Book Writing Process Part Two: Things I Forgot Last Time
Yesterday I wrote about my current book writing formula. As with any list, the minute you think you’ve finished, you think of some more ideas that you should have included. This article is filled with a couple of things that I forgot to include in the last article. I could just edit that article, but as it stands it’s a complete framework that you can use. Think of these things as incidental or optional extras and thoughts.
Book Writing Process Extras: Write In A Series
Nothing is really finite. When we’re talking about fiction, you can always have sequels. You can always have prequels. You can always have different stories occurring in the same Universe. Essentially any story, whether it’s a 3,000 word short or an epic-trilogy that describes a mythical world, is only ever a snapshot which could be extended in all kinds of directions.
When we’re talking about non-fiction, there are unlimited ways you can go with those too. You can write for beginners/intermediates/advanced. You can write about X for one market and X for a different market. You can write about slightly different applications of X. you could hire translators or you could use the same information in a video course or other medium.
One of the hardest things about selling books is making sure that each project compensates you for the time you’ve spent on it. When you find a market that pays and an audience that wants to buy your work, you should write in a series because you’re already giving people what they want and you know they’ll pay for it.
There’s no sense in disappearing on people who want your words just to try and find more people who might not want your words.
Plan Your Marketing/Site Around Your Book – Not Vice Versa.
A big mistake that a lot of people make is that thinking their marketing is more important than their product. I’ve done that before. I’ve started a blog or something without having any products to sell – and more importantly – no products planned for the future. This leads to being unproductively busy. You spend an hour a day writing a blog post and checking your blog stats and you never actually write anything that will make you money.
Or you might get a book cover commissioned for an idea in your head. You get the dopamine rush of completing the project without actually completing the project. Your book cover is just an expense with no return, and it’ll probably need changing after you write the book and your hero or heroine is completely different from the one pictured on the artwork.
Instead, create the book (or, at the very least plan the book,) and then do the ancillary work. Once a book is written you don’t ever have to write it again. You can spend the rest of your life marketing it if you want. Just write the book first.
Creating A Perfect Book
I must have talked about this before on the site. You should never aim to create a perfect book.
I’m a big fan of Heinlein’s Rules. They are as follows:
1.) You must write.
2.) You must finish what you write.
3.) You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
4.) You must put the work on the market.
5.) You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.
These rules were written when publishing was a game of getting in front of the big publishing houses. Nowadays it’s easier than ever to publish because you can do it yourself.
Number three is concerned with writing the “perfect book.”
I know multiple people who have manuscripts in their desk drawers or on their computers. They are unfinished, or the “babies” of their respective authors. Those authors are waiting for the right moment, or for additional edits, or for someone to come and magically publish their document.
They are waiting for their book to be the perfect book in various ways.
There’s a big mistake there: That book is essentially gaining dust. It’s becoming less fresh and less a product of the times it was written in whilst it stays unpublished. It’s also not “becoming a perfect book.”
As I wrote in the above section on writing in a series, the fact is the world constantly updates itself. So do books. The copy of “Treasure Island” or “Dracula” you’ll buy in your bookstore today is not the same text as the ones originally read. Books update themselves. That’s why you have different versions.
A lot of indie authors would cry at the prospect of bringing out a “Second edition” of their text. This is a mistake. Get your book out there and in front of an audience, and you’ll realise that a lot of your fears are unfounded. For those niggling “I’m scared it’s not complete or there are too many spelling errors” thoughts, realise that that’s what second editions are for.
Final Book Writing Process Thoughts: Generic Closing Statements
I wrote yesterday’s article with a subtitle, “as of March 2016.”
The thing with a book writing process is that it gets refined constantly. I think you should try out the ideas I’ve suggested, because they’ll help. Ultimately though, you’ll find your own book writing process in your own time as long as you actually write books.
Once you put pen to paper and finish a project, you’ll get an intuitive understanding of what to do and what not to do, and you’ll find it becomes that little bit easier the second time around. By the time you have written a lot of books, you’ll have developed an awesome book writing process.