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Learn 10 Powerful Writing Habits to Fast Track Your Nonfiction Book

by Bennett R. Coles 2 Comments

Learn 10 Powerful Writing Habits to Fast Track Your Nonfiction Book

Not unlike running a business, in order to create good writing habits you’ll need to develop a strong discipline, a clear focus, persistence, and above all, the motivation to see you through your bad days.

Imagine you’ve made a set of contractual commitments with clients and you wake up one day with a cold that won’t go away. You still go to work to fulfill those commitments and then crash later. Right? That’s precisely what successful authors do.

Once you learn the habits these authors use to produce great book after great book, you’ll have no problem adding discipline, focus, persistence and motivation into your writing routine because that’s inherent in your “training” as an entrepreneur.

In this article, I will not only show you how to develop powerful writing habits, but I’ll also go into detail about the specific actions you need to take every single day in order to develop a strong writing muscle.

How Do You Develop Good Writing Habits?

In order to achieve this goal, you’ll need to master each one of the following four pillars: Discipline, Focus, Persistence and Motivation.

Discipline

Creating a book requires commitment to write regularly. Writing success depends on your ability to be consistent in your commitment to your book, day in and day out.

Whenever you sit down to write, you have to develop the discipline to say no to distractions and temptations – distractions that can range anywhere from house chores to taking care of business emails outside of your business day.

In my article How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Nonfiction Authors, I talk about compartmentalizing your time. You should never sit down to write your book during business hours and, by the same token, you should never conduct any business (or other non-business activities) when you sit down to write your book.

Now, since you’re already running a business, having the discipline to achieve a task or goal is second nature to you. All you have to do is to consider your book-writing project with the same serious business commitment you apply to any other contractual commitment you have with your clients. Once you make this decision, you’ll begin to set the foundation for developing great writing habits.

Focus

This is another area where you have the upper hand over most people, simply by being in business for yourself. Having laser-like focus and running a successful business go hand in hand.

The reason most “wannabe” entrepreneurs are unsuccessful is because they keep jumping from opportunity to opportunity, from shiny object to shiny object. Lack of focus is the top killer of new businesses. It’s not having a bad idea, being in the wrong niche or even a lack of talent.

There are plenty of people with great ideas, working in an under served niche and with lots of talent who are unable to get their businesses off the ground, simply because they’re unfocused.

This is also true when you sit down to write your book. There are thousands of websites, books and eBooks with advice, courses, webinars, tips, lists, etc. about book writing.

But, if you decide to choose one route when you begin writing your book only to switch gears when you get stuck to follow another approach (a different shiny object), this lack of sustained focus will kill your book-writing project.

Do spend the time on research. But once you commit to one path, stick with it all the way to the end.

Persistence

Persistence is the hallmark of entrepreneurs. If you were to give up when the going gets tough you wouldn’t be in business right now. So, this is another area where you have the upper hand over most people.

Being new at book writing (assuming this is your first book) you’ll have to deal with the uncertainly inherent in doing something rather complex for the first time.

Even with the best advice, you’ll get to a certain point in the writing process where you’ll be tempted to slow down (e.g. the dreaded “middle” section of your book) or to put the project on the back burner when things perhaps become much harder than you thought – after all, your main business is hard enough, and now you’ll have to handle two hard things at the same time.

It’s critical at times like these to let your persistence muscle kick in to help you grind through those obstacles so that you can stick to your writing schedule.

Make sure that you never join the ranks of people who started writing their book full of excitement and possibilities only to never finish it, simply because they lacked persistence in the face of adversity.

Motivation

The final pillar of writing success is motivation. Since the financial outcome of your book project lies way in the future, it’s sometimes difficult to be consistent in your level of motivation, especially when you have a bad day in your main business, or say you are coming down with a cold and your energy level is down, or countless other reasons…

So how do you keep your level of motivation up when the going gets tough in your main business? Simple. You have a number of binding contractual obligations to perform your services in order to get paid, and that alone (coupled with your professionalism) will ensure that you get the job done.

And it’s really not that different with your book project. In order to achieve the same level of motivation you afford your main business, you need to also enter into a binding agreement with a third party in order to ensure your book’s completion.

What you have to do is to set a hard publication deadline for your writing project. For example, you have to commit to a paid speaking engagement, say, a year from now, when you’ll be introducing your book to the public.

I provide more examples of hard deadlines in my 12 Steps article mentioned above, but in a nutshell, you need to get yourself into a public commitment where your professionalism and reputation alone will ensure that you stay on track.

How Do You Develop A Writing Routine?

Routine is about creating a set of behaviors that can be automatically repeated without having to think much about it.

When it comes to writing a book, as in any creative project, your routine has to be appealing to you so that you not only stick to it, but you look forward to it with anticipation.

Here are three guidelines to help you establish a routine that is both enjoyable and sustainable:

Choose a writing space that you find appealing and that you look forward to going to every day.

What this space or place is depends on your personal style. Some people have a favorite spot in their house, perhaps a writing room, a home office, a small desk or table near a bay window with a nice view. These are great choices if you require a quiet environment in order to think creatively.

Some people, on the other hand, need to be out of the house surrounded by other people in order to get the creative juices flowing. So, they’d prefer to go to a coffee shop, a library, or other public place. Whatever works for you is perfectly fine.

What you need to keep in mind, however, is that whichever space you do choose, make sure that you can work for an extended period of time (up to two hours) without any interruptions.

Carve out a set block of time each day for writing, and never change it.

