In my last post I told you how I created a short book out of 10 blog posts and published it…FAST! I promised I’d give you some tips on how to get going on a similar project of your own. Here’s how you start:
What do you know? Are you an expert on getting your kids to bed, making your dog behave, teaching your horse to bow, keeping deer out of your garden, writing poetry, creating business plans, working with difficult people, or coaching couples in distress? Whatever you are good at — you don’t need credentials — you can write about. Today, come up with 10 tips about a topic you know well. Then expand upon them until you have a special report or a short book you can publish.
Or come up with 10 ways to do something. Or 10 steps for getting to a particular outcome. Describe them and tell the reader how to use them.
Get a MS Word design template from www.48hrbooks.com. Use it to design the interior of your book. Or grab one from www.CreateSpace.com or simply set up your MS Word doc to the size you want your book to be when it’s finished. Dan Poynter has some tips on this in his book, Writing Nonfiction, 5th Edition: Turning Thoughts into Books. Lay out your manuscript in MS Word in a small format (like 4 x 6), and you’ll see that you’ve written a short book. It’s easy to do this simply with the page setup function. Change the page size to whatever you like. Choose 5.5″ x 8.5″ for a typical booklet. Pick different fonts for headings and different sizes for subheads. Add a dedication and copyright page, etc. Look at other books to see what belongs in a book and where.
Just get started. See that you can write a short book, and that you can do it today…or in a week (or two).
Design as you write. You can even find cover templates at some of these sites. I do suggest you use a professional designer to check your work or to design your cover (and interior).
When you’re done, it all gets converted to a PDF and sent to the printer. Easy.
Get started. Do it now! I dare you. You’ll feel so free to communicate your message and to share your expertise! I promise.
And if you want some support and live in N. CA, please join me next Saturday for my workshop, How to Write a book FAST! You can find out about it here.
[…] <<Previous Post Next Post>> […]