Creating a book goes beyond asserting your personality or promoting your business. Book creation, essentially, has to do with story sharing and knowledge transfer.
The main reason you’re considering writing a book right now is probably because you have a story to tell: a story with a lot of valuable lessons you’d like your readers to draw from as they read through every page of your work.
However, book writing, and publishing, is not a particularly easy task, as many are inclined to believe. A head full of ideas and a blank page, needed to start, are not all there is to writing a book; it takes a whole lot of steps and processes to put those ideas you’ve built over time into writing a book people would love to devour.
So, how then can I start?
Quite simple!
First, you have to learn the ropes—all you can do to make your book creation as smooth as possible—from those who have accomplished the task of writing and publishing by themselves.
…which is why I have created this article, you’re currently reading, to help you through all the steps you can follow in creating a fascinating book from idea to finished publication.
So, what is the process you can follow to create a book?
Dedicate Yourself to Writing
If you’re writing your first book, you’ll come to realize writing, generally, can be time-consuming and mentally draining, whether fictional or non-fictional. It takes a great deal of time, months or years even to complete your written work, and also a little extra amount of time to brush up the needed to make it completely readable.
Without this time, the mental strength, and creative energy you need to create a fascinating book from idea to finished publication, it would be almost impossible for you to attain.
So, ask yourself, do I have the time and mental resources needed to write a book?
If yes, then you can go ahead to start writing, every day?
And, here comes your commitment to getting the job done!
Take Time to Research
Research is a systematic way of developing your writing knowledge. It involves carrying- out in-depth research into the topic, genre, etc., you’re writing on/in before even making the decision to start writing.
Those books you read didn’t just come about. They took months, even years, of rigorous research to compile in an organized manner perfect for publication and human consumption.
Read wide
Robert Greene, an author of six international bestsellers, says he reads a lot of books for a duration of one to two years before he starts thinking of typing.
You really don’t have to do as much as Robert, but you can develop a system that works best for you.
Don’t forget to record and organize the useful ideas and thoughts you come across in your research, too.
Who are your readers
Research doesn’t end with just “reading wide” alone and acquiring the relevant knowledge, needed for creating a book, in the process…
No!
As a writer who wants to tell a story and pass on important information to their readers, you have to painstakingly research your audience.
What is your target audience?
What do they enjoy?
And, how can you make what you have for them enjoyable?
Write Away!
Frankly speaking, publishing is not the hardest part of all the processes you’re likely to go through, as many people seem to believe. Even though, in itself, it can pose a bit of a difficultly. The hardest part, however, with book creation, is in organizing your ideas, right from the scratch, into words, sentences, and paragraphs your readers can relate to.
How do you want your book to be written?
After the research, comes the main task: which is, writing.
To be honest, there’s no shortcut to writing. If you would like to write a book people can read, you’d have to create an outline.
This outline serves as a blueprint to follow to divert your ideas, and those you would probably have gathered in the course of researching, into writing.
How would you like to start?
How would you like to end?
How many chapters would you like to have in your book?
How would you like to write, in terms of your voice, personality, and mood?
Minimize distractions
You might have to give up a lot of things (not entirely, though. You can just minimize usage or take a lengthy break from them) to avoid any sort of distraction you’re likely to face. Then, make it a job to write every day. Adopt the mindset of a professional writer who sees writing as a job to enjoy and be inspired to do at every chance they get!
You do have to edit as you go
According to Ernest Hemingway, “The first draft of anything is shit.”
You don’t need to edit your writing as you go.
Phyllis Whitney once said, “Good stories are not written. They are rewritten.”
If you want to be able to complete your work, you just have to continue writing.
Don’t mind the errors or the mistakes you make in the process; you can fix those later on. What you have to do, now, is to concentrate on getting those ideas and thoughts on paper, and ultimately to your readers.
Set a daily mark
If it works fine with you, you can also set a daily mark you’d always be eager to reach at the end of each writing day, right until your book is complete and ready for publication.
How many words or pages would you like to write per day, depending on the total word count you aim at?
100? 1000? 2000? Or more?
Make your decision now before writing!