This could be early in the morning before anyone else in the house wakes up, or it could be in the evening after you come home from work.

The key is to make sure that you never miss your writing block (outside of force majeure, of course). It’s like your morning coffee – you always have it at the same time and, just like coffee, your body craves it and expects it at that time every day.

Make your writing block fixed – say, two hours every day.

What you don’t want to do is to have a flexible writing block that could be one hour one day and five hours the next (even if you feel that you are “in the flow”).

If your writing routine is fluid then it’s not a writing routine. The risk here is that you’ll begin to be tempted by the death knell of good writing habits: Inconsistency (“I’ve written for four hours straight today so I think I’ll skip tomorrow”).

Be firm with your routine and make sure you stop at the end of your writing block. If you still have ideas flowing at that point, then write them down in a notebook for tomorrow. Don’t write until you are creatively spent every time, because you’ll then begin to resent writing.

How Long Should You Write Every Day?

You want to write for a set amount of time every day – and by the way, it’s perfectly okay to take one day off per week but not more than that. In my experience, especially for writers that don’t derive their income from writing, a 2-hour daily block is ideal.

One hour is not enough to get up to cruising speed and three or more hours will start to burn you out creatively. Two hours is the happy medium (or, at most, between 2-3 hours depending on your nature) which takes into account the fact that you also have a day job to take care of.

You’ll find that following this approach you’ll be able to comfortably write between 400 and 500 words per hour. So at this rate, you should be able to produce a 200-page nonfiction book, fully written, edited and published in about 10 months (for more details and a full breakdown of this timeline, read my article How Long Does it Take to Write a Book to Help Grow Your Business).

What Are Good Writing Habits?

Let’s get now into the specifics. Below you’ll find a list of 10 powerful habits that are key to developing a strong writing muscle:

  1. Establish a Clear and Immovable Writing Schedule – We talked about this already but it’s worth stressing again: keep your schedule consistent – don’t shuffle it around from day to day.
  1. Practice Always Makes Better – It’s critical to be consistent and write every day in order to develop your writing muscle. If you are going to take a break from writing, make it only one day per week at the most.
  1. Write As If You Were Being Paid – Don’t write as if it was a hobby of yours. Write as if you were a professional author (which you’ll be anyway the minute you close a new prospect as a direct result of publishing your book!).
  1. Set Clear Boundaries With Those Around You – This is of particular importance when it comes to your family, should you choose your writing space to be at home. It’s very important that they understand that you’re not to be disturbed for any reason (short of an emergency) when you’re sitting down to write. This also applies to your friends. Ask them not to call, text or message you during your writing blocks. Make sure they understand that you’ll be setting the do-not-disturb feature on your phone so you won’t be able get back to them during this time.
  1. Always Write For an Audience of One – Every sentence you write in your book has to be addressed directly to your reader. Successful nonfiction books written by entrepreneurial authors or professionals with a practice always establish a personal relationship with each one of their readers and you want to create this bond from your first paragraph to your last.
  1. Read the Top Books in Your Niche – It’s imperative that you learn why the books from the pros in your business niche work so well. Read those books wearing your writer’s hat to find out how they manage to connect so well with their audience.
  1. Edit Your Writing Regularly – Don’t self-edit as you write, as that can be counterproductive. Instead, at the end of each writing week make sure to set aside some time to self-edit the week’s work. This might take up a quarter to half of one of your weekly writing blocks, but it will dramatically improve the overall quality of your writing.
  1. Focus Only on the Writing Task Right Ahead of You, Not on the Hundred Tasks that Follow It – Look at your book outline or table of contents to choose what you’re going to be writing about next, but once you’ve made that choice forget your table of contents and focus strictly on the one section you’re currently writing. Don’t think about what remains to be done – critical thinking will stall your creative juices.
  1. Find Your Voice and Stick to It – Authenticity is key for nonfiction books. You are, after all, writing about your own life experience in your profession. Always write in a way that reflects who you are. Don’t try to be someone you’re not – readers will see through it.
  1. Create a Reading Group Made out of People from Your Audience – This is particularly important for entrepreneurial writers. Enlist early on a small group of advance readers by drawing from people you trust and who happen to be part of your target audience. You’ll need their feedback as you finish different parts of your book, in order to make sure you are addressing their problems and challenges effectively. You don’t want to finish your manuscript, only to find out that as great as your solutions may be from your point of view, they missed the mark from the point of view of your audience.

Follow the above guidelines and you’ll be able to truly fast track the creation of your nonfiction book.

All the best in your writing project!

If you enjoyed this article and are in the process of writing a nonfiction book, be sure to check out my free nonfiction success guide, drawn from years of experience editing books for bestselling authors (including a New York Times bestseller) and ghostwriting for CEOs and politicians. Simply click here to get instant access.

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related articles I highly recommend:

The Most Effective Writing Exercise for Busy Business People

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of six books published through Harper Collins (New York) and Titan Publishing Group (London). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press, editor for multiple bestselling authors (including a NY Times bestseller), ghostwriter for CEOs and politicians and the founder of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, marketing, printing and distribution.

Filed Under: Writing Skills Tagged With: 1, 3

How Long Does it Take to Write a Book to Help Grow Your Business?

by Bennett R. Coles 4 Comments

How Long Does it Take to Write a Book to Help Grow Your Business

Before I answer the question: how long does it take to write a book? let me begin by saying that you have a great advantage over non-entrepreneurial writers because as a business person, professional or coach you’re not starting from a blank canvas like most other people in the world.

The thing is, your canvas is your business and it’s already brimming with colors and shapes, created from a lifetime of work.

