Many of us have had this thought numerous times in our lives and wondered, what if. Well I am here to help. There are tons of information on the internet to help you in your journey but how do you know where to start and what you need. I have few things that can help, but first you need to write that book. So let’s begin!
1. Picking a Genre – Picking a genre is the first step to writing a book. This might be easy for some and hard for others. To help you, think of your interests; what type of movies you like, books you read and even TV shows. Then think of a story that you would like, like telling it to yourself. When you figure that out, then you have your starting point.
2. Ending – Once you have figured out your genre and the story you would like to tell, now how will the story end. Cliffhanger, maybe? After you have figured out how you want the story to end, then figure out how it got to that point (the middle).
3. Characters – Create your characters. Who is the main Character, what do they look like, how they act, traits, strengths, where were they born, etc… Write them down so that you can reference them back later, if needed. It can be hard at times trying to figure out how characters’ meet, their history with one another and the conflict they might have. But the good thing is you can also change things at any time.
4. Outlining – This is an outline of your plot. An outline should be a brief overview of what will happen in each chapter of the beginning, middle and end of the story, detailing events and character interaction and conflicts with each other. Allow plenty of room for improvising. Here is an example of a template that I used. Feel free to copy and use it.
5. Now Write Your Book – As you are writing you might come up with several different ideas and not sure which direction you would like to take. My suggestion is write down all ideas because you never know if you will use them later or even in a sequel. Don’t worry about typing errors and punctuation right now, just write you story, we will worry about that stuff later.
6. Relax – Now that you finished you book, relax and take a breather, you’ve earned every bit of it. You will need every bit of this relaxation for the next couple of steps.
7. Proof Reading – This is the hard part. A lot of writer’s get discourage during this step. Start on page one and read your book. Questions to ask yourself are- does it make sense? Is there any missing information with Characters? Is the story interesting? If anything seems out of place this is when that section needs to be rewritten or information needs to be added. Just worry about the story structure during this step and not spelling or punctuation, that will come next.
8. Editing – This is one of the most important steps. I highly suggest getting a professional editor. There are different types of editing so I would contact several editors and choose the one that you are most comfortable with. This is one step you do not want to skip. If you try to cut cost and edit your book and the reader finds a lot of typos and errors in the books they will leave bad reviews and your book may fail.
9. Nobody Judges a Book by the Cover – Wrong! This is another very important step. Consumers buy with their eyes first before even reading what the book is about. I call this window shopping. It has been proven that the majority of people scan through books and only look at a cover for a few seconds before moving on to the next. They click on a cover that catches their eye and only then will read the summary to see what it is about.
10. Marketing – You can do this in many different ways. Facebook ads, websites, emails, newsletters, etc. Do the research. See what has worked for others. This step needs to be done before you actually publish you book so that you can bring in traffic to buy your book.
11. ISBN – If you are just publishing with Amazon you will not need an ISBN but if you plan on publishing through other sites like, Smashwords, Kobo, iBook, and Barnes & Noble. There are certain companies that will distribute this for you like Smashwords and Draft 2 Digital.
12. Publish – Now it is time to Publish your book. Decide whether you will go with Amazon, Smashwords or other avenues. Research all information out there to see which will work best for you.
13. Repeat – Now that you published your first book, it’s time to begin again. Start on that next book and keep going. The more you write the better you will get.