How To Finally Write Your First Book (in 11 Simple Steps)
As someone who’s written about goals for the last four years, I’ve had the pleasure of learning what people want to know most of all.
One of the biggest questions I get asked is… “how do you write a book?”
I’ve learned that many people have a story inside of them, one that they want to get out into the world.
Maybe it’s a story about their life’s challenges that they know will help someone else along their journey.
Maybe it’s a fictional story that they know will guide someone else through a mindset shift or find a new realization.
No matter what the reason, many would-be writers also have this in common:
Their book ideas never make it out of their head and into a fully formed book available for purchase online.
In this post, I’m going to share the simple steps I took to creating my first book. This isn’t the “perfect” way to create a book. Nor is this post written with the most experience behind it.
I’ve written and published two books at the time of this writing and I’m a firm believer that we should all start where we are. So that’s what I’m doing with this post.
It’s the small steps today that will lead you to the book (or book empire) tomorrow.
So, let’s dive in.
How To Write Your First Book This Year
Create a writing habit
You cannot write about without first sitting down and making it your duty to write something. Seriously, in order to write a full book, you must write a word, then a sentence, then a paragraph… and then full pages.
So the first step is always to start writing every day.
At this stage, you don’t have to worry about whether what you’re writing sounds good or whether it tells the story you want to tell.
Create an outline
When you’re ready to begin drafting your book, start with an outline. Your outline is like the roadmap that you create showing where you’ll guide your reader throughout the journey of reading your book.
My favorite tool to create an outline for my book is called Scrivener. This tool will allow you to break up chapters of your book into individual folders and layout your ideas visually. The organizer in me loves this tool and it’s the only way I’m able to write my books.
Write an ugly first draft
One of the biggest challenges to writing a book for first-time authors is the desire to write something epic the first time around. Here’s the reality: It’s likely your first draft (maybe even your first published book) will not be great.
Here’s why: You are new to book-writing.
You must learn to crawl, then walk before you’re able to run. If this is your first time writing, give yourself some grace. Allow yourself to discover your tone, tell your story and allow the story to unfold over time.
That first draft might be hideous - that’s OK. You’re still learning
.
Set the book “on a shelf” and read it again later
After you’ve poured your heart and soul into a book, you must walk away from it for a bit to gain perspective. Reading your book immediately after you write it doesn’t allow you to truly see it with fresh eyes.
Wait a month, if you can, before re-reading your book to do your first round of edits. (Yes, you read that right, there will be several rounds of edits. :)
Edit #1
After at least a week of stepping away from your book, edit it one more time so that it’s presentable for a live audience.
Send your book at an Advanced Reader Team to review
Your Advanced Reader Team is a small group of people who will read your book and give you feedback on it before your next round of edits. This group will give you feedback on different aspects of your book, including:
Story
Chapters
Organization
They’ll let you know if it was easy to follow, whether any part bored them to death or if there was something missing that they really wanted to know.
When I sent my book Goal Doing to my advanced reader team, one person told me that I was missing an end to my story. In that book, I talked about a lot of the productivity tips I’d learned from some of the worst moments of my life. However, I neglected to “finish” the story by showing where I ended up after I came out of that difficult time. My early readers caught that for me!
Edit #2
Now that a real live group of people has read your book, it’s your job to take a look at all of the feedback you’ve received and incorporate those changes into your next draft.
You don’t have to make all of the changes your audience recommends. It’s your job to figure out what changes will be most valuable to your readers.
Hire an editor
Once you receive the feedback from your advanced reader team, it’s time to find a legit editor to read through your book and provide feedback.
Always hire someone to read your books because there are a lot of things an experienced editor will catch that you will not see. Also, you’ve likely edited your book twice by now and you need a new set of fresh eyes.
Edit #3
This should be the final full edit of your book. After you receive the edited version from your book editor, you must look through all the recommended changes and decide which ones you’ll keep. Once this edit is complete, you’re 90% of the way there.
At this time (depending on your budget) you may want to hire one more editor called a “line editor.” This person reads through your book, catching any minor typos in wording that was missed in previous editing phases. Again, this is another set of fresh eyes on your book that will see what you have missed.
Hire a book cover designer
If you’re low on cash, you can create a book cover design in Canva. However, I highly recommend hiring a book cover designer if you can. This person will bring with them the experience of designing lots of covers in your niche and can create a professional-looking cover that will make your book stand out in the marketplace.
Post your book to Amazon and other book retailers.
Now that your book is complete, it’s time to post your book online! I highly recommend posting directly to Amazon and draft2digital.com to post your book to all the other retailers.
Three Mindset Shifts to Start Today
Don’t worry about the outcome, just do the next step.
Write every single day.
Even if the writing is bad (or mediocre), keep writing.
Writing a book is a labor of love. Not many people will make it to the finish line. However, if you create a writing habit and continue writing every day, you’ll get better over time. You’ll have more creative ideas. You’ll have a book in no time at all.
What story are you most excited to write?
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cyrene is a fun and accomplished workshop facilitator, learning and development guru and Human Resources professional. Being at the helm of Thrive Lounge has been a long-time dream. Through vision board workshops she plans to accomplish two-way learning. Sharing her vast years of knowledge to motivate and encourage others; while simultaneously getting the reward of great energy, ideas and questions to ponder back from each group. A super win-win. Please join our Thrive Lounge community so you too can benefit!