Take the Challenge and Blog a Book in a Month

Each year, I run an event called Write Nonfiction in November (WNFIN) that challenges nonfiction writers to start and finish a work of nonfiction in 30 days. Now also known as National Nonfiction Writing Month (NaNonFiWriMo), it offers book bloggers a second opportunity (In April, I host National Book Blogging Month.) to blog a short book…or even a whole book.

Write a Short Book

I’m a big fan of writing short books fast. On a blog, you can churn out short books simply by writing series of blog posts. If you haven’t already started blogging a full-length book on your blog, why not come up with an idea for a short book—maybe 10-12 posts, each 300 words long. That’s 3,000-3,600 words before you add an introduction and conclusion and a bio. Viola! A short ebook you could even give away to entice readers to sign up for your mailing list or to simply introduce them to you and your work. This is an easy idea to complete for nonfiction writers, but fiction authors can produce a short story. And memoirists can write a vignette or an essay.

Write a Mid-Length Book

If you want to write something longer, consider producing 12 posts or more, each 500-word in length. That’s 6,000 words. If you write 750-word blog posts, you’ll end up with 9,000 words. Add that intro, conclusion and bio, and you might make it to 10,000 words.

Write a Full-Length Book

If you want to produce the first draft of a full-length book, consider writing 1,000 words every day of November. I don’t normally recommend posts quite this long, but you’ll have the majority of your book done by Nov. 30. I say the majority because you should have a plan to leave some of your book off the blog, as described in my book, How to Blog a Book, and here on the blog. When the challenge ends, you’ll have about 30,000 words completed. If you’ve planned for an extra chapter or two, or another 25-30 percent, to in our published book, you might add another 10 thousand words to your manuscript. Forty thousand words represent a short book, but some publishers, like Berrett-Koehler Publishers, like shorter books.

To learn more about the Write Nonfiction in November Challenge and find out how to participate, click here.