Take your time
Dan Brown, author of the Robert Langdon series, in an interview with Bookbrowse, said;
“If I’m not at my desk by 4:00 A.M., I feel like I’m missing my most productive hours. In addition to starting early, I keep an antique hour glass on my desk and, every hour, break briefly to do pushups, sit-ups, and some quick stretches. I find this helps keep the blood (and ideas) flowing. I’m also a big fan of gravity boots. Hanging upside down seems to help me solve plot challenges by shifting my entire perspective.”
Writing takes time. So, do not rush it!
Take a walk, play video games, visit friends, and watch a movie if you have to, to stimulate the flow of ideas.
Create a personal writing space
As a writer, you’d need your own writing time and, most importantly, space.
Distractions are almost inevitable, especially if you have people around you.
If you can afford it, create for yourself a personal writing space that you find highly comfortable and free from unnecessary disturbances and distractions.
Fight writer’s block
“I don’t know what to type!”
“I have the words in my head, but don’t know how to put them on paper!”
If you’re this person, then it means you’re experiencing what’s called the “writer’s block.”
Writer’s block is a very serious issue a lot of writers usually complain about. It can hinder your thought process and even halt the creation of your book altogether.
That’s if you allow it to overwhelm you.
Writer’s block is completely normal and really easy to overcome if you’re willing to do the right thing.
The best way to overcome writer’s block is by taking a break, when you need to, and minimizing every distraction, just as mentioned earlier.
Edit Your First Draft
No matter how competent you are, your first draft cannot be perfect. It’d still require editing before it can be sent to your publisher for printing.
Let it rest!
No doubt, editing is one of the most tiring activities of all time.
You have to cut out some sentences, revise some, rewrite some to sharpen your write up and create more details, such that when your readers pick the book up to read, it’d be extremely easy for them to understand every part of it, as you’d want them to.
So after writing the first draft, take a rest, for as long as you want, before picking it up again to edit.
Proofread & edit
This is where the real work lies.
Proofread your work and edit it of errors.
However, if you feel you’re not up to it and would seriously like to have your story told the way you want it, you can also make use of good essay services. Not only do they offer proofreading and editing assistance to writers who need them, but they can also help you in creating a book summary for your work.
If you’re worried about the quality the company you choose will deliver at the end of the day, you can read honest topessaywriting.org reviews online, as they will assist you in making the best choice.
Accept your work
You have to also understand that writing cannot be “perfect” or that there’s no perfect writing anywhere.
If this is your first time, you have to know the creative process takes years to master. And, even at that, you’re still going to continue to feel dissatisfied with whatever you’ve written until you put it out and receive feedback for people.
Publishing
Book publishing, as closely-connected as it is to writing, is a whole new process on its own. On one hand, writing has to do with your knowledge and creative ability to use language in a way your readers will understand, while publishing, on the other hand, takes a lot more practical approach to setting and organizing your write-up in a printable and more readable manner, especially for your readers.
If you’re self-publishing, below are some of the steps you can take to make your written work publication-worthy:
Formatting
To make your book publishable, you have to format it in a way that makes it easy for you to print, and for your readers to read.
You want to examine the character type, the font (size), the line spacing, arrangement, and many more, to make the text more appealing to your target audience.
Title
Your title should come first, but, at times, before the final publication, you’d need to refine it to make it more appealing than to people that stumble on your book.
Book cover
“Don’t judge a book by its cover!”
But, in the real world, people actually judge a real book by its cover design.
Apart from the title, your book cover is the second most important feature that will attract people to your book and force them to buy it.
Copyright
Writers continue to worry about creative theft which, today, has become so rampant. If you’d like to protect your original engaging content and intellectual property, you need to register your book for copyright.
Many writers don’t know this and will continue to fall victim to creative piracy if they don’t take advantage of this. So, before sending your book to your publisher (in case you’re not self-publishing) or your printer, you have to have it copyrighted to prevent people from replicating your work without permission and selling it.
This article was written by Laura Fields, an expert writer, researcher, and owner of BestEssayServicesRadar. Essay Radar is an online resource you can use in confirming the best essay writing services for your essays, assignments, and projects. Laura is not only a writer, but she’s also an interesting personality, with a strong desire to always express her thoughts.
