Writing a Book
In Brazil, they say that before a man's life is complete, he should do three things; start a family, plant a tree, and write a book. It wasn't until recently that I realized why Brazilian men live up to this mantra – those three things give a man legacy that lasts beyond his lifespan.
Just like planting a tree, writing a book provides legacy
When we think about writing a book, we often only visualize the tip of the iceberg – that is, the ultimate feeling of accomplishment gained from holding a paperback with your name written across the front. But what lies below the surface is far more profound.
In my experience, the greatest things about writing a book are (in no particular order) the opportunities it provides you with to learn new things and connect with new people, the good feeling you get from sharing your ideas and helping people who need the information that's in your head, and finally, the legacy it provides you with.
Think about it. People could be picking up your book in 200 years time. Your book may be passed down through ten generations of your family. That's an incredible feeling – as is receiving messages from readers telling you about their experiences and how you've helped them, it's all part of an amazing journey.
Writing a book is about how it affects your journey and other people's lives, while you're alive AND when you're not.
You can write a book
Writing a book can seem intimidating, so here's how I like to think about it. First of all, you've probably already written several hundred 'book-length' documents in your lifetime already, just imagine them as 'unpublished books', now it's time for you to write a published one. Here's another way of thinking…
If you were to write 500 words a day (one side of A4) you'd have a 40,000-word book in less than three months time.
As some of you may know, I wasn't an aspiring author. One day when I was writing a blog post, my ideas got out of control and the word count crept from 3,000 words, to 5,000 words, to 7,000 words and so on… it was then that I realized that it was naturally turning itself into more than a blog post. After meeting my good friend Rob, we decided to put our heads together and create a book.
The reason I'm sharing this story with you is because I think it represents that anyone can write a book if they want to. I was an average student in English class, and I didn't even start reading books until I was 16. Four years on, and I have written a book.
I occasionally receive messages from aspiring authors asking for advice on the various stages of writing a book. Here are some of my best tips below, but if you have a more specific question, don't hesitate to drop me an email.
My Recommendations on Writing a Book
Have Someone Challenge Your Ideas
One of the best things about writing with a co-author and having a team of editors who understand your book's subject is that it means your ideas get challenged, and subsequently improved.
If you're not co-writing, I recommend asking a friend who understands your book to challenge any ideas you have and offer their opinions. In my experience, this process forces you to get to the point of what you're trying to say.
Set a Completion Deadline that seems Crazy
When Rob and I began writing Get Noticed in July 2011, we set ourselves a target to launch the book by October 2011. Having just four months to write the book was a lot of pressure, but it forced us to waste no time, go through vigorous editing, and prioritise the very best of our findings. Particularly with non-fiction, there's a tendency to get into a never-ending loop of writing, so a firm deadline helps you to include only what's necessary.
On a side note, there's a great chapter in Predictably Irrational about why these kinds of deadlines work, which really helped me. I'd definitely recommend reading this if you're into understanding human behavior.
Use a full-screen writing environment
Unfortunately, I didn't learn about full-screen writing environments until after I wrote Get Noticed, but since hearing about them (thanks to Ali Luke!), I use them for pretty much every bit of writing work I do.
If you're a PC user, you can download Writeroom, or if you use a Mac, you can download DarkRoom. Both give you a full screen-writing environment, so that you have no distractions when writing.
Find your creative writing spot
I work best when sat in a café or restaurant. I don't know why, but it just seems to fuel my creativity and productivity. While this might not work for everybody, getting out and about when writing can be a great inspirational boost, as well as making your journey more interesting to look back on.
My Recommendations on Editing & Publishing
Great editors are a great investment
Editing can be a bitter pill to swallow, as it may seem as if you're paying for someone to point out the flaws in something that at this stage will have become so precious to you. But the way I see it is that no matter how good a writer you are, you will not only become blind to many of your own mistakes, but the way in which you explain things will become obvious to you, but maybe not to others who don't have the surrounding information that lies in your head.
The fresh perspective of a team of editors highlights these issues and helps add clarity and conciseness, which can make a huge difference for the reader.
If you're looking for recommendations on editors, I 've used Ali Luke, Amy Mueller, and Rachel McCombie, all of whom are incredibly talented editors and lovely people to work with, that I'd thoroughly recommend.
Self-publishing vs. traditional publishing
This is a tricky one and I'm not in a great position to answer, as I have only experienced the self-publishing option.
My advice (from an objective perspective) is that if you enjoy the hard work of creating a product and marketing it, self-publishing is great as it puts you in control of everything. I really enjoy marketing and solving challenges, so the concept of having a publisher do all this for me wasn't very attractive. However, if that seems overwhelming it may be worth considering a publisher.
If you decide to self-publish, I recommend Createspace and Lightening Source as Print-on-Demand distributors in the UK and US, and BookBaby for digital eBook distribution. The only other distributor I have experience with is Lulu, who (at time of writing) I would not recommend.
My Recommendations on Book Marketing
When it comes to marketing your book, the most powerful thing you can do is create a book that people are going to find useful, enjoyable, and worthy of recommending. If your readers aren't going to share your book, you're going to have a tough job raising awareness of it. If you're confident that what you've written passes that test, here are a few things that I found useful.
Stand on the shoulders of giants
Watch what other authors are doing and see what works and what doesn't. When I began thinking about marketing Get Noticed, I spent hours looking at what many authors in similar niches did to raise awareness of their books. If you're not sure where to begin, I'd recommend checking out The Domino Project, as well as Gary Vaynerchuk's book websites, and Tim Ferris' blog post on what he learnt about book marketing from The Four Hour Work Week.
Create a strong web presence
These days, the majority of book sales are made online, which means that as an author it can be very beneficial to have a strong online web presence that encourages readers to share their thoughts on your book, as well as having a great website that informs potential readers about your book.
For more book marketing tips, I did do an interview recently on SelfPublishingExperts.com about what I learnt about marketing from launching Get Noticed, which you may be interested in reading.
As always, if you have any questions about writing a book that I haven't answered in this post, or if you just want to say hi – drop me an email ☺
All the best,
Marcus
Image Credit: Asphericlens