In a lot of ways, you’re a walking and breathing vessel of knowledge, which is waiting to be transcribed into book form.

This allows me to create guidelines to answer the above question regardless of topic, because the process used by entrepreneurial writers to craft a book is quite systematic.

How Long Does It Take to Write a Book?

If this is your first book, the process will of course take longer because you’ll be developing your system as you go. Once you become a published author, this process will speed up quite a bit — that’s the nature of the beast.

In fact, before you can begin writing your book, you need to get your subject knowledge “downloaded” from your brain onto paper.

Using Mind Mapping To Kick-Start Your Book Project

For this process, you’ll be using the technique of Mind Mapping, which I describe in more detail in my article How to Use a Mind Map to Create a Great Book for Your Business.

Mind Mapping makes use of a visual thinking tool called “Mind Map” for capturing all the information stored in your brain that’s relevant to your book and your research.

This information is then visually transcribed onto paper in ways that can be organized and structured so that they can be easily turned into a book.

Using Your Mind Map to Create Your Table of Contents

After creating your map, you’ll generate your table of contents.

Once you have a completed table of contents, the actual writing process can begin in earnest.

In fact, let’s talk about timelines now. For your first book, you should allocate anywhere between two and three weeks for the mind mapping process and turning everything on map into a fully fleshed-out table of contents.

For subsequent books, this timeline will shorten to under two weeks and with practice (3rd book and onward) you’ll be able to average a title per week.

How Many Pages Does It Take to Write a Book?

Your completed table of contents will then become the roadmap for writing your book. Obviously, the size and detail of the table of contents will vary for each book, but on average, nonfiction books have somewhere between 7 and 15 chapters.

The size of your chapters will depend on the number of sub-topics that you need to write about.

So let’s begin our calculations by focusing on word count first.

How Long It Takes to Write 1,000 Words

Since you’re not a full time writer, consider scheduling your time to write for two hours per day, 6 days per week. One hour is too little to achieve cruising speed and three or more hours of writing time may lead to creative fatigue, even if you feel like you want to write your words and thoughts nonstop for an extended period of time. Resist the temptation!

As an entrepreneurial writer, you’ll be accessing information that’s already stored in your brain as opposed to “thinking up” content that’s entirely new, so you’ll be able to comfortably write approximately 400 words to 500 words per hour.

As most of your writing will be based on information recall, the chances of you getting stuck will be negligible.

You’ll notice that as you begin writing guided by your roadmap (your table of contents), a torrent of ideas, thoughts and words will flow onto the page — if anything you’ll write more than you were planning rather than less, which in a way is always a good thing as you’ll then have more material to edit later on.

Now, let’s go back to the numbers: 2 hours of writing time with 500 words each gives you 1,000 words every day.

How Long It Takes to Write a Book with 200 Pages

An average nonfiction book has a word count of 250 words per page. For example, if you’re planning to write a book with 200 pages, then at a word count of 250 words/page you are aiming for a total word count of 50,000.

Let’s do the math now: If you are aiming for a daily word count of something like 1,000 words per day for 6 out of 7 days, you’ll be writing an average of 6,000 words per week. In order to produce a manuscript with a 50,000 word count, you’ll need to write for 50,000 / 6,000 = 8.3 weeks — let’s use a round up rule and bring the total time to 9 weeks.

But, wait! This time is just for the first draft…

Now, you need to account for some time to craft corrections to your first draft, or partial self-edits (say you don’t like the way certain paragraphs read or perhaps your choice of words, so you want to take a couple more passes).

You also need to allow an amount of time for holidays where you have other commitments that may force you to skip your writing time here and there…

…and finally, you need to account for unexpected disruptions.

So, let’s add a safety factor of 50% to the original 9 weeks to cover all of the above, and now you have a completed manuscript in about 14 weeks.

Next, you need to add the mind mapping time (two to three weeks average if you’re a new writer) and we’re now at 17 weeks.

Next, It’s Time to Edit Your Draft Manuscript

The above timeline is for a “raw” or unedited manuscript draft, but, as every professional writer will tell you (those who sell tens of thousands of books as well as those who sell tens of millions), a raw manuscript or a first draft as good as it may read is not considered a completed manuscript.

For a manuscript to be considered book-production ready it must be fully edited, and by that I mean edited by a professional editor (not self-edited or edited by someone in your family who you feel like they can do the job of a qualified editor for less money — this will cause you more trouble than it’s worth!).

The full editing process with all revisions completed will add approximately 6-10 weeks to your timeline, so now you’re looking at a total time of 27 weeks (17 + 10).

So, you should allocate a little bit over 5 months for the time it will take you to write a book with 200 pages (not including the publishing time). For more or fewer pages, just re-do the math above and adjust the running totals accordingly.

How Long It Takes to Write a Book and Get It Published

Let’s stick with the 200-page book example. Once your edited manuscript is available then the publishing process can begin.

The first step is the creation or securing of any type of images or graphic elements that your book requires – I’d recommend hiring a professional graphic designer for this stage – of course, when it comes to creating a book that’ll represent you and your business you can’t afford to cut corners: this is too risky a job to hand over to amateur people given that your audience will be made out of prospects, clients, business associates, strategic partners, event planners and the media at large.

You’ll need a graphic designer to research and produce a great-looking cover for your book, you’ll need someone to lay it out and typeset it, you’ll need to create your book’s front matter and back matter (e.g. copyright page, acknowledgments, references, index, etc.) and finally you’ll have to obtain an ISBN, barcode and library cataloguing information plus other little things.

