Authors Blog

New authors:

How do you start to write a book?

 

Decide on your primary objective(s): Change the world, entertain the world, educate, inform, preserve memories, personal fulfillment, fun, money, fame, status, revenge, something else.

Decide on a target audience. If your audience is everyone, it will be very expensive to reach them. If your target is too small, you may not sell enough books to make money. Your mother may be wonderful, but your potential sales of a book about her may be seven books. Or two.

Check out the competition. Does the world really need another barbecue cookbook, JFK bio or post-apocalypse teenage vampire sex novel?

Come up with ten possible titles, then cut back to three, and one.

Even if you have no artistic talent, make some “rough” cover designs

Write a one-paragraph book description that could go on the back of the book cover and on booksellers’ websites and can keep you focused.

Read books for authors. I’ve written a bunch.

Oh yeah, if you plan to write poetry, forget about making money.

Think about how your book will be published: (A) traditional royalty-paying publisher (difficult for a first-time author), (B) self-publishing company (author services company), (C) your own little publishing company.

Figure out what help you’ll need from artists, designers, formatters, editors, coaches, lawyers, accountants. Find them.

Decide whether you’ll use your real name or a pen name.

Decide when your book will be published (it will likely be late).

Decide what formats you’ll publish in (paperback, hardcover, various e-formats, spoken word—and tentative prices.

Decide how you’ll promote the book to potential purchasers and book reviewers.

Decide on the approximate length of the book. Longer books take longer to write, long-er to produce, cost more to produce, and have more errors to correct.

Decide on the software you’ll use for writing. I use Microsoft Word, but many writers use Google’s free “Docs” version, or software intended for writing, such as Scrivener.

Decide on whether you’ll write with a desktop, laptop, tablet, phone or multiple devices. Some people insist that they write better books when they use paper and pen or pencil, or an ancient typewriter. I think that’s ridiculous.

If you wonder what will happen if you write and publish a book—try it! The risk is small and the potential benefit and pleasure are huge. As a writer, I get paid to have fun. Writing books and blogs is probably the second-best way for a man to make money. I’m approaching my 79th birthday, so I have little chance of getting rich as a gigolo.