How to write a book in 6 easy steps

‘Writing a book is a huge project’

‘It takes years to write a book’

‘You have to give up so much to have time to write a book’

These are ALL things I’ve heard or read before. While writing a book is a project, it really doesn’t have to take over your life. If you have a system to follow it’s actually a relatively simple process.

As with any big project the best way to make progress is to break it down into manageable chunks. One step at a time.

You know you’re not as effective or productive if you try to do everything at once. However tempting it is, don’t try to outline, research, design the cover and do all the other parts at the same time. (You know that blog post you wrote while watching the Real Housewives wasn’t your best work!…)

Instead break it down and tackle one part at a time with all of your focus.

It becomes far less overwhelming and as a result it becomes something you can actually do.

To help you along here are 6 steps to writing a book.

Step one: Decide on your goal

There should be intention behind everything we create, from a Facebook post to a big-ass book. Why are you writing this book? What do you want it to do for you? What do you want it to do for the people reading it?

This is so important and you want to make sure you do not gloss over this part. When you have your goal you can always come back to it when you feel as if you are being pulled off course.

What is the point of you writing the book? There can obviously be more than one answer to this. You might want to write a book to help launch your speaking career, but you also might want to write a book to help people who are going through difficult divorces. You might also want to use a book to give you a passive income stream. This is all good, as long as you know and are focused on your book goals.

Which goal is the most important to you? Which is a nice additional goal? If you’re wondered whether something needs to be in your book or not refer back to the goals. Does it support the goal? Yes, leave it in. No, then delete it.

Be clear on why your reader will be reading it. What’s your goal for them? Is it to motivate them, to inspire, to give step by step information to help them create something? Clarity on this point will help you know what to put in and what to leave out. A motivational book doesn’t need an appendix full of charts or other information, but it might need an image relating to the topic.

Book goals (for you and them) give you clarity and clarity means you create a book that lives up to your (and their) expectations.

Ready for the next step? Now don’t get all in your head, we’re going to outline your book.

Step two: Create an outline

Now you have clear goals you can start bringing your vision to life. This part can be as fancy or a scrappy as you want because it’s YOUR book outline, not mine or Majorie down the roads outline. Whether you want to go digital with a word processing programme, a mind map or grab the sticky notes off your desk, it DOES NOT MATTER. What matters is that you get it done.

Think about where your reader is right now? Picture it? Got it? Ok, now think about what you hope they will be like when they’ve read your book (after the transformation)? Now in between think of all the mini milestones or chunks of knowledge that they need to know to get there. These are your chapters or at least key areas you need to expand on. They give your book structure and ensure your reader has all of the information they need to go through the transformation you hope for them.

If you’re writing a cook book you might arrange the recipes in the traditional way of mains, desserts etc or you could arrange them in the time it takes to prepare and cook them.

Don’t get stuck here, it really isn’t difficult. Just break down your message and get it onto paper.

Step three: Write the book

This is the most straightforward part. You need to write the book. Divide the words you need by the days you can write and just show up and write.

It really is that simple.

A book needs to be a long as it needs to be to get your message across, but to give you an idea my non-fiction book was 75k words. A quick look at Amazon will show you that within the business niche, books are ranging from 100 pages to 300 pages  (Mine is 268 and it’s pretty chunky). Estimates show that there are between 250-300 words to a page. So if you’re aiming for an average sized book, then you will need to write around 60,000 words (non fiction).

If you wrote 2,000 words a day (which is just the size of a juicy blog post), you would be done in 30 days. 30 days! Not years, 30 days. Say you want to take things slower and you wrote 1,000 words, you would be done and dusted in 2 months. It really can be that simple.

Now I want to clarify there’s nothing to stop you writing a 100 page book or whatever length book you think you need to get your message across. You will just have to price it accordingly.

Step four: Edit your book

You wrote your book! How does it feel? Pretty spectacular am I right?! So now you need to edit your masterpiece.

There are different types of editing, and you might want to hire someone who can do this for you. In reality we’re often too close to our books to always do a good job at editing them. We know them so well that our brains fill in the gaps and so we tend to miss things. This means that hiring an editor could be money well spent, but I’ll quickly explain the different types of editing;

• Developmental edit – In this edit they are looking at the plot, the structure and making sure everything makes sense. 
• Line edit- This is the line by line checking – does that point make sense? Are the sentences too long? Have you repeated yourself?
• Proofreading – This is the part most people are familiar with. The spelling, the correct use of words, grammar and all that nitty gritty good stuff. 

Step 5: The behind the scenes stuff

In this phase you will focus on your cover design, figuring out which platform to publish on, creating your promotional plan, getting beta readers and all of the additional things that need to be accomplished and ticked off your list before you can move onto the next step. 

Step 6: Launch your book

Now your book is out in the world you can either curl up in a ball or you can properly launch the product of your hard work. Your choice. You might be low key and just email your list or you might plan a launch event and do promotional giveaways and other exciting stuff.

Just remember your goals and make sure the launch you plan is in line with those goals.

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So there you have it, 6 steps to writing AND publishing your book. I wrote my book from first word to publication in 3 months. But remember as long as you’re taking action and not being paralysed by the lies that it HAS to take years, or you NEED a publisher or a book deal, then it doesn’t matter how long it takes you, just get it written.

I would love to know what your biggest stumbling block is when it comes to writing your book? 

Need help? I have a programme for women like you who want to finally write and publish their book. The exact step by step system I used to write and publish my own book in just 90 days. I can show you how to do it too. Check out the details here.