clients: It’s frustrating that there is no “perfect” or even absolutely correct word count target for your book. (How can I possibly create a writing schedule or figure out how long it will take to write my book if I don’t know how many words I need?) “Enough words to cover your topic” sounds like the kind of smart-aleck answer that would’ve gotten me in trouble in high school. But it’s true.
Read MoreAs an entrepreneur, validating an idea isn’t a new concept to you. Surely you’ve gone through a validating process when you’ve launched other things (courses, products, services). The concept is the same when it comes to a book: Ask the people who are your ideal clients (and thus likely your ideal readers) for feedback.
With a book, though, you might complete the validation process a few times: with your book idea/topic, with your cover, and then with your actual text. The text is our focus today, and in book publishing, we call this process “gathering beta feedback.”
Read MoreA lot of author-entrepreneurs revise as they write. They’re hesitant to embrace the idea of writing first, and revising second. Just as research and pre-writing are separate tasks from writing, so is revision. It’s not your fault if you think this way. After all, we’re not professional writers! Lots of people lump everything under the umbrella of “the writing process,” but that process actually contains five distinct stages.
Read MoreHow much time do you really need to write a book? If you enjoy writing and write regularly now, you can likely write a 50,000-word book in two or three months (assuming your schedule is fairly open for those months). If you don’t particularly enjoy writing (AKA you see it as a task vs. something you look forward to) and/or don’t write regularly, it might take longer to reach the point where you’re consistently producing larger word counts. The key to book writing is to have a plan BEFORE you start writing.
Read MoreIn an ideal world, anyone writing a book would have uninterrupted time, a beautiful space to write, and flowing ideas to make the most of your time. But you and I don’t live in an ideal world, do we? You might not have a dedicated writing space, but I can help with the other two.
Read MoreRepurposing is a buzzword in the online marketing and online business world these days. Create something once and use it over and over again. Makes sense, right? Bloggers often ask me if there’s any way to repurpose content from a blog into a book — and if so, how to do so. The short answer is YES! Chances are, you won’t have everything you need in blog post form, but I bet you’ll be surprised by how much you DO have once you take inventory. Here are some ideas to get the wheels turning.
Read MoreWriting is like a muscle. Use it or lose it! That means you need to write regularly to decrease the chances of facing such a block. Establishing a regular writing routine and practicing your craft regularly (preferably daily) is so important to good writing.
Read MoreWriting doesn’t come naturally to every entrepreneur, and for those people, the thought of penning an entire book can be overwhelming — even if they know they want to write a book to grow their platform and have committed to doing so. If you stay organized from the jump, however, it’s not terribly complicated. Here’s the most important piece of advice I can give you: Build a daily writing habit. The sooner you do this, the better. (By sooner, I mean preferably before you start writing your book.) Writing is a muscle that gets stronger with use (an atrophies with no use!). A daily writing habit will train your brain about when it’s time to write so that you don’t waste your writing time each day. Day by day, the words will get written and the book will be built.
Read MoreExactly when an editor fits into your publishing plan depends on a few factors, first and foremost what type of editor you want to hire. Remember there are three kinds of book editors: developmental editors, copy editors, and proofreaders. (Need a recap of what each of these editors do? Check out this post.) This blog doesn’t address proofreading, as that is generally a quicker process and it’s not as critical to book that service quite as far ahead as the other two.
Read MoreAs those who’ve written books will tell you, it’s a major undertaking, and one that requires organization. It’s one thing to look at a book manuscript in Microsoft Word, but it’s entirely different when you start to actually put those files together, in order, as an actual book. You might start looking at various books in your office or home and realize that there doesn’t seem to be a cookie-cutter approach to books. They don’t all contain the same elements. So how are you supposed to know what the heck to do? What’s required versus what’s optional? I’ve got the basics covered for you with this post about the book sections/pages I get the most questions about.
Read MoreHave you ever made chili but didn’t add enough chili powder? It might have tasted okay, but it wasn’t, you know, chili. Creating a book is similar in that the ingredients are all necessary, and they must work together in order to achieve the final dish (book) that you want. A successful book is equal parts strong manuscript, professional editing and design, and appropriate marketing plan.
Read MoreI am asked on a daily basis about traditional publishing versus self-publishing. (Did you check out the Path to Publication series to see which one is right for you?) Here are the five most common myths people seem to have — and why they really ARE just myths.
Read MoreISBN is book publishing-speak for International Standard Book Number. It’s a 13-digit number that’s used to identify and track (for sales inventory purposes) every book that is published for retail sale. Many self-publishing authors don’t pay attention to it, but that can be a mistake. This post explains what you need to know about ISBNs and how they affect you as an author.
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