So you are now looking at anywhere between 1.5 and 2 additional months, for a total of 34-36 weeks.

How About Book Printing?

Finally, if you want to order a print run, which will likely be your case since you’ll need physical copies of your book to use as calling cards, you’ll need to allocate an additional 1-2 months depending how many books you want to order and how busy your printer is at that time of the year (printing is a highly seasonal business).

You grand total will then be 45 weeks, or approximately 10 months.

How About Marketing & Promotion?

If you’re planning an event to launch your book, like a public speaking keynote or a conference panel where you’ll be participating, you now know the amount of time you need to plan ahead of your event deadline.

To have a safety margin, it would be wise to add 2 more months between the time you receive your print run and your actual event, in case you need to have books shipped to a distant location, or should advance copies of your book be required for promotional purposes.

Budget a full year from start to launch deadline and you’ll be in good shape.

A Final Word

Now that you can answer the question How long does it take to create a book of nonfiction? it’s time to get started with one! An entire year might seem like a big chunk of writing time, but this is just a guideline to give you an overall idea of how much time it’ll take for the entire process to unfold — it’s not meant as an indication of how hard it’ll be.

When you begin to work in earnest, writing every day towards your target of 1,000 words per week, you’ll stop measuring how much time is left on the journey as you get lost every day in the joy of writing. At this point, time will truly begin to fly and the weeks and months will simply go by without you even noticing how long does it’ll actually take to write your book.

All you’ll notice is how you’re lovingly crafting what will soon become a powerful legacy for your business, your career and for you personally. Remember the wise words of Lao Tzu: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step,” so take your first step today!

If you enjoyed this article and want to write a book, be sure to check out my free nonfiction success guide, with advice drawn from years of work editing books for bestselling writers (including an NYT bestseller) and ghostwriting for CEOs and politicians.  Simply click here to get instant access.

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in providing publishing advice to entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to write a book as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related articles I highly recommend:

How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Nonfiction Authors

How to Come Up With Great Book Ideas For Entrepreneurs

Learn 10 Powerful Writing Habits to Fast Track Your Nonfiction Book

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning writer of six books published through Harper Collins (New York) and Titan Publishing Group (London). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press, editor for multiple bestselling writers (including a NY Times bestseller), ghostwriter for CEOs and politicians and the founder of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals, entrepreneurial writers and business owners. Our end-to-end support includes writer coaching, advice and tips for book proposals, indie publishing and traditional publishing services, ghostwriting and research, all aspects of editing: developmental editing, content editing, copy editing and proofreading, cover design, book layout, eBook production in all required formats (Kindle, Apple, Google, Nook), all aspects of book marketing and book promotion support and coaching, printing and book distribution.

Filed Under: Book Writing Tagged With: 112

How to Write a Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Nonfiction Authors

by Bennett R. Coles 6 Comments

How to Write a Book

By learning how to write a book in the nonfiction genre you’ll be able to take your business or career to the next level. The nonfiction genre is a true game changer for professionals and entrepreneurs – it can open new doors, build your reputation, expand your reach, and increase your revenue.

So, why should you get started writing a book right now? If you’ve reached a plateau in your business growth, there’s no better way to break through it than by writing and publishing a nonfiction book to establish yourself as an expert in your industry.

Now, a book writing project for nonfiction authors calls for a different approach than what you’ll find in most Google searches for “how to write a book.” That’s why I decided to create a thorough online guide to specifically help entrepreneurs, small business owners, professionals, practitioners, coaches and other problem-solvers get published.

This guide is designed to help you write a compelling nonfiction book by leveraging the lifetime of experience in your field into a book that will truly move the needle.

So, without further ado, here are the 12 steps to writing a book that will take your business or your career to the next level.

STEP 1: Define Your Book’s Main Idea

Define Main Idea

The main goal for your book is to openly share your experience with your readers, to give of yourself and your skills to improve their lives or to improve their businesses.

Unfortunately, many writers make the mistake of thinking that they have to guard their intellectual property like Fort Knox, so they write a book that’s sub-standard and only show a glimpse of what they’re truly capable of (or they simply refuse to write a book in the first place!).

What they don’t realize is that when you generously share your personal skills and wisdom with an audience, you’ll get a lot more back from them. This may come in the way of new clients, new opportunities for paid public speaking, new strategic partnerships that open up new markets, free traditional and social media coverage, and many other benefits.

But first, you need to know how to clearly establish your book’s main idea – one that will create a strong connection between you and your readers.

How Do You Define the Main Idea Before You Write a Book?

When it comes to identifying your main idea, your goal is to put yourself in the shoes of your readers, and think:

What’s the one thing, technique, skill, approach, etc. which I know in-depth that would benefit them the most in their lives?

or

What’s the one thing, technique, skill, approach, etc. which I know in-depth that will help them take their businesses to a new level?

Then, make “that” your main idea. This should encompass your unique set of skills but it should be worded from the point of view of the needs of your audience.

The Best Book Main Ideas Solve Problems or Address Challenges

Main ideas that work in the marketplace are always a marriage between what you bring to the table and the deep needs of your readers. You’re in the problem-solving business, and your main idea has to address your audiences’ challenges.

The more you share with them, the more profound the impact you’ll have on their lives, and, more importantly, the more motivated you’ll be to write a book for.

This is why when you start writing a book you will open new doors: your readers will benefit from the wealth of knowledge that you’re sharing with them, but they’ll still require your expertise to help them bring about change. They’ll appreciate your generosity, trust you and reward you with their business.

