Think Short to Finally Get that Book Blogged

Aspiring authors and bloggers often tell me they don’t know how to get started blogging their books. They have ideas and they think they know what content they want to include, but they hit a stumbling block when it comes to producing a detailed outline or deciding upon a structure. They can’t brainstorm and organize the material for a 150-to–250-page book.

If you’ve been thinking about blogging a book but haven’t started for this reason, try a less-intimidating book project. Consider blogging a short book first, or even a series of short books, rather than a long one.

Short books can range from 4,000 to 20,000 words in length. The shorter ones can be produced as ebooks; the longer ones as digital and print versions. They are fast and much less overwhelming to write.

You can still build a platform as you write and publish short books on your blog, especially if you do this consistently. For example, consider blogging a series of short books. When done, you could even combine them into a full-length book. (Tip: Think of each “little” book as a chapter in your “big” book.)

If this sounds more doable to you, here are five tips to get started:

1. Write an outline or table of contents. This will help you get going.
2. Have a model whose structure you can imitate. Looking at published short books, booklets, ebooks, and booklets will help you visualize what your book might look like and you can even copy the format to a great extent.
3. Don’t edit while you create. You can do this later. Editing slows down your content production considerably. Just get the book written!
4. Don’t be a perfectionist—have a version 1.0 attitude. These short books are cheaper to produce and often easier to revise. Don’t worry so much about small mistakes. Just get the book done!
5. Have a deadline that forces you to complete the project. Deadlines work. Stick to yours.

Keep in mind that you are not blogging your magnum opus. This is a short book you will blog fast. The content should be great, though. But you can save some of your best content for you full-length book—the one that will be over 150 pages in length—if you want. Therefore, when you write a short book fast, you might want to do the following things:

• Decide on a topic or idea that isn’t your “favorite” or the book “you’ve always wanted to write.”
• Write something short and easy you know you can accomplish without much trouble (something less than 100 pages long).
• Consider:
  • a tip book the fastest possible book
  • a booklet—a short version of a longer book you plan to write, a short book on a topic related to a longer book you plan to write, or simply a short book.
  • a “step” book—10–20 steps (or ways) for how to do something.
  • a book of recycled previously-written work (blog posts, short articles, sample chapters, one chapter, ezine articles, recipes, etc.)
  • a short book related to something you want to test market in a short form
  • writing bits and pieces of what you will compile into your magnum opus!

Have fun, get out of overwhelm and get something blogged (written) and published fast! That’s the idea.

Stop Trying to Write Your Book and Do It…FAST!

For the first time, I’m offering my popular webinar and conference session topic How to Write a Short Book FAST! as an online mini-course. If you would like to learn more about the variety of short-book structures you might try, how to write them quickly, how to use them to increase your income, and, in the process, get inspired with numerous ideas for short nonfiction books you could write or blog  (and use to become an authorpreneur or blogpreneur), join me on October 15 from 12–1:30 p.m. Pacific Time for the first of this course’s two parts. Click here to learn more and to register. Space is limited. Reserve your spot!

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