So, you want to write a book? The thought can be exciting at first but then overwhelming as you start out. You realize that it will take a lot of time, but that’s not all. You start to think about how you will publish your book, who will buy it, and how you will attempt to market it. How do you make it all happen?
The Writing Stage
First of all, you have to decide what you will write about and what your book will look like when it is finished. How much you map out ahead of time is up to you. Some famous authors like Tom Clancy and Ray Bradbury said they never planned a book out in advance. Others like William Golding (of Lord of the Flies fame) and James Patterson make sure to map out each book in detail before writing it. The method you choose is up to you. It may be best to just start working on the book and see if you need to stop and plan some more or simply push on through.
You also need to figure out how to set aside enough time to finish the book. How much time will you dedicate each day, and do you need more time to yourself in order to finish the book by the date you set for yourself? Some writers give themselves deadlines and others just write at whatever rate they want.
If you find yourself needing more time, then consider getting help with your daily and weekly tasks. Use an Orange County cleaning service to do your housework and perhaps a babysitting service to help take care of the kids occasionally so you can write. You can do time-saving tasks like cooking a lot of food at once to eat throughout the week and then spend your lunch breaks writing.
The important thing is to keep writing continuously, adding a little bit more of your book each day. Even if you only write a hundred words a day, at least you are keeping up momentum and keeping track of where you are so that you spend less down time trying to get your bearings.
The Publishing Stage
This is a tough one for most writers and it is also one where there is a lot of indecision and frustration. Do you go with an agent, or do you try to self-publish? You may want to try getting an agent to represent you initially, or even go to the publishers directly. Not all publishers will let you contact them without an agent. If you get enough rejections and unanswered emails, then you may look into self-publishing or using a vanity publisher.
Self-publishing is easy on Amazon, but you have to do the marketing yourself. With a vanity publisher, there may be some marketing bult into the cost, but you do pay a larger upfront cost. Whatever your self-publishing method, you can determine whether you want to let customers order their own books or if you want to buy a bunch of copies to sell yourself. You may be able to team up with bookstores to host your book and put it on the shelves.
Publishing can take a long time or happen just a day or two after you complete the book. Whatever route you choose, do take time to have the book professionally edited. You don’t want to send it to an agent or a publisher with lots of typos intact. Your work should be as good as you can make it before anyone else sees it, and if necessary, you should have an editor look it through. This will save you embarrassment later on.
The Marketing Stage
The final part of the process of getting your book to the public is to market it. If you have a publisher, they may do a lot of the marketing work for you. They might ask you to share the book on your social channels, but they will talk to bookstores and ensure that your book gets noticed through their different avenues of influence.
If you self-publish, all of the advertising duties fall on you. It will be up to you to let people know that your book has arrived, and how you choose to do that will be up to you as well. You can use social media, message boards, book signings, paid advertisements, and word of mouth. This will likely be a long and ongoing process that will only end when you are no longer interested in seeing sales from your book. It will be difficult for the book to gain traction on its own if it is only published on a digital store like Kindle. You have to do the legwork to get it noticed.
That can be discouraging for many independent authors, but it is also very freeing and gives them complete control over their book. They can decide who hears about it and where it is sold. They can determine the contents of the book completely and the cover design. No decisions are taken out of their hands, which is attractive to writers who don’t trust anyone else with their work.
You Can Do It
Writing a book that is several hundred pages long and getting it made available for other people to read is no small accomplishment. Most of the people who even attempt to write a book never get through the initial draft stage. If you get so far as to finish and then struggle with publishing it, just know that you have gone much farther than most people, and you ought to be proud of yourself. Even if it never gets published or never reaches a wide audience, you can congratulate yourself for achieving something special.
The path to writing a book starts just one page at a time, and if you press on and push yourself to keep at it long enough, you will finally complete it one day.
