Writing your first book will transform you and everything you knew about books. Writing is not at all complicated and difficult as masses of people tend to believe. Anyone can do it with the right amount of time and implication.
You find it difficult to write an article? If not, a book is the next project you should do. It is very similar from many points of view.
How do you write a 300-page book? In the same way you “eat an elephant” -> piece by piece.
This article will do 2 things for you:
1. Will motivate you start writing your first book.
2. Will show you how to start, complete, and sell your book.
How Do You Start Writing Your First Book?
Writing a book is my dream and I will do it. I already decided the calendar for writing my calendar, I will start soon.
After good research and after reading so many different books (I mostly read motivational books, business books, and biographical books), I found out that is not hard to write a book.
But not only a book, I mean a good book that will be appreciated by the masses of people (be sure that there will be people that will not like your book, it happens in all domains).
This is why I am writing this article, I want to help you with start your own book. Become a writer, earn money, and develop yourself in this direction.
The Plan — 14 Steps
Here is a basic plan that you should follow and adapt it for your own needs.
1. First you need to decide the topic of your book, what will you write about?
Your first book should be on a topic that you are passionate about and if possible, about you know quite a few things. If you have huge passion for a topic that you don’t particularly know well, this is not a problem.
You only have to work more by doing the research (read books and articles, interview key persons, discuss with different people).
2. Book structure
It is mandatory to have:
· Front and back covers — The covers can make your book sell or not. Think how you decide to buy books and items in general — you analyze the covers and the packaging right?
You need more than a talented designer for this step. Do the research first and find out what you need.
· Preface — Tell people who you are and why are you writing the book.
· Introduction — Here you will convince people to read your book. This is your “landing page” for potential customers.
· Table of contents — Decide how you will divide the book. This can be made during you write but you should have an idea of how it will look like, from the very first day.
· Conclusions
3. Book length
This cannot be decided from the very first start but:
· People don’t trust very short books — 100 pages or less
· People consider longer books to be worth the money.
· A 300-page book is usually long enough.
4. Book size and orientation
I recommend you a portrait book and the standard size of 6"x 9". This if for print books.
5. eBook or printed book?
There are important differences between eBooks and printed books, especially for first-time writers:
· eBooks cost nothing to deliver.
· eBooks have a much smaller price so are more attractive for the masses of people.
· eBooks can be read on mobile phones — which is super convenient.
· You can sell your eBook on your Facebook page.
· You can sell your eBook automatically on your website.
I would start with an eBook and see how it works in terms of sales. If it does well and you have the capacity and time, print it and offer potential buyers the print version for a higher price.
I personally love printed books and as me there are lots of people. But it is a bit complicated to print and deliver books all over the world. My first book will also be an eBook.
6. You will use a paper and pen, a typing machine, or your laptop?
I recommend you use a laptop and Microsoft Word. You can easily edit, search, replace, and delete words. And you can keep everything organized which is a huge plus when comparing with a paper and pen, and even with a typing machine.
7. When will you write?
You should create a writing habit, do it every day from Monday to Friday, or even from Monday to Sunday if you are 100% sure that it is realizable.
For example, I cannot work well in weekends. Usually in weekends I spend more time with my family and friends.
8. How much will you write every day?
Most articles recommend you write each day a certain number of words. I don’t. Why?
Because there will be days when you write much easier and in that particular days you don’t have to stop because you only had to write x words. Enjoy the time and write as much as possible.
There will also be difficult days when you struggle to write, but good days will compensate the less fortunate ones.
9. When will you finish writing?
Make a calendar and stick to it. If your book has 300 pages and you can write 1 page per day, you will finish it in 300 days.
This can work very well but I highly suggest you to do it faster. A page per day is very little and it will be hard to create your writing habit. Do 2 pages per day.
10. Research
The research is super important. If you know a subject super well, maybe you will invest less time in research or maybe you don’t need it.
But usually the research phase is a step that you should not miss. Research will make your book more complete and more trustable.
Write down which books and articles you used for particular information.
11. Quote experts
Quoting experts will achieve 2 things for you:
· Will make your book trustable.
· Will make people trust you.
12. What font should you use and what size?
There are several good fonts that you can use for your book. Anyway, you can easily change the font in any moment (if you are using a computer).
Good serif fonts (for the body of the book)
· Hoefler Text
· Sabon Garamond (not ITC Garamond)
· Century (not Century Gothic)
· Minion Pro
· Georgia
Good sans serif fonts (used sparingly for contrast)
· Trade Gothic
· Franklin Gothic
· News Gothic
· Myriad
· Helvetica Neue
If you want to identify new fonts, take a couple of books from your own collection and find out which fonts are being used.
How?
Take a picture of the font, upload it to WhatFontIs and the free powerful software will quickly identify it for you.
13. Where will you sell your book?
If you will write an eBook, sell it on your Facebook page (some of your friends and people that you know will buy it for sure — some to help you and some because are interested about what you have to say on a particular topic) and on your website.
If you don’t have a website, make one for free with WIX for example. You don’t need any experience and it is free to use.
Create a one-page website for your book.
Don’t forget to buy a .com domain with the name of your book.
You should also put it on Amazon. You can choose between two royalty options for each of your eBooks: the 35% royalty option and the 70% royalty option. Here is more info.
14. How will you promote your book?
If you choose to write an eBook, promote it on Facebook.
It’s cheap and effective. You will be amazed how well it works.
Select the most important 30 online publications where an article about your book will be useful, write the blog owners and ask them if they are willing to write a review about your book.
Find influencers that are active within your book topic and offer them the book for free if they are willing to review it on their blogs.
Ask your closest friends to read your book (you give it for free) and write a short review on their Facebook pages.
What’s next
After you start getting money for your work, you will gain huge confidence in yourself and in your writing skills. Right? But think that now it is easier to write your second book.
Each book of yours should be better than the previous one.
Writing books is like sports, you have to be constant, to keep the level high.
Take the plan again in front of you, optimize it and make it better.
Conclusions
Writing a book can be the journey of your life and a super achievement, and I am not talking about the financial part (which can be extremely important if you manage to hit a homerun).
I provoke you to start writing your first book and share with the world what you have to say.
As you saw, with a good planning and consistent work, nothing will block you from writing the book.
