Write a Book in a Day
If you’re anything like me, when you want something, you want it yesterday. So when you get a book idea, you want it written, published and in your hands ASAP, so you can post about it all over social media, and start helping people with your message.
Although publishing a book has never been faster that it is today’s world, thanks to modern printing methods and all of the technology at our fingertips that make writing so much easier, it’s still a big call to write a book in a day.
With some planning and smart use of your technology, re-purposing content you may have already have, getting a rough manuscript together in a day, could be possible. At the very least, you could have the bones of your book, the basic structure including your working title, and the chapters you wish to include.
You don’t have to get it perfect right now, your book will evolve and be edited, but you do have to get it started.
One of my favourite methods to get the basic structure of your book is to do a massive brain dump in the form of a mind map. Just start with a circle in the middle of the page with your main book idea, like gardening, relationships, heath for example, and then draw a line off that circle with a new circle and another topic, basically breaking down the big topic into much smaller chunks of information. You can then do this for the that second circle and repeat this process, without too much thought, this needs to be more creative rather than logical.
In the past authors have discovered an entire book series, breaking the information down this way,as it allows you to see visually all of the information you know on any given topic, and how that topic can be a stand alone skinny book, or a chapter in a book.
From there you can choose the circles, topics, that you will include in that book, as chapters, and the smaller circles as the points to expand on.
Open up a document, and add those topics in. This creates your table of contents. It doesn’t need to be in any particular order at this stage. I find if an author is inspired on a particular day to write about a certain topic or chapter, then they should run with that, rather than procrastinating about one, they don’t feel inspired to do that particular day.
Getting a word count underway can feel like a great achievement and is motivating in itself.
If you prefer to ‘talk your book’, use the chapter title and the smaller idea chunks, and start speaking into your smart phone or recording device. Using a transcription app can be a great way to send your recording directly from your device to a transcription service and have the words in your inbox usually in 24-48 hours. Speaking about your topic for an hour could give you 7000 words. That’s a massive chunk if you are looking to write a skinny book that can be anywhere from roughly 15,000 words to 30,000 words.
There are no real rules around how many words a book should be. In my opinion it needs to answer the questions that the reader is looking to have answered by reading your book. You don’t need to waffle in order to have more words for the sake of it.
If you had your structure and chapter titles ready to go, then it is possible that you could speak your skinny book in a day. Once you have those audios transcribed, you can then send it on to a good editor, who will take your spoken word, and edit it into the written form for the reader.
Don’t hold back either. Give readers your best ideas and information. You want a good book, sharing what you know on a given topic.
Case studies and stories are a great way to cement concepts that you may be conveying to the reader. People learn a lot through story. Remember a book isn’t about you, it’s about how you can help someone by sharing what you know, through your experiences in your own unique way.
At the end of the day, its about getting the ideas out of your head and onto paper, where it can be of service. Whether this takes a day, a week, a month or a year, it’s about making sure your work does see the light of day, and you become a published author.