Write a Book
Whilst doing some basic maintenance on the website this evening I had CNN on and was listening to the Baseball League Commissioner being interviewed at Columbia University. At the end of the interview they had a session where people fired questions at him, one of which was "what do you want to do before you are too old? " and his answer was something trite like "write a book". The point is we hear it all the time and we all know people who have at least had a go, it doesn’t cost anything and if you can write the 26 letters of the alphabet you are halfway there already. Excuses like "writers block", and "I'm too busy", or "I don't have the talent for that kind of thing" are usually what kill the idea. This is a subject close to my heart at present as I am trying to turn the ideas from www.ideas2earn.com into a book. Fundamentally this ought to be easy as most of the material is there; I have an agent who is interested and a large enough audience to encourage a publisher to take a chance. The agent suggested splitting the book into smaller chunks of say 75-100 ideas and so in theory "book 1" is all but written!
My position is a little unique and not the way that beginners are advised to start out writing a book. In principle we should put together an outline including: -
A full outline of the entire book
A brief market analysis of 3-5 competing titles already on the market
(what's doing well out there, how your book compares)
An author bio (what's your background that makes
you a good author for this book?).
Some sample chapters
This pack is no where near as difficult to put together as a full book, if you think about it this way: -
The outline is simply a summary of what you want to write about, bullet point the chapter headings and sub bullet the key points. If you can't get this far then you don't have an idea for a book yet
You can do your market analysis on Amazon by searching for books of a similar genre and looking at the "what other people who bought this book bought" bit underneath all the blurb
An author bio is simply a summary of what you have done in your life that makes you able to have written this book. If it is a novel then simply being born and breathing are still not enough, write something that shows you have lived, at least a little. If you aren't sure then look inside the jacket of some of the books on your book shelf
Sample chapters will be the most testing part, unless like me you already have some material written that just needs to be re-shaped a little. If you have never written anything then simply commit to sitting down for an hour a day for 10 days and writing something. It doesn't matter whether you think it is good or bad when you write it .... don't throw it away. After the 10 days go back and read it all. Some of it you will hate and some you will be surprised at, focus on this to build your sample chapters out from.
Having written your outline you need to find a publisher. You can do this yourself and books like "The Dummies Guide to writing a Novel" will tell you how, but I have taken the lazier route and engaged an agent. An agent knows the publishers; has relationships with the publishers, knows who likes what, knows how to pitch, and present your outline, and generally gives you a better shot of getting appraised if not published. You can find an agent very easily using tools such as www.firstwriter.com. I just kept writing to 2 or 3 a day until someone suggested some changes, which I agreed to, and then they said they liked it and asked me to progress the outline.
Robert T. Kiyosaki (of rich dad poor dad fame) says all the time that he is not a "best writer" he is just a "best selling writer" and stresses the difference. This is important if you are just starting out, or even just interested in writing something. Practice is everything and as with most things, in writing practise means discipline. It really doesn't matter what you write as long as you put aside the time to write regularly. I get up at 6a.m. every day now and write my idea for the day simply because that way I know it gets done, when I started it was hard, but now it is just habit. You may think what I write is trash, and that my grammar sucks but I am writing and the chances are, you are not.
You can do what I did and commit to writing something publicly in a blog or on a website until you have enough material, or you could make a bet with a loved one or colleague, or simply tell yourself that you must have X words written by a specific date but make sure that you set a goal for yourself and stick to it. Once you have some material it will be much harder to back out of this.
There is not really stock here as such, but you do need an idea for your outline, a genre and a subject that interests you enough for you to see it through. Give some thought for a minute to all the different types of books that are available in your library, at your book store, or just on your own book shelves. I bet you can come up with more than me: -
The point is that you do not have to sit down and write the world's best novel, you actually don't need a creative bone in your body. Write about what you know, what you enjoy, or what you want to research for your own knowledge. Write in simple, plain language and help to pass on your knowledge to others.
If you take this approach I guarantee that writers block and all the other excuses become much easier to overcome. Sometimes I get agitated and can't get everything down in the way that I want to but I just get up and walk around and start somewhere else, then come back to the bit that threw me. Because I write about my ideas in standard sections this is easy for me to do. I have tried writing a novel 2 or 3 times and given up very early because my brain doesn't understand how to structure everything in a logical way, in fact novels are often better with some randomness built in.
Whether you do your outline first, or create your book, publishers want to see the outline so you'll have to do one
Don't worry about being a good writer, just find a way to start writing in a disciplined manner
Make sure you write about something you will enjoy doing
Get used to being rejected, thank anyone who gives you criticism and question it if it isn't clear. If you listen you will improve, if you are rude or quarrel with your critics they won't try to help again so quickly the next time.
Start today