Start Writing Down Your Book’s Main Idea

So, to come up with your main idea, simply think about the biggest issue that you can help your readers solve with the skills you’ve developed over the years, and then make your main idea the solution to that problem.

At the beginning of the writing process, use your main idea as your working title, even if it sounds a bit long or clunky. When you’re done writing – and only then – you’ll be turning your main idea into a formal book title.

STEP 2: Set a Hard Deadline to Write a Book and Get it Published

Plan Your Timeline

Here’s a scary statistic for many writers: 97% of aspiring authors start writing but never finish a book or they do but never get around to publishing it, even after several years of effort.

Now, there are multiple reasons why this happens, but a common one is that they never bothered to set a hard deadline.

And when I say hard deadline, I mean a deadline that’s immovable, a deadline that’s cast in stone.

When you’re a professional book writer on contract with a publisher, your publishing agreement is a legally binding document that sets the hard deadlines for you (which are typically accompanied by financial penalties.)

But, when you’re not legally bound to a contract, unless you set an actual immovable deadline you run the risk of working on an open-ended project – and we know what happens when life gets in the way, especially when your day job constantly demands your attention.

In order to succeed, you have to create circumstances for yourself that are equivalent to the kind of contractual deadlines present in publishing agreements.

How to Choose a Hard Deadline to Publish Your Book?

One of the most common hard deadlines for nonfiction authors are speaking engagements. Use your connections to land a speaking gig in the future (say, 12 months from now) where you’ll be introducing your book to an audience of prospects or colleagues.

Your professionalism and reputation alone will force you to stay on track after making such a public commitment, especially since your book will be promoted weeks and sometimes months in advance of the event.

Depending on your business model, seasonality might do the trick for you. If the biggest selling season for your business kicks in the day after Labor Day, then that’s your deadline for having books on hand.

Here are some other deadline ideas to consider:

  • Industry trade shows
  • Conferences you’ll be attending
  • Annual professional gatherings
  • Festivals
  • Scheduling a course or seminar for prospects, clients or colleagues

STEP 3: Dump Your Knowledge into a Mind Map

Dump Your Knowledge onto a Mind Map

Now that you’ve made an immovable public commitment to releasing your book, it’s time to begin the process of information gathering.

Although this might feel overwhelming at the beginning, consider that the content of your still-unwritten book in fact already exists. It exists in your many years of work spent developing and fine-tuning your skills; in your many years of interacting with clients and getting to know their concerns, challenges, pain points, desires and goals; in your many years of developing and delivering products or services to the marketplace.

So, how do you begin?

By dumping your knowledge on the written page in a way that’s structured with clarity – I’ll show you next one way to do so that’s surprisingly effective.

Introducing Mind Mapping

The goal of mind mapping is to dump on paper all those loose “knowledge bits” that are swirling around your head in a way that’s structured and that makes is easy to start and keep writing without difficulty.

More specifically, a book mind map is a visual thinking tool that will help you capture on paper the ideas and concepts in your brain that will aid in the creation of your book’s table of contents.

Why Mind Mapping is So Effective When Writing Books from Scratch

Mind mapping is much more powerful than the common practice of taking notes on blank pages (which is hard work!), because it more closely resembles the way our brains process information.

The following short video will illustrate how mind maps work:

How to Make a Mind Map for Your Book

At the center of your mind map you’ll place the main idea for writing your book from Step 1.

Then you’ll expand it into main topics branching out from it – these are the main takeaways that you want clients to absorb by reading your book. We’re not looking for long sentences here, but short phrases of 1-5 words.

Each branch will then split into sub-branches that expand each topic into sub-topics. Finally, each sub-topic will expand into sub-sub-topics, and so on.

Here’s an example of a mind map for a nonfiction book:

Even though this methodology may sound a bit simplistic, mind mapping is an extremely powerful tool to quickly learn how to write a book.

STEP 4: Create Your Book’s Table of Contents

Armed with your completed mind map, your next task is to use it to structure your book – that is, to write the first draft of your table of contents.

Each main branch off your main idea will become a chapter.

How Many Chapters Are There on Average in a Typical Nonfiction Book?

Nonfiction books typically have between 7 and 15 chapters, each with multiple subchapters.

If you don’t have enough branches for your main topics, you’ll likely be able to find content-heavy sub-branches to complete your chapter list.

The remaining sub-branches will be become your subchapters. The sub-sub-branches will become your sub-subchapters and so on.

Mind Maps Allow You to Avoid Book Writer’s Block

When you’re done transcribing your mind map into a fully fleshed-out table of contents, you’ll be thrilled to discover that the book will write itself!

You just organized all the information swirling in your head into a logical structure that can be easily communicated to others, and as a subject matter expert you’ll find that you’ll never experience writers block on your book writing journey. In fact, you’ll find that you always have words flooding to you as you write.

Don’t worry about making your book highly readable and enjoyable at this early stage. When you complete each part, you’ll likely do several self-editing passes to clean it up, choose better language, correct grammar, and so on. This iterative process will happen quite naturally.

Finding Your Book Writing Voice

To find your writing voice, you need to make every effort to write your book as honestly as you can, even if this makes you feel vulnerable. In the end, all you need to know is this: always be authentic and to never try to be someone else and your writing voice will naturally come about.

STEP 5: Set a Clear Book Writing Schedule

Set a Clear Book Writing Schedule

One of the trickiest aspects of becoming a nonfiction author is finding the time to write a book on a deadline while you’re already busy doing your every day job.

The answer lies in compartmentalizing your book writing time. For example, you should never attempt to write a book during business hours. Your time in the office should be strictly focused on your primary work. The last thing you want is for your business to be impacted because you’re taking steps to writing a book.

How to Develop a Book Writing Routine

What you need to do instead is to carve out a set block of time to write every day, either in the evening or early in the morning outside of business hours.

The goal is to write every time with focus and discipline for a dedicated few hours, say two hours per day, and then stop at the end of the writing block. Just make sure that your book-writing schedule doesn’t impinge on your business, your family life, your wind-down time or your sleep.

Don’t Worry that You’ll Get Stuck Writing – You Won’t!

Inspiration will never be a issue for you because you’re not creating anything new from a blank canvas (like fiction writers often do). You’re simply “transcribing” onto the page fully processed information that has been sitting in your brain for years. This process will be second nature to you.

All you need is a table of contents and specific blocks of time when you can write without interruption.

You know your purpose for writing (your book’s main idea), you know the lay of the land (the mind map of your book), you have the route planned (your book’s table of contents) and you’re already a seasoned traveler (your many years of experience in your field).

Do I Need to Hire a Ghostwriter for My Book?

If carving out book-writing time is simply not an option because:

  • You’re experiencing rapid growth in your business with the attendant daily challenges to deal with
  • Your family is growing and demanding every non-business hour from you
  • Or you just don’t enjoy the process of writing

then hiring a ghostwriter is certainly a good option.

Or perhaps you’re in a situation where hiring a ghostwriter would make financial sense. If through writing your first book you’ve expanded your business significantly and your growing audience is clamoring for a follow-up book, but you’re just too busy managing your existing clientele, then a ghostwriter will allow you to grow your sphere of influence without you having to commit the time to writing a book.

Even in the world of fiction, well-known authors often hire ghostwriters (rather, their publishers do) to increase their book writing and publishing frequency.

How Much Do Ghostwriters Charge?

Ghostwriters typically have two separate charges:

  • A book-writing project charge that covers the time and effort to research your book; this charge includes time to interview you and go over all the source materials you submit
  • A per-word book charge for the actual writing

The total ghostwriting fee will vary based on the scope of your project, so it would be impossible to quote a total range here, however, typical per-word fees can range between $0.50 on the low end and as high as $3 per word, depending on the ghostwriter skill and demand, with most jobs falling in the $1.20-$1.50 range per word.

Now, if you feel good enough writing the first draft of your manuscript on your own but want an experienced writer to turn it into a polished product, a less expensive option that makes a lot of is hiring a professional book writer instead. Professional book writers will do a complete top-to-bottom rewrite of your manuscript, but without the need to conduct research or author interviews. As a result, they’ll only charge the per-word fee.

STEP 6: Set a Daily Word Count for Your Book

Set a Daily Writing Word Count for Your Book

Now that you know how to write a book within a a clear writing schedule, you might be asking yourself the following questions:

What’s the Average Word Count when Writing a Book?

The word count of a nonfiction book will vary according to the subject and the kind of readers it’s addressed to, but as a general guideline:

  • A short nonfiction book (120 pages) will have approximately 30,000 words (250 words average per page, depending on font size and the number of graphic elements in it)
  • A standard size nonfiction book (200-pages) will have approximately 50,000 words
  • A long nonfiction book (300-350 pages) will have between 75,000-90,000 words

What Should My Daily Word Count Be When Writing a Book?

You want to aim for an average word count of 400-500 words per hour – you should be able to do this fairly comfortably.

So, for example, if you’ve scheduled a two-hour writing block per day six days a week, at this rate you’ll be able to produce 6,000 words per week.

To achieve this goal, you’ll need to eliminate external distractions as much as possible (make sure your family knows that you’re not to be disturbed during your writing blocks) as well as internal distractions (I’ll expand on them in Step 7 below).

How Long Does It Take to Write a Book?

If you’re targeting a 200-page 50,000-word book, you’re looking at 9 weeks of straight writing on average. Now, accounting for self-editing rewrites, holidays and unavoidable disruptions, add a safety factor of 50% to bring that to about 14 weeks.

Consider that all of the above just account for the manuscript-writing stage. Add to that two to three weeks to produce your mind map and to transcribe it into a table of contents and you’re now at 17 weeks.

Next, you’ll have to allocate approximately four to six weeks to the editing process and your running total is now 23 weeks.

It’s a good idea to add another two months for post-production, including creating and securing other creative components, such as charts, diagrams, photographs and illustrations, cover design, book layout and pagination plus any remaining front and back matter, ISBN, barcodes and other technical items.

So far, you’re looking at 36 weeks.

Actual book production (printing) can take anywhere from one to two months depending on the time of the year and the size of your print run – typically nonfiction authors opt for on-demand printing – and so the total time is reasonably 45 weeks or approximately 10 months from initial concept to your printed book arriving at your doorstep.

Now, you have a full two months left to coordinate and promote the event you originally scheduled as your hard deadline.

STEP 7: Choose Your Writing Tools Carefully

Choose Your Writing Tools Carefully

When it comes to what book-writing software to use, there are many options out there, from the bare bones with minimal or no learning curve to the feature-rich with steep learning curves required.

The first thing to consider when choosing what software to use is this: the highly creative task of writing a book requires that you create every time an environment without any distractions, and yet one of the most dangerous sources of distractions is the many bells and whistles available in fully featured writing tools.

Avoid Non-Productive Work at All Cost

This is what I call “shadow” or non-productive work. For example, taking hours to figure out how a new, complex piece of book writing software works is shadow work.

