7 Things I learned From Writing My First Book

1. Begin With The End In Mind---Use A Book Cover, in 3D

When I set out to write the book/guide, I began with an outline of my potential reader's thought-flow. This thought-flow is simply what I expect readers to ask upon picking up the book. Obviously, their first encounter with the book will be with its cover and the title. Since the title is actually a call to action, it's grabby and the word “backyard” also makes it personal since virtually everyone has a backyard and can take advantage of this opportunity.

So upon picking up the book, readers will like to know what this backyard opportunity is. This is where I talk about my experience with my project, which I did right in my local community, which is my backyard if you will. The next question I think might come up is whether this project is for them and what can they get out of it, the benefits of it. So next I wrote out a short chapter on the benefits of doing a project and who exactly it's for. Based on that thought-flow, I began writing out the chapters: Introduction, the benefits, and etc.

2. Use An Outline For Chapters

I used an outline, or sorts, to write draw out a road map of where the book should go in content. Take a look here of what I wrote, in the beginning:

Table Of Contents

1. Introduction 
    
2. List
   
   
3. Who Is This For?
   
   
4. What Are The Benefits?
   
   
5. Getting Started
   
   
6. Nuts & Bolts
   
   
7. My Lessons And Why Other People Could And Should Do It
   
   
8. Technicals---how to introduce yourself, set an appointment, emails, follow-ups, interview, interview structure, survey, etc
   
   
9. My Daily Log
   
   
10. What All Of This Means
    
    
11. Why I need your help for review---If you would like to read the whole book and help me with feedback, send me an email here: acouplethings70@gmail.com.

With this rough outline, I I now have a map in mind and can simply follow it. I like to write with a finish line in my head, and seeing the table of contents laid out like that tells me the book is already finished. All I have to do now is flesh it out with value, the contents.

Update: The outline has since changed a bit, and rightly so, because you remember things to add to it and change to make it better, but the basic outline is what got me started. 

3. Write A Little Everyday

I'm sure you have heard of the saying that a little bit goes a long way, or a bite at a time eats an elephant. I applied the same thing to writing my book. I took each chapter, sat down and wrote it out . I didn't do this perfectly in the beginning, but I simply poured out my thoughts on to the paper and stepped back. 

At this point I am not worrying about how good my writing is, all that matters is that I have something sensible on paper. With that done, I set the ball rolling---I know I have a rough chapter down. In a few hours or the next day, I sit and rewrite it to make it clearer in language and add things I forgot or missed on the first write. This is how all of my chapters came together.

4. Always Think About How To Improve

Another thing I found useful during this whole process was thinking throughout the day about how to improve the content. I go throughout the day thinking about how readers will think of the book , and if I am answering all of their questions. I actually put myself in their shoes, and ask if I would get value out of reading my own book. If my mind says no, then I ask what I can do to correct that. 

 

Questions like this help:

1. Is my writing clear enough?
2. Can it be easily understood?
3. Am I using too many unclear words---I like to write with simple language that many people can understand.

This bring me directly to my next lesson: Take something to write with wherever you go.

5. Carry & Pen and Paper/Notepad With You At All Times

This lesson is not only for writers, but for all creative people. Why? You never know when an idea could hit. I know ideas could hit when I sit to write, but when I am out and about, when going about daily things, my mind takes in many things and with me thinking about my book, I come up with things that I could add or take out of my book. This is how I came up with the idea of launching my book in packages.

I came across this idea from reading a Nathan Barry post about the power of packages, and I found it clever. Nathan talks about how he himself heard it from Chris Guilleabeau, and applied in the sales of his products---the App Design Handbook, Designing Web Applications, and Authority.

But without thinking constantly about how to present my book or how to package, I may not have remembered that. And by carrying something to write with I was able to make a note to myself to do that when I get back home to my laptop.

6. Share Your Ideas With Others

Besides thinking and writing things down throughout the day, I also took the opportunity share my book with others. I would meet random people at the Starbucks where I usually go to write or at The Barnes & Noble Bookstore and discuss different things with them about my book.

How do I do this? If I notice someone reading a book or working on something similar, I would simply would introduce myself and ask a few minutes of them to help me think through something. 

An example was my meeting with a lawyer at the Barnes and Noble Bookstore a few weeks ago. We sat across from each other, and after a few minutes of working on my book,  I had a question about the cover I wanted to use.

I show him a picture of it on my laptop, and after sharing his thoughts with me on the cover, he pointed out a small issue with my title.

Initially,  I wrote the title so: Get To Know, Your Backyard Opportunity. I wrote it this way to mean "Get To Know," as a noun that meant your backyard opportunity. Obviously this didn't make sense. He pointed that out, and I took away the comma. 

See? Little things like that could change a whole lot. But I wouldn't have known if I didn't take the initiative to get this opinion on the cover I was working on.

        

       7. Learn From Others

This goes back to checking out Nathan Barry's Sales page on his website. I wanted to see how someone else had gone about theirs and learn from it. Not copy, but simply figure out the reasoning behind it, and see if  I can apply some of it to my own.

Keep in mind, though some people may claim original rights to an idea, no idea really is new. Ideas get recycled over and over again throughout time, and show up in a different guise as a new one. 

This is what the great book meant in the book of Ecclesiastes when it said this: There's nothing new under the sun.