Make this the year you write, launch and become a Best Seller by the Fall! Really?
How many “book coaches” tell you that is possible?
Maybe you have even attended some of those “Write your book in 30 days” webinars? But did any of them tell you “how”?
Sure, it’s great to be motivated and inspired, but sitting down with pen in hand and actually “writing” is quite another thing.
Here are my top 4 tips “how” to get your first draft complete in 40 days:
- Plan what you are going to write and for who.
If you do not know who your readers are, what they want to know and what you intend to teach them in your book, how do you know what to write?You need to create a whole writing plan for your book – chapter by chapter. One way to sort through the chaos is to mind map all your ideas for your book – but keep it centralized around the reader.
What do they want to know from your book?
My book was about my travels around the world for seven years. I could have just published a travel guide of where I went and what I saw – but what my reader really wanted to know was “How did you do it?”
How did you afford to travel for 7 years? How did you find travelling alone as a woman? Who did you meet, what did you see that changed my life and the way you saw the world?
- Know where you are going with your story and how to get there.
Your book needs to flow and have a structure the reader can follow easily. They want to know, what was your journey like and what did you learn? How can the reader take that information and use it in their life?From your mind map, start to create a plan how you are going to guide the reader through your journey – chapter by chapter – then divide those chapters into writing points.
- Make a commitment to write 2-3 pages everyday for 40 days.
Once you know what you are going to write, and why, and for who, you can divide your chapters into daily writing goals. Aim for 1000 words a day. That is about 3 pages.Think of your daily writing like a blog or a journal. For your first draft keep it real and flowing. Don’t keep re-reading and re-writing. Your goal is to get your first draft written in 40 days.
Think about it – 1000 words a day equals 40,000 words in 40 days – that is a book! Now you have the most difficult piece done, pass your work to an expert editor and allow them to put their expert eye on your flow, structure and sentence structure.
Your role is to tell your story – leave the grammar and sentence structure to the experts!
- Go on a writer’s retreat, either organized or create your own!
You can combine a holiday or vacation or a weekend get-away as an opportunity to get away from everyday distractions.Often the cost of a writing retreat is the same price of a vacation and you can claim for it as a business expense! Influence Publishing offer retreats with the publisher. With only 3 or 4 people in a villa with a publisher, you can see great results quickly when you write for 4 or 5 hours a day.
Follow these four tips and you will be off to a great start in getting the first draft of your book ready for the editor in 40 days!
Julie
About the Author, Julie Salisbury
Julie Salisbury is the author of Around the World in Seven Years: One Woman's Life-Changing Journey and Founder of Influence Publishing and InspireABook coaching. She specializes in helping authors to write and publish their books as a strategy to live out their purpose to the full.
Julie is more than a publisher with over 13 year's experience in the industry. She draws on her product marketing career in the UK of over 20 years to focus on strategic business and marketing goals to reach a global market via traditional and online media and publicity, and through strong global distribution and sales. She has published over 200 authors in the last 10 years and her unique "partner" publishing model means the author keeps all rights and royalties.
Visit www.influencepublishing.com or email founder@influencepublishing.com for information.