Spending hours upon hours to create a beautifully-rendered chart or diagram for your book using PowerPoint where a rough paper drawing done in 15-20 minutes would do, is shadow work – this is work that should be left in the hands of a professional graphic designer later on in the publishing cycle.

The same thing goes for spending long stretches of your valuable time on illustrations (unless you’re a professional illustrator and you’re writing a book about your craft), or on photographs (unless you’re a professional photographer).

Always Focus Your Time Primarily on Book Writing

Your job is to write just the text, to write a book version of what’s inside your head. Everything else that’s required to support or embellish your book should be outsourced to someone who does that for a living.

The point isn’t to make you spend extra money (we’ll talk more about that in Step 12), but to prevent you from sabotaging your creative process – and your hard deadline – by focusing on anything that isn’t in fact book writing, however tempting it may be.

What Book-Writing Software Should I Use?

To make a long story short, my recommendation is to use the most basic book writing tool available with the least bells and whistles, which will allow you to get the book-writing work done without time-consuming distractions.

My two favorite tools are Microsoft Word and Google Docs, although I prefer the latter book writing app because it automatically saves all changes to the cloud as soon as you enter them (I’ve had my share of lost or corrupted Word files that have cost me hours of rework). If you’ve already started writing your book with Word, make sure you hit the save key at the end of every paragraph and that you keep multiple backups of your files on your drive or an external USB stick.

STEP 8: Learn the Best Way to Stay Motivated Throughout the Book Writing Process

One of the most difficult tasks for any writer is finding a way to stay motivated throughout the entire book writing process – but this is hard work for most busy people.

The typical pattern for nonfiction writers is this:

You’re super excited at the beginning, especially once the table of contents is finished and you see the potential of your book.

But then, as the pages begin to mount and you reach the dreaded middle of the book, you rapidly begin to lose steam and allow yourself to get side-tracked by “life.” After all, you’re already busy working on your business or professional career and your book is adding to this complexity.

While it’s true that you’ve already set a hard deadline for your book (Step 2), that’s still a full year away. You’ll need a strategy to stay motivated on a daily basis.

So, how do you stay committed to writing your book, day in and day out?

The Trick to Staying Motivated When Writing Your Book

Here’s how you do it: the minute you set your hard deadline you tell family, friends, business colleagues and associates you’re taking steps to writing a book that you’ll be presenting at event X, Y or Z in a year’s time, and then you enlist some of them to be in your “advance” reader group (more on this on Step 10).

This approach of making your book public within your own circle of influence and sharing your process with family, friends, close acquaintances and business associates will make you commit to your book on a daily basis because:

a) You’ll not want to let them and yourself down

b) You’ll not want to damage your credibility or professional reputation in their eyes

c) They’ll now expect to receive a regular drip of your writing for feedback as part of your reading group

Don’t underestimate the power of social pressure: it works like a charm, especially in professional circles!

STEP 9: “Divide and Conquer” Your Book-Writing Journey

Divide and Conquer Your Book-Writing Process

Now, we come down to the actual writing process.

We’ve already established that the very nature of dumping your brain onto the written page using the mind mapping technique will prevent you from experiencing the dreaded writer’s block. You’ll simply know what you’re going to be writing about every step of the way.

However, some days you’ll feel like you’re more drained than others and tiredness can be a blocking mechanism for your creative flow.

In order to prevent writing from ever becoming drudgery, as you’re sitting down trying to write a book take a moment to first scan your entire table of contents and then choose the sub-topic that “speaks” to you first.

This is the divide-and-conquer strategy. Nonfiction books don’t need to be written linearly, because the flow in these books is already defined by the table of contents.

So, if you started writing a new section only to find it a grind, perhaps you feel tired or your memory recall isn’t as sharp that day, then skip it and go for the path of “least resistance.”

It doesn’t matter if you skip five chapters and then go back three.

All that matters is that you’re shooting for your 400-500 word per hour quota. This is primary. Chapter flow is secondary.

Your book’s table of contents will take care of your book’s continuity. When you finish writing your manuscript, you’ll likely do a couple of passes of the entire book anyway to tidy up transitions between chapters and sections.

And if, as you keep going, you find that a certain section is troublesome and it just never gets easy to write, that might be a good opportunity to step back and look at whether that section really fits into your book’s main idea. Maybe you’re constantly struggling with it because it isn’t really part of your solution. It’s perfectly okay to make adjustments like this mid-stream.

A Change of Writing Environment Might Help You in Your “Down” Days: Finding the Ideal Writing Space

A bonus tip for those days when you feel drained: if you’re having a hard time writing your book in your usual writing spot (say, your home office), then move to a writing space that’s more stimulating to your senses.

For example, you might want to write in a coffee shop that’s surrounded by nature and beauty (botanical gardens? near a city park? a charming hotel in beautiful surroundings?). If the weather permits, you might even want to write from a park bench or a sidewalk café.

Just make sure that when you get to the end of your book writing time you actually stop before you get creatively spent. You want to write a book from a place of joy as much as possible.

If you find that you’re beginning to resent the book writing process, then you’re probably overtired and need to stop writing for that day.

STEP 10: Get Feedback Regularly as You Write Your Book

Get Regular Feedback as You Write Your Book

I briefly brought this up in Step 8. The key to writing a great book lies in seeking constant feedback from people who are members of your target audience.

It’s critical that you engage them from the very beginning by inviting them to be a member of your advance reader group.

As part of this group, they’ll receive from you advanced copies of completed chapters as soon as they become available.

You can draw these readers from your client base, clients of your colleagues and friends of friends. All they need to have in common is being a member of your book’s readers.

The wider the net of advance readers, the better the feedback you’ll receive, because different pieces of your book will resonate better with different people.

The main reason this technique works so well is that by nature we’re always too close to our book writing, and we always need a fresh pair of eyes to gain perspective.

What you don’t want to do is to wait for your manuscript to be completed before soliciting feedback, because often times the advance feedback you receive will spur new ideas that will help you rearrange chapters as you build your book, or perhaps even write a new chapter that wasn’t part of the original table of contents.

Also, this process will allow you to receive early market validation for your content so you don’t spend too much time expanding on subjects that your readers don’t value as much as you think they do.

STEP 11: Leave Your Book’s Introduction, Conclusion and Title for Last

Outline Your Book

You’re now in the home stretch on your path to learning how to write a book! The last pieces of of book writing are your introduction, your conclusion or ending, and your book title and sub-title.

While it’s logical to leave your conclusion to the end, it’s counter intuitive to also leave your introduction and your title to the end as well.

The reason you want to leave these items for last is that your book will be very fluid during your writing process, and what you might have thought was a good introduction early on will likely change dramatically toward the end of the book writing process.

Why leave the book title to the end as well? Because as you write your book, you’ll gain a lot more clarity about your business or your career path than you currently have.

Writing a book that captures what you know in-depth makes you think both through in a brand-new way. When your manuscript is finished, you’ll discover new opportunities where you can take your business or career next.

The act of writing your book will define a new framework that you’ll use to take your business or career to the next level, and it’s this new framework that’ll open new doors for you. So, you want to wait until you have this realization before you create your title.

How Do You Come up With a Title for Your Book?

By now you’ll now begin to see a clear path between your original main idea from Step 1 and your book title and sub-title.

As a matter of fact, your title and sub-title must capture the solution to your audience’s problem that your main idea addresses, informed by the content of your book.

For example, the title of the blockbuster nonfiction book “The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join The New Rich” by Tim Ferris, clearly identifies:

  1. The pain that its readers want to relieve (being in the rat race), and
  2. It suggests a unique solution out of the pain (the 4-hour workweek)
  3. Bonus: it also paints the future of financial freedom its readers crave

STEP 12: Hire a Top-Notch Book Editor and Book Designer

Hire a Top-Notch Book Editor and Book Designer

Congratulations, your manuscript is done!

Now comes the most important task, second only to book writing.

Your book will become your legacy and a natural extension of you, your business, and your professional reputation, so it’s imperative that you get this final part done right.

In order to establish you as an expert in your field or industry, your book has to be a top-notch product, and as such, it must be professionally edited and designed. This is simply not an option for nonfiction authors.

You just cannot afford to cut corners at this stage and have your book edited by a spouse or friend and have the book cover and interior designed by your nephew (unless, of course, they happen to be professional editors and book designers).

Why Do I Need to Hire Professionals to Work on My Book?

Your book will be your most powerful calling card and the way your book looks and reads will become an instant reflection of who you are – this includes your professional reputation.

Your book will also be used to establish strategic relationships and potential partnerships with influencers in your industry, and given the kinds of doors that these people may open for you, you can’t afford to present yourself in anything but the best way.

Your book will also be requested by event managers, whose job is to book you for paid speaking engagements, panels and keynotes. Once again, they’ll judge you by how your book presents. Most of them won’t even want to read your book in its entirety; they’ll just skim through it, so it must always cause a good first impression.

Finally, your book will be requested by journalists who want to write about your subject matter, or who want to interview you as an expert. Once again, production quality is absolutely key here.

You simply can’t afford to write a book that looks or reads less than professional. This is why there’s no one better than a seasoned professional editor as well as an experienced book designer to make a big difference in the final outcome.

Professional editors are wordsmiths that will take your writing to the next level by making it clean, coherent and engaging for readers – that’s all they do, day in and day out. And book designers will go back to the finished manuscript and give your book the eye-candy treatment that’s required to make it stand out from the crowd.

Now It’s Time to Write Your Book!

There you have it. Follow the above 12 steps to writing a book and before you know it, you’ll have in your hands a professionally produced compendium of your experience and skills that will set you apart in your industry as an expert.

(Hint: very few people take the time to learn how to write a book, so right there you’ll have a huge competitive advantage!).

The magic will happen when your book goes into the wild and new doors begin to open that you never thought possible before, like landing lucrative contracts simply because you happen to have a book or books to your name and your competitors don’t.

But enough said, it’s now time to get started…

I wish you the best on your book-writing journey!

If you enjoyed this article and are in the process of writing a nonfiction book, be sure to check out my free nonfiction success guide, drawn from years of experience editing books for bestselling writers (including a New York Times bestselling author) and ghostwriting for CEOs and politicians. Simply click here to get instant access.

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to write and publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related articles I highly recommend:

How to Come Up With Great Book Ideas For Entrepreneurs

How Long Does it Take to Write a Book to Help Grow Your Business?

Learn 10 Powerful Writing Habits to Fast Track Your Nonfiction Book

How to Self-Publish a Book on Amazon [With Tools and Resources]

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of six books published through Harper Collins (New York) and Titan Publishing Group (London). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press, editor for multiple bestselling writers (including a NYT bestselling author), ghostwriter for CEOs and politicians and the founder of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals who want to write a book. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, book cover design, book layout, eBook production, marketing, printing and distribution.

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