Ten Tips To Get Started Writing Your Book

Judy Cullins ©2002

You are far more likely to successfully write and publish your book if you follow these tips before you write a single chapter.

1. Write your book's working title. It helps you focus and answer the readers' questions about the topic. Most non- fiction has subtitles as well. It's better to be clear than clever, but clever and clear are fine. Passion At Any Age: Twelve Ways to Unleash It, Self-Promotion for the Creative Person, Quadruple your book's Online Sales in Less Than One Month.

2. Write your book's thesis. A thesis is a sentence or so stating the audience's main problem and how your book will solve it. Knowing the thesis before you write the book keeps you on track. All chapters should support it. The thesis could be "Each of you has passion and you can unleash it through these twelve steps."

3. Test your book's significance. While most writers fear their book won't sell, it takes only two significances to write a book, and three for a great seller. Ask yourself, Is it relevant? Then write it! Does it present useful information? Does it have the potential to positively affect people's lives? Is it lively, humorous? Does it help answer important questions? Does it create a deeper understanding of human nature?

4. Pinpoint your target audience, all-important to your book's success. No, not everyone will want to read your book. How old are your prospective readers? Male? Female? Are they interested in personal growth, science fiction, mystery, how-to books? What challenges do they face? Are they business people? What magazines and Web sites do they like? Are they Internet savvy? What causes do they support?

Once you know them, write a letter and tell them why you are writing your book and what benefits it will bring them. Dear over-50 reader, "I'm writing Passion At Any Age to help you live life full throttle—with more abundance, joy, and meaning."

5. Write your reasons for writing this book. Your reader, the media, the television and radio talk show hosts all want to know why you wrote this book. Be prepared up front, so you will shine when opportunities come your way. For instance, "I wrote this book because so many of my clients and students asked me to. They didn't want theory; they wanted practical how to's to help them live life well. This audience, primarily over 50, wants and needs practical and spiritual tools to let their passion out.

6. Write down your publishing goals for this book. Do you want to give it away to members of your family or a particular group? Do you want to sell it? How many copies do you want to sell your first year? How much money do you want to make each month? What publishing format will you choose—self- publishing, traditional publishing, Print Quality Needed or Print on Demand, or eBook?

7. Organize the parts of your book. In one file, keep your introduction; in another, your index or resource section. Include your bibliography and keep a file of all people you will quote in your book who may give you a testimonial later. Keep each chapter in its own file labeled correctly so you can find it within minutes. Twenty percent of your papers are important. Be sure to file them vertically and in order to save you time and frustration as your book projects grows. Keep computer files also.

8. Write down your chapter's format. Readers expect a clear map to guide them. They like consistency. In non-fiction, each chapter should be approximately the same length and have the same sections. To make your chapters sparkle, use stories, anecdotes, headings, photos, maps, graphs, exercises, tips. Readers like easy-to-read side bars in boxes.

9. Write the back cover material before you write your book. This "outline" helps give your book direction and helps you focus only on what's important to your thesis or theme. Your back cover has around 8 seconds to impress your prospective buyer. Include what sells: reader and famous people's testimonials, a benefit-driven headline to hook the reader to open the book and read the table of contents, and bulleted benefits. Your bio and picture can go on the inside of the back cover to leave more room for your sales message on the back cover.

10. Mock up a front cover in your book's early stages. Keep it by your workstation to inspire you. To sell your books, your cover and title have around four seconds to hook your buyer. Covers are more important than what is inside. Browse the bookstore and copy a few ideas to get you started. Do you have color preferences? Is you title powerful and short enough to be read across the room?

Writing a book is so much easier when you approach it in small bites. As soon as you get these ten parts written you will be able to start asking more specific questions that become your chapter headings.

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Judy Cullins: author, publisher, book coach
Author of Ten Non-techie Ways to Market Your Book Online and Write your eBook or Other Short Book-Fast!
http://www.bookcoaching.com
Email: Judy@bookcoaching.com

As books go online, publishers run for cover

By Carter Dougherty International Herald TribuneSUNDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2006-->Published: October 8, 2006

FRANKFURT When file-sharing services like Napster hit the scene, the music and film industries found that their awakening to the digital world was a rude one. The publishing industry, it seems, has taken heed of this experience.

Unlike record companies, which faced the double whammy of the iPod and illegal file sharing, the online market has given book publishers some breathing room.

There is no hit device for reading books electronically, nor is there a place to go online to browse or download an unbeatable selection of books. There is, however, a keen awareness among publishing executives that this day will come - and that they need to shape, rather than be shaped by, developments.

"We are facing all the same risks as the music industry," said Olaf Ernst, worldwide director of e-books for Springer, a German scientific publisher. "But if our reaction is like theirs was, we will have problems."

At the Frankfurt Book Fair, which ended Sunday, Springer introduced its pathbreaking system for managing digital rights for the scientific and professional literature that it puts out. Put simply, Springer's clients - mostly university libraries - will be able to access for a single fee more than 10,000 titles with minimal restrictions on sharing.

But the Springer model, as Ernst freely admitted, offers little guidance for how to manage the intellectual property issues surrounding best- selling novels and self-help books, which his company does not publish.

That sector of the publishing industry is caught in what Dan Penny, market analysis manager for Electronic Publishing Services, a London consultancy, calls "its own chicken-and-the-egg problem."

"We're going to see an iTunes of books at some point here, and that will drive the market forward," Penny said. "But we need to see an established reader device first."

A blockbuster device could conceivably bring major names like Google into the online sales picture, Penny said, as platforms for distributing e-books, which are electronic versions of books. Google is already encouraging publishers to participate in its Google Book Search service, arguing that its searches bring publishers new customers by including information on where to buy or borrow books.

And Sony is offering a new solution. This month, it will begin selling the Sony Reader, an electronic device with a retail price of around $350, as well as a service for downloading books. The reader is larger than a typical hand-held device and uses so-called electronic ink technology to create a surface that is not backlit like a computer screen and hence easier on the eyes. A menu of books will be available through partnerships with HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and other major publishers.

But the notion of electronic copies of books whizzing around the Internet still gives pause to some publishers, especially smaller ones, who want to see how copyrights can be protected.

"Once we can be assured that there will be security for our authors, then we can move forward," said Arnoud de Kemp, spokesman for the digital publishing working group of the German Association of Publishers and Booksellers.

De Kemp said that in time, new techniques for restricting access to copyrighted books - like dicing a single work into many PDF files and using digital watermarks - could solve this problem.

At the same time, some German publishers have formed an alliance to create an online service in German - "Volltextsuche Online," or "full-text search online." Like Google Book Search, users can search keywords across a range of works that participating companies decide to make available.

Users may see a few pages or a few paragraphs of a book, or possibly just a citation that popped up after a keyword search. They would have to buy the paper book to read the whole work. But the service is, crucially, a new conduit through which publishers can begin to reach out to consumers directly, and build a brand devoted to bringing content online, said Theodor Brüggemann, director of the project. Eventually, that content could also be delivered in electronic form, he said.

The fact that major music companies did not initially offer attractive download services helped feed the black market of illegal copying, but by developing their system upfront, publishers are poised to make their case, if and when a popular reading device emerges.

"This platform allows us to make an argument," Brüggemann said.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/08/business/ebooks09.php