If you’ve ever thought, “I want to write a book,” you aren’t alone. Each year, over a million new books are published. Millions more are written but never produced. And if you need help writing a book, you’ve come to the right place. But where do you begin when you want to start writing a book?
Book Writing: Getting Started
Let’s start with a basic truth: It will take a lot of effort to conclude writing your first book. Book writing—at least, the intent to write a good and publishable book—is never a simple, breezy walk in the park. Fun, yes. Fulfilling, and exciting, yes. But not easy.
You must think about the flow of your story, how to bring your characters to life, and how to create a reading experience that people can disappear into. With nonfiction, you might need to construct a way to deliver your signature system or concepts so they are accessible and clear. You’ll also have to motivate your readers to give your methods—and your book—a try, keeping them turning the pages.
There are as many different ways to write a book as there are types of books, so this article will focus on the act of writing the book rather than the art of writing. Let’s start with a few tips on how to get started, actually putting your story or ideas onto the page literally or virtually.
Organize your Book Files
Some experts say the average person wastes over 150 hours a year looking for mislaid information—think of how much you could write in that time! For easier and faster file retrieval try the following:
- First, create a master folder with your book’s title. This can be on your computer or on your desk, depending on if you’re a more digital or analog person.
- Inside, place a separate file for each chapter. Name each chapter in a way that will make sense to you later, even if the chapter title itself changes.
- Within those chapter folders, add your different character or story notes, research, or lists of resources. Title and date each of these items—especially if you use a digital system—so when you’re flipping through or searching later you can more easily access what you need. Don’t skip the dates. I recommend these over numbering drafts, because during revisions what constitutes a completed draft can be a bit fluid. You will know what chapter version is the latest with file dates.
- In this modern age, I personally feel it’s crazy not to be writing on a computer where you can store your work easily and safely. To that point, it’s a good idea to store your files on a backup drive or cloud backup system like Mozy or Carbonite. That way you’ll never suffer the pain of losing all your hard work and knowing you can never completely recreate it.
Book Writing Software
Advancements in modern technology has made book writing software your foremost ally for almost every problem you might encounter writing a book. This includes the conventional problems with formatting, spelling, and grammar, but also higher level writing issues such as clichés, redundancy, and flow. There are even some software products that can help you brainstorm plot points and flesh out authentic characters.
Don’t misunderstand, though—these programs are meant to assist you in writing a book. They will not actually write a book for you. The good stuff will always live in your head and heart. But give one or two of these a try and see how much easier it is when you don’t have a blank white screen staring back at you:
Explore more options for book writing software in this Top 10 ranking by PCWorld and another by Tech Radar covering the best free software for book writing.
Internet Search Engines
These are undoubtedly the most cost-efficient assistants you can have, due to the numerous websites that can give you assistance and link you up with other writers via writer networks. Find an online or offline critique group; ask for beta readers to review your rough draft and give feedback; seek out friends who can commiserate on the struggle to make art!
You can find just about anything on the Internet, and so much great content is free. For example, videos, blogs, and online courses abound that will give you step-by-step procedures on how to approach your unique type of book, formulas to create an interesting plot, strategies for creating great exercises or anecdotes, and more. Many websites contain online tutorials or writing books that you may freely access and explore.
10 Tips for Writing a Book
So now you’re ready to get started. Here are a few writing tips that will help ensure you create a book that people want to read and are willing plunk down their hard-earned cash to buy.
- Accept that anyone can write a book, but not everyone will write a good book. It’s true. Anyone who is at all literate can sit down at a keyboard or pick up a pen and write a book. But if you want it to be something worth publishing, it takes more. It takes a lot of hard work and a dedication to your craft. It takes time, and a lot of it. Sometimes it takes money. The difference between you and the millions of writers who get rejected or who self-publish and never break the 100-200 copy ceiling isn’t that you have a better idea: It’s going to be that you’re willing to invest in yourself and your book writing dreams.
- List your five favorite book ideas, and choose just one to start. As you write you may find yourself distracted by new, shinier ideas, especially when the going gets tough. Resist the urge to switch projects. Without discipline, you will never finish a draft. Instead, keep ideas in a notebook or otherwise store them for later, when you’re resting from a completed draft, or when you’re finished with one project and ready for the next.
- Write your book’s “elevator pitch” before you write a single chapter. The brief sales handle, often called an “elevator pitch,” is one or two sentences that describes your book and makes people want to know more. Having at least a decent draft of a sales handle before you write the book keeps you on track—it’s like a touchstone that will help you stay focused on what your book is about and who’s going to read it.
- Create a book chapter outline. Many writers confuse the creativity of writing a book with a lack of structure and discipline. These writers never get very far. Especially if you are a new writer, it’s in your best interest to devote some time to outlining your book and thinking through plot elements and character arcs before you invest a lot of time writing the thing. You can more easily map out how the causes in one chapter result in the effects of another; you can chart a logical progression of ideas that will help lead your reader to transformation or knowledge. Outlines will save you a lot of time and aggravation in revisions later.
- Choose a goal and stick to it, no matter what. You can start small with just a couple hundred words a day; you can aim bigger and tackle a few pages per day. The only way to accomplish anything is by setting specific, measurable goals and then holding yourself accountable for taking steps toward those goals on a regular basis. It may seem as non-creative as possible, but deadlines are actually a writer’s best friend.
- Set a schedule and stick to it, no matter what. The biggest reason people give for not finishing their draft is that they don’t have time to write. But in fact, we all have the exact same amount of time. It’s all about how you choose to spend it. Having a routine about when and where you write has also proven for many successful authors to help them shift their creativity into high gear, because their brains know it’s “time to write.”
- Write a letter to your ideal reader. If you’re writing nonfiction, tell them why you wrote the book and what it can do for them. Show them that you know what problems they’re experiencing and that your book provides solutions. If you’re writing fiction or memoir, tell them why you think they will enjoy your story and why they should care about your main characters. This exercise will help you get inside your readers’ perspective and can further help guide you: If you tell your ideal reader you’re going to do something or they’re going to experience something, you know you better get that onto the page.
- Get some objectivity. It’s impossible for our brains to be completely objective about our own creations. That means at some point, at minimum once you’ve completed your first draft, you’ll need to step away from your work for a while. Could be a week, or a month, but give yourself enough time so you can come back to your work with fresher eyes and a new perspective. Build this time into your writing schedule. Use the downtime on one draft to begin a new one, or do something else entirely like further your education with workshops or a good how-to book.
- Get help from a book editor or ghostwriter. Nearly every would-be author has sought the help of a professional book editor along his or her journey to publication. A good book editor will not only help you improve your current draft, she will also teach you some of the finer skills of writing a book. The relationship that grows between book editor and author during the book editing process is a magical collaboration that many famous authors have credited with making them who they are today. And should you regard yourself as a more unsure or un-gifted writer—especially if you are an expert seeking to write a nonfiction book as part of your business plans—ghostwriters are skilled at drawing your ideas out of your head and putting them on the page for you in ways that are engaging and useful to your target reader…and probably doing a better job at it than you could without similar years of practice.
- Never, ever quit. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of inspirational and motivational quotes emphasizing that those who succeed are those who refuse to give up. You will fail. You will get rejected. You will throw your manuscript in the trash and then pick it out and clean it off the next day. But you mustn’t ever stop writing or learning how to write a book. It’s the only way you will